July 18, 1998 should have ended in apotheosis. By receiving the Tour de France, Bernadette Chirac, the wife of the former President of the Republic (1995-2007) who died last September, offered the Corréziens a world exhibition. She didn't think she said so well. At the end of an intense lobbying campaign with ASO - the organizer of the Tour - the general councilor of the canton of Sarran since 1979 had obtained that the riders compete in a time trial. The lap of 58 kilometers between Meyrignac-l'Eglise and Corrèze counting for the 7th stage had been carefully spotted.
Conscientious and leaving nothing to chance, Ms. Chirac first recognized the route on board her red Peugeot 205, before later attracting the darling of the French, Richard Virenque, to her fiefdom. On June 22, the Varois, then at the height of his glory, landed with all his team "leaving the big game", remembers Jean-Marie Leblanc, director of the Tour between 1989 and 2006. Until then all is well. In front of microphones and cameras, the First Lady of France shines. All this little world leaves and meets almost a month later. She ignores it but she will never cross the road of the leader of the Festina team again.
An audience of personalities
This year, behind the scenes of the Tour will prove to be much more hectic than the race. On July 11, six days before the Correze halt, the trainer of the Spanish team led by French manager Bruno Roussel made a confession. Willy Voet was pinched three days earlier at the Franco-Belgian border with doping products. After indicating that the 400 vials were intended for his personal consumption, he went to the table. The Festina affair broke out and shattered the almost centenary institution of the Tour. At Château de Bity, owned by the Chiracs since 1969, we are busy.
Two months after having received the Clinton couple on a state visit, a meal is being prepared with an audience of handpicked personalities. The former head of the Tour Jacques Godet, whose wife is a high school friend of Bernadette Chirac, rubs shoulders with the big boss Jean-Luc Lagardère. But the casting is not complete, Jean-Marie Leblanc being absent. “I had been invited for a month but I had to announce the next morning the exclusion of Festina and settle everything legally and mediatically. I was overwhelmed, ”confides in a soft understatement the interested party. Leblanc will try a phone call late in the evening to apologize, but we make him understand that he is expected. “So I arrive at Bity where the President is still standing with his Sport advisor, Jean-François Lamour ( Editor's note: the ex-double Olympic saber champion ). I sat alone at the end of a rectangular wooden table where a rib steak and a good bottle of Bordeaux were waiting for me. The Head of State, while regularly reserving wine, asked me a point on the situation… ”
The contrast between the chaos of racing and the soothing and simple atmosphere of Bity is striking. “The president himself showed me my room and after a few hours of sleep, I got up at dawn. I still remember the screeching of the wheels on the gravel of the car coming to pick me up to take me to the start. The Chirac couple took the trouble to go down in a robe at the entrance to greet me. "
After the exclusion of Festina and the improvised press conference during which Virenque burst into tears, Jacques Chirac who then surfs on the popularity of the first title of world football champion of the French team, will follow part of the cons - watch it in Leblanc's car.
"An uncertain beer in an uncertain village"
“We notably followed Jan Ullrich ( Editor's note: the German will win the time of the 7th stage ). But a time trial, unlike an online stage, is not the most exciting to discover, admits Leblanc. So the president asked me if we could stop for a drink. What we ended up doing. We drank an uncertain beer, I mean by that it was lukewarm (laugh), in an uncertain village. He was a charming man, full of spontaneity. "
Newsletter - The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
This year, the arrival of the 12th stage of the offset Tour in August and September will be judged in Sarran itself. "A name will be on everyone's lips and a face in everyone's memories," soberly announced the current Tour boss Christian Prudhomme during the presentation of the route last fall.