François Coty

François Coty (born Joseph Marie François Spoturno; May 3, 1874, Ajaccio, Corsica—July 25, 1934, Louveciennes) was a French perfume manufacturer and the founder of the fascist paramilitary group Solidarité Française.

He married Yvonne Alexandrine Le Baron in 1900, and took the more French-looking name Coty, a variation on his mother's maiden name, when he moved to Paris.

He began by selling essences derived from flowers in Grasse, and then peddled his scents to the barbers of Paris. His genius, however, was in marketing and in recognizing that the bottle made the perfume. He had bottles designed by the great ceramist René Lalique. His Rose Jacqueminot scent, in a bottle by Baccarat, was his first great success. Coty's great success, Chypre, gave its name to an entire fragrance family used in the industry's classifications.

He was one of the wealthiest men in France and owned two Paris newspapers, the working class L'Ami du peuple and the aristocratic Le Figaro. He also bought the hunting pavilion of Louveciennes near Saint-Germain-en-Laye, once the property of Madame du Barry. He built multiple large residences, but lived in a hotel on the Champs-Élysées.

Coty was something of a recluse, disliking crowds of any kind, and hiding behind his public image. The company he founded in 1904 is now Coty, Inc., based in New York City.

The movement he founded drew on the previous Coty-backed groups Faisceau and Croix-de-Feu. Solidarité Française attempted to become the equivalent of the Italian National Fascist Party, with Coty as France's Benito Mussolini (he styled himself the French Duce). Never anything but marginal, the group peaked during the February 6, 1934 rally in front of the Palais Bourbon, when it attempted, in alliance with other far right groups, to topple the Third Republic (Coty had the ambition of having it replaced with a monarchy). The group was outlawed in 1936, through a decision taken by the Popular Front government.

The Stade François Coty in Ajaccio was named after him.