Abstract
Using stylistics and semiotics methodologies, this text comments an article entitled "La passion selon Antoine", a portrait of Antoine Riboud,fonder of the Danone Group published in Le Monde in 1996. Linking the global expansion of a national firm to the portrayal of a monarchic yet quintessentially human personality, "La passion selon Antoine" constructs a heroic model of national regeneration with which the readership is invited to identify. In foregrounding Antoine Riboud's success and force of personality, the hero human qualities override the social cost which international expansion implies. The person of Antoine Riboud rises above the paradox of a schematic and simplistic way. He appears as an entrepreneurial figure motivated less by a desire for self-aggrandisement and personal profit than by a vision for his company and, by extension, for the future of France.