Michèle Bellon

Early life and family

She is the daughter of Jeanine Carlier, a nursery school principal, and André Carlier, agricultural equipment trader, Michèle Bellon grew up in the town of Bapaume. She studied at the Gambetta School in Arras in 1961, then completed her final year at the Fénelon School in Lille in 1965.

She has been married since July 29, 1972. She has two children and is a grandmother.

Education

Bellon trained at École Centrale Paris, now CentraleSupélec. She continued her studies in the United States where she obtained a Master of Science in Nuclear Engineering from Northwestern University.

Career at EDF

In 1974, Michèle Bellon joined EDF as Principal Engineer and then deputy to the Head of Service in the Equipment Department during the seventeen years she spent there.

In 1991, she became the first woman appointed deputy director, responsible for the Engineering Studies Department of the National Center for Thermal Equipment. She then developed several international power plant projects.

In 1995, Michèle Bellon joined the Personnel and Social Relations Department of EDF-GDF (180,000 employees) as Project Director and then Deputy Director. In these functions, she was responsible for social negotiations within EDF (employment, working time, training, salaries, integration of the handicap, etc.) in the context of the 1995 strikes.

From 1999 to 2000, she was Deputy Director, in the clientele division of the Presidency and General Management of EDF. She then participated in the international development of the company (EDF Energy, EnBW, and EDF Trading). In mid-2000, Michèle Bellon was appointed Director of the Fuel Division of EDF Pôle Industrie.