Lip's New Leftist

French Adman Claude Neuschwander, 40, is a self-proclaimed "man of the left"; he is also a skilled professional manager. Now he has stepped into a job that will demand both those oddly matched qualities. The French Ministry of Industry and Scientific Development has named him to take over the Lip watch factory in Besanc,on, which has become a symbol of revolution to French labor and industry and an embarrassment to the Pompidou government. Last spring, after Lip went bankrupt and rumors spread that some layoffs were planned, workers seized the plant and ran it for 68 days, selling watches at a 40% discount. The government ended that experiment by sending police to close the plant in August, but has been looking ever since for someone to get production going again.

Neuschwander left a job that was rapidly taking him to the top of Publicis, France's second-largest ad agency and operator of Paris' famous Drugstores.

The boyish-looking executive, who was once vice president of the leftist French Student Union, worked his way up through the ranks at Publicis, and has headed Publicis's international operations. But, says Neuschwander, "it is more exciting to be tackling a difficult job." He has already helped raise $10 million in new capital from a group of top French and Swiss industrialists and the French government. With that money, he plans to reopen the factory for production this week.

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