François Coty (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa kɔti]; born Joseph Marie François Spoturno, [ʒɔzɛf maʁi fʁɑ̃swa spɔtuʁno]; 3 May 1874 – 25 July 1934) was a French perfumer, businessman, newspaper publisher, politician and patron of the arts. He was the founder of the Coty perfume company, today a multinational. He is considered the founding father of the modern perfume industry.
In 1904, his first success, fragrance La Rose Jacqueminot launched his career. He soon started exporting perfumes from France, and by 1910 he had subsidiaries in Moscow, London and New York. During the 1917 Russian Revolution, his assets in Moscow, which consisted of stocks and funds were confiscated by the Soviet government, making him a lifelong enemy of Communism.
By the end of World War I, his financial success made him one of the richest men in France, allowing him to act as patron of the arts, collect works of art, historic homes and seek to play a political role.
In 1922, he gained control of daily newspaper Le Figaro. To check the growth of socialism and Communism in France, he founded two other daily papers in 1928.
In 1923 he was elected senator of Corsica, and was mayor of Ajaccio from 1931 to 1934.
Fearing the spread of communism, he subsidized various right-wing movements. In 1933, faced with a political class that he considered incapable, he published a reform of the State and founded his own movement Solidarité française, which became more radical after his death.
At the time of his death, at age 60, his fortune was greatly diminished as a result of his divorce, the high cost of running his press empire and the repercussions of the economic crisis of 1929.
