Jean Frydman

During World War II, at the age of 15 he rallied the France libre. In the summer of 1944, he escaped from the deportation train that was taking him and many others from Drancy (Internment Camp in France) to Buchenwald. One of the deportees in the same train car was Marcel Dassault. For his brave patriotism, he was bestowed the "Légion D'Honneur" by the president of the French Republic, François Hollande in May 2016.

He was among the first managers of the radio Europe 1 between 1957 and 1962; he headed Télé Monte Carlo, and was then director of the advertising agency Régie n°1. He was dubbed «the secret gardener of the French audiovisual sector».

After having been forced to leave the Board of Paravision, audiovisual branch of L'Oréal, he revealed[1] the past life of André Bettencourt during WW2,[2] forcing him to express regrets about « past mistakes ».[3]

Since resisting the Nazis' control over France in his teens, Frydman spent his life following fighting for liberty and peace. That lead him to become involved at the highest level of negotiation between Israel and Palestine, as he advised Shimon Peres, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ehud Barak. As such, he was instrumental in starting the Oslo Peace Accords. Frydman serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations.

Jean Frydman has five children, ten grandchildren, and is currently married to Daniela Frydman. He is a friend of the former French President, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and former IMF Managing Director, Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

• Michel Bar-Zohar, Bitter Scent: The Case of L'Oréal, Nazis, and the Arab Boycott (London, Dutton Books : 1996)
• (in French) Élie Barnavi, "Jean Frydman, Tableaux d'une vie", ISBN 978-2-02-090818-4, 2008
• (in French) Jean-Pierre Chaline, « André Bettencourt (1919-2007) », dans Études normandes ISSN 0014-2158, 2008-1

• L'Oréal