Yves Rocher French entrepreneur who founded the brand of beauty products that bears his name, died Saturday in Paris, Lariboisi?re Hospital. He was 79 years.

Born April 7, 1930 at The Gacilly, a village of Morbihan which he was the mayor (various right) for forty-six years, from 1962 to 2008, Yves Rocher has played the card environmentalist before his time. Having passed through small ads in "Ici Paris" ointment hemorrhoids cons including a Breton healer gave him formula, he founded the famous brand of cosmetics in 1959, supporting its development on the choice of "beauty through plants' and refusing any synthetic product.

In 1965, Yves Rocher is launching a "Green Beauty", now translated into over twenty languages. Focusing initially on sale at a distance, it opens three years later the first store. The following year, he sets up shop in Belgium.After leaving the reins of his business to his son Didier in 1992, he took control in January 1995 after the accidental death of the latter.

"A French industrialist," according to Nicolas Sarkozy

Present in about thirty countries, the Yves Rocher Group achieves a turnover of 2 billion euros, placing it in 18th place worldwide in this sector. Its turnover is three times larger than The Body Shop, its direct competitor bought in 2006 by L'Oreal. Claiming to be "financially healthy, profitable, low debt, despite recent social movements, the group employs over 15,000 people, has nearly 2,000 stores and boasts over 40 million customers.

Saturday, President Nicolas Sarkozy paid tribute to "a French industrialist, inventor of the cosmetics made from plant products and a pioneer of the mail.Yves Rocher, adds a statement of the Presidency, "had managed to build step by step a group serving the beauty of women, invested in the development of sustainable employment and environmental protection, particularly through the Yves Rocher Foundation-Institut de France. "