Founder Profile
Ernest Mercier
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is Ernest Mercier?
Ernest Mercier is a founder of TotalEnergies SE, which was founded in 1924 with Raymond Poincaré.
- Company founded
- TotalEnergies SE
- Founded
- 1924
- Co-founders
- Raymond Poincaré
Background
École Polytechnique graduate and engineer with a career in the French electricity industry before leading CFP.
Founding Story
Ernest Mercier was the industrialist chosen to set up and chair Compagnie Française des Pétroles. He assembled French banks and industrial shareholders to fund the company and led it through its early years as it took up France's stake in the Iraq Petroleum Company and built refining capacity in France.
Ernest Mercier was born in 1878 in Constantine. Education: Supélec.
Mercier was born in 1878 in Constantine, Algeria, where his father Jean Ernest Mercier was a historian and mayor, and died in 1955.