Hired in shares of the French Resistance in August 1940, he belonged to two networks: the Office of Flight Operations and the Network Navarre as Chargé de Mission. Arrested on 7 April 1944, he was deported to the concentration camp at Neuengamme, and Bergen-Belsen. He was in such securities, subject to three citations, including two at the College of the Army and one in the Order of the Regiment. In the beginning of 1945, as Head of Mission to the Office of the Commissioner of the Republic of Burgundy and Franche-Comté, he was, the following year, appointed Head of Mission for economic and financial issues to the Cabinet by the Administrator General of the area French occupation in Germany, Emile Laffon, when he accompanied the latter took office as President of Houillères du Bassin du Nord and Pas-de-Calais in northern France. In October 1968, for his extensive knowledge of the terrain, the French Government appointed him Commissioner for Industrial Conversion of the Nord Pas-de-Calais, Chairman of the Office of Departmental Industrialisation of the Bulge, and in 1973, President of the Charbonnages de France. A member of the Economic and Social Council in early 1973, he was elected, in October 1974, President of the Section of Economic problems and the general trends. He joined the French Government in November 1979 as Minister of Labour and Public Participation. Elected in 1983 as Counsellor in Paris, Deputy Mayor and Regional Councillor, he abandoned such functions as a result of his election as President of the Economic and Social Council, in April 1987, succeeding Gabriel Ventejol. He was then re-elected Chairman of the House, 10 October 1989, 10 March 1992, 28 September 1994 and 25 March 1997. President of the National Federation of Deportees and Internés of Resistance from 1987 to 1993, he became President of Honour. He took part in 1993, in the establishment of the Foundation of Resistance of which he is President. In June 1993, the Prime Minister asked him to chair a commission of experts to make proposals to the Government on the problems of employment, and in particular, the service jobs and close two reports are published in September 1993 and March 1994. In December 1995, the Prime Minister appointed him Ombudsman in the conflict with SNCF. By decree of President of the Republic on 9 May 1996, he was appointed member of the Conseil de l'Ordre National de la Legion d'Honneur. In February 1997, the Prime Minister entrusted him with the task of studying the conditions under which property belonging to Jews in France were confiscated, acquired by fraud, violence or fraud, both by the Nazis and by the Vichy France authorities, 1940 and 1944. Jean Mattéoli was raised to the honor of Grand'Croix of the Legion of Honour in 1998. He was the holder of the War Cross and the Medal of the Resistance. He was elected, by acclamation, Honorary President of the French Economic and Social Council on 28 September 1999.
