Ex "master of the world" Messier pipes up on crisis

Jean-Marie Messier, the former head of French media and telecoms giant Vivendi Universal, leaves the Elysee Palace in Paris in this January 18, 2008 file photo.

PARIS (Reuters) - Of all those lining up to denounce the excesses of capitalism in these times of crisis, perhaps one of the most unexpected is fallen business mogul Jean-Marie Messier -- to millions, the very epitome of those excesses.

Since he was ousted in disgrace in 2002 from his job as boss of global media empire Vivendi Universal after presiding over what was then the biggest loss in French corporate history, Messier had kept a very low media profile.

Now he's back, and it turns out no one has forgotten the man who once branded himself "J6M" which stood for "Jean-Marie Messier, me myself master of the world" in French.

Messier is promoting a book he has just published about the financial crisis, "The day the sky fell on our heads," and he has lost none of his ability to create a media buzz, appearing on radio and television, in newspapers and magazines.

Not everybody thinks he is well placed to be sharing his views on capitalism gone mad, however.

"I'm shocked by your comeback and the publication of your book. What credibility, what use do you see in such a move in your position and with your past?" a caller asked Messier on a program on France Inter radio, heard by millions on Thursday.

"I never asked a virus to cure my children, I don't see why I should take lessons from you on injecting morality into the economy," said the caller, who was named only as Benoit.

Messier was unfazed.

"I'm not doing my mea culpa. On the contrary, I want to make a contribution based on my experience. My credibility, my legitimacy come from the experiences I went through," he said.

$18 MILLION APARTMENT

From the interviews he gave, however, there appeared to be little that was new or unusual in Messier's analysis of the financial crisis. He criticized banks, warned that millions would lose their jobs and railed against greedy speculators.

The language was certainly different from the hubris of Messier's past, when at a cost of $50 billion he turned a French water and sewage utility into an entertainment giant with interests ranging from rapper Eminem to a Hollywood studio.

Messier celebrated the transatlantic mega-merger he spearheaded with a sound-and-light show in a courtyard of the Louvre and promptly moved into an $18 million apartment on exclusive Park Avenue in New York.

But Messier's burning ambition was his undoing. Vivendi Universal ran into serious difficulties, groaning under a huge debt pile and posting record losses. After one of the most hyped boardroom battles in living memory, he was forced out.

His woes didn't end there. There was such an outcry about the 20.5 million euro golden parachute planned for him that he had to renounce it. Later, he spent nights in police cells during police questioning into alleged insider trading.

In December 2004, the French market regulator fined him 1 million euros for misleading investors about the real financial situation of Vivendi in the run-up to its crisis.

In an unusually humble moment, Messier said on France Inter that his trials and tribulations had changed him.

"When you face your children in the morning and you have to find the strength to tell them there is a future, there is hope, Daddy is working, Daddy is trying to rebuild himself, the ability to get through that ... changes a man," he said.

(Editing by Katie Nguyen)