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Paris Branch
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Advertisement, 1920 |
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Royal Bank opened its Paris, France branch in June 1919 to provide banking services for the thousands of Canadians living in Europe after the First World War. Noted as the "oldest Canadian subsidiary bank in continental Europe" by the Financial Times of Canada (1978), the Paris operation was unique among the bank's international operations, a legally separate but wholly-owned subsidiary - The Royal Bank of Canada (France) S.A. - with its own board and considerable autonomy for its manager. The branch was located at 28 rue du Quatre Septembre near the Bourse de Paris in the heart of the city's financial district and employed a staff of 12. As the branch prospered and its staff grew to eighty-six, it relocated, in November 1929, to a four-storey building across the Place de l'Opera at 3 rue Scribe.
In June 1939, with war in Europe again looming, the bank made the fortunate decision to place the management of its Paris branch in the hands of Henry L. Gagnon. Employing experience gained during his management of the bank's Barcelona, Spain branch during the Spanish Civil War, Gagnon made early provision for evacuating the branch's securities to a safe zone in south-western France. On the night of June 10, 1940, mere hours in advance of the occupying German army, Gagnon and his staff left Paris in a truck loaded with branch records and cash and headed 320 miles south to the small town of Javrezac, near Cognac, where, on June 13, 1940 The Royal Bank of Canada (France) reopened in a modest chateau.
The bank's head office ordered Gagnon to abandon the branch and flee, but he refused, determined to keep the branch open. Gagnon signed over control of the subsidiary to three French branch officers and then made his way to safety in Plymouth, England. Because it had remained open in Javrezac, the German occupation force allowed the branch and its remaining 14 staff to return to 3 rue Scribe in Paris and resume operations in July 1940. With the German bank, Aerobank, installed on the ground floor of its building, Royal Bank operated throughout the Second World War from a small apartment on the fourth floor, defiantly, if unprofitably, providing service to its account holders.
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