Alexandre Galopin (1879 – 1944) was a Belgian businessman. He was director of the Société Générale de Belgique, a large Belgian company founded in 1822 by William I.
Galopin was behind the Galopin doctrine, a "lesser evil" tactic that allowed industrial development in the occupied Belgium during the Second World War, under auspices of the Belgian government in exile.
He is the grandfather of Benoit de Bonvoisin.
His name has been given to a street; avenue Alexandre Galopin, in Etterbeek, Brussels.
Galopin was governor of the Société Générale de Belgique, which controlled 40% of the Belgian economy. He helped found the "Galopin Committee", a group of the leaders of holding companies, banks and industry. It served as a sort of a shadow government that decided economic and social policy and was able to set rules for dealing with the Nazi German occupiers.
Part of its goal was to keep Belgian industry strong during the war so as to not leave the economy crippled once the war ended. Controversially, its members would supply the Nazi occupiers and produce goods for them. It refused to produce anything with a clearly military purpose, although the difference between direct production of weapons and different ways of contributing to the German war effort was not always clear. Galopin was assassinated in 1944 by Robert Jan Verbelen, a Nazi collaborator.[1]