Henri Lafond (20 August 1894 – 6 March 1963) was a French mining engineer and businessman who headed or sat on the board of numerous large companies and was involved in various industrial associations and committees both before and after World War II (1939–45).
[2] He was described as having brown hair, vertical brow, straight nose, chestnut eyes, oval face, height 172 centimetres (68 in).
[4] René Belin was made Minister of Industrial Production in July 1940 in Marshal Philippe Pétain's government.
[5] On 12 August 1940 Petain called for the various social committees to merge into "families" in an effort to reduce overhead.
[6] Lafond proposed to merge the 11 iron and steel committees into a metallurgy family headed by Jules Aubrun.
[4] After leaving the government Lafond was appointed president and CEO of the Association minière and joined the Mirabaud Group, long-time partner of the Banque de l'Union Parisienne (BUP).
The members of the group, almost all engineers, represented oil, power, mining, steel and industrial chemistry.
[8] Lafond worked with Pierre Ricard and Henri Davezac to form the Conseil national du patronat français (CNPF), representing French employers, with Georges Villiers as the first president.
[10] From 1947 to 1954 he was a member of the CNPF Economic and Social Council, representing a group of private industrial companies.
[2] In April 1951 Lafond was tentatively appointed to the new Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (Atomic Energy Committee).
This appointment was strongly opposed by Francis Perrin, expected to be the High Commissioner, based on Lafond's background in the Vichy regime and his many private interests.
[3] In 1962 he joined the board of Tréfimétaux, formed by a merger of the Tréfileries et Laminoirs du Havre and the Compagnie française des métaux.