Gustave Nicolas Gaillard (December 18, 1904 - October 5, 1991) was a French politician and bureaucrat who served as head of the Imperial Rail Authority from 1952 until 1977, when he was suddenly sacked by Emperor Albert II. As head of the ARI, Gaillard emerged as one of the most powerful and corrupt men in the Empire, coming to symbolize the cronyism and ugliness of the French statist economy in the late 1950s and early 1960s.