L'AFFAIRE MESSIER.(Vivendi Universal's Jean-Marie Messier)(Brief Article)

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Two years ago, Jean-Marie Messier was the new face of European business. As the C.E.O. of Vivendi Universal, he had transformed a French water company into a global media powerhouse by investing heavily in the Internet and wireless and spending thirty-four billion dollars to acquire the Seagram Company, with all its television, film, and music divisions. In the process, Messier promoted himself as a thoroughly Americanized leader, devoted to the bottom line and to the demolition of what he called "France Inc."

Instead, France Inc. demolished him. The prices that he had paid for Vivendi's media properties looked ludicrous in the wake of the stock-market collapse. His plans to make Vivendi "a multi-platform" giant fell apart when the wireless business stalled. After he moved to New York, last September, his praise for the city and his disdain for many things French (at one point, he called France "a small exotic country") offended his countrymen. And when Vivendi's stock price went into a spiral Messier offered no persuasive turnaround plan. Meanwhile, the American model of capitalism that he was pushing seemed tainted by a sagging stock market and a rash of accounting scandals. Detractors on both sides of the Atlantic called for his head, and finally, last week, they got it.