Maurice Bunau-Varilla

French businessman and newspaper proprietor (1856–1944), Maurice Bunau-Varilla was the brother of Philippe Bunau-Varilla, who was involved in the affairs of the Panama Canal, and he was himself associated with those affairs. A shareholder and then executive of the Parisian daily Le Matin, of which he became the master in the 1900s, he turned it into a major popular newspaper with a sensational tone. During the Occupation, Le Matin reappeared under German control and supported collaboration; it scuttled itself a few days after the death of its owner in August 1944. In Swiss heritage, his name remains linked to the Haute Roche manor, at Le Pont, in the Vallée de Joux: this villa in reinforced concrete, nicknamed ‘la Villa Le Matin’, was commissioned around 1911–1914 from the architect Jean Campiotti and the engineer François Hennebique, and his family lived there until 1944.