Our photo shoot drags on, but a touch of mischief continues to illuminate her eyes.
Pierre Lescure walks with affect.
You just have to make him laugh to have it in his pocket.
But when you make him sit in a brown gingham armchair, hands on the armrests, he ticks immediately.
"That I don't look like Don Corleone, do I?"
He smiles.
However, it suffices to see him kiss the biggest stars on the planet in his impeccable tuxedo at the top of the steps of the Cannes Film Festival, of which he is the president, to realize it: at 75 years old, the journalist has undeniably become God Father ".
Untouchable after a beefy maousse career.
Don't count on anyone to speak badly of him.
Viper Languages are missing subscribers.
Leave the legend alone.
Music lovers have never forgotten his program "Les Enfants du rock".
In the world of cinema, many of them can say thank you to this greedy cinephile, with a sprawling network, always ready to make phone calls to facilitate a project.
But for the general public, he is above all the man who invented Canal +.
The kids of the 1980s and 1990s, who were bottle-fed to Dummies, to “Nulle Part Ailleurs” or “the Guignols”, take their hats off to him.
Even those who hate the “Canal spirit” applaud the economic success of a chain recognized around the world.
In short, Pierre Lescure is nowhere near the César of honor.
In the meantime, he is savoring the touching portrait of him that France 5 is broadcasting this Sunday at 6:50 pm (“Pierre & Lescure”, an unreleased documentary by Maxime Switek and Philippe Lezin, 55 minutes).
In this documentary, screened at the last Deauville Festival, he reveals himself as rarely.
And do not hide his financial difficulties.
A shame for a former boss of the CAC 40, who shapes his rock star image.
After his debut at RTL then RMC, Pierre Lescure (here, with Charles Aznavour) made the best of Europe 1. Personal archive
Because nothing, absolutely nothing, predestined little Pierre to become a "mogul", as he calls the big bosses.
All the less since he was brought up in a communist family (his father, François Lescure, was an emblematic journalist of Humanity, his mother, Paulette Baudoin, is a journalist, and his grandfather a renowned publisher).
He can say thank you to them for instilling in him the love of cinema, literature, photography, artists and rock.
In the apartment of Choisy-le-Roi (Val-de-Marne) where he grew up, we look towards the East politically.
But culturally, we do not prevent ourselves from admiring the United States.
The only son is lucky to have a little dogmatic family.
“My ass was lined with noodles”, repeats Lescure in the premises of Troisième Œil, which produces “C to you”, by Anne-Elisabeth Lemoine, where he is chronic.
"But frankly, did I steal it?"
»He adds with a smile.
Young in a hurry, convinced that he will die at 33
He draws his luck card at the age of 20.
Just out of journalism school, he was hired by RTL, blindly.
“Philippe Gildas, who ran the resort, was very happy with the three summer interns from my class.
He asked them if they knew of a fourth.
I was going to sign a CDI in Provençal, but I went straight to Paris, ”says the man who, 20 years later, will make Gildas the flagship face of Canal +.
But RTL swears by the stars.
Impossible for the young man in a hurry, convinced that he will die at 33, to be anything other than the little hand of Georges de Caunes.
The spoiled child prefers to go to RMC, which offers him 3h30 of daily airtime with his friend Jean-Michel Desjeunes.
“Stuck in Monte-Carlo, we completely missed out on May 68!
As nothing was happening, we left all our airtime to reporters on the barricades ”, remembers the journalist, who saw this sequence as a dilettante:“ There was a shortage of kerosene at Nice airport, so Julien Clerc, who had come for promotion, could not go home.
We spent two weeks having fun!
"
One of the best journalists of his generation
It is on the airwaves that he refines his style, inspired by the Anglo-Saxon media: what is now called “infotainment”.
“Like nothing, this guy created the journalism that I love.
He was serious without taking himself seriously.
In the 1960s, this was not done.
He's a pioneer ”, pays homage to BFMTV journalist Maxime Switek, who directs this enamored documentary on his former office neighbor of“ C à vous ”.
From RMC to Europe 1, Lescure was, in the 1970s, one of the very best journalists of his generation.
Its rise is lightning.
The equivalent of a Patrick Cohen or a Nicolas Demorand, but who would only have made good career choices.
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“We managed to get RMC to take off in record time, with Jean-Pierre Foucault.
In 1981, two new bosses were appointed who found that they were making a radio of the merchants of the time.
They wanted to change everything.
I managed to pull myself off on TV just before the disaster announced.
People steeped in certainties always do great damage… ”, he balances.
"I couldn't blame Elkabbach, who broke my candy"
“When his eye darkens, Lescure never skimp on a cow farm.
As when he recounts his passage at the 20 Hours of the second channel of the ORTF, which he presents alternately with Jean-Michel Desjeunes, Jean-Marie Cavada and Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: "I was the least good of the tournette, because I couldn't see anything on the screen.
And I couldn't blame Elkabbach, who was breaking my candy.
He was pretentious, we often argued at editorial conferences.
And then he would summon me to his office to find out why I didn't like him… ”.
It is the golden age of radio, but it is nevertheless the stammering television which makes it change dimension.
Pierre Lescure was not 40 when he joined Canal +.
"My most beautiful love story," he continues to proclaim.
Eighteen years of romance which he likes to nostalgia for.
Once again, it all started by chance.
“André Rousselet
(Editor's note: owner of G7 taxis and close friend of François Mitterrand)
takes over the project for the fourth channel.
He is looking for someone to manage the programs.
We recommend 5 names, including mine.
In his list, he only knows Philippe Labro, but he probes his two teenagers, who are fans of Les
Enfants du rock
!
», Relates Lescure.
Pierre Lescure took part in the creation of Canal + in 1984. He became its managing director until 2002. Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images / Marc Deville
In less than an hour, the case is folded and the two demands of the new recruit are accepted: come with Alain de Greef, his alter ego, and have a "right to hang out".
“I told him that from time to time, I will shoot myself at the movies or at Gibert's.
Curiosity and creativity are fueled, ”he laughs.
The rest is common knowledge.
Football, cinema, a few pornographic films, and sections in clear where a wind of madness blows.
The funny boss scents talented people and leaves his troublemakers a royal peace.
“He spent all his weekends at the office talking about football, cinema and current affairs.
As in his private life.
I do not know if he knew the concept of vacations ”, confides a witness of the time.
His accomplice Michel Denisot confirms: “Pierre thinks that when a job is a pleasure, we work better.
»Subscriptions are going up.
Money is flowing.
Pierre Lescure is at the top.
And it is on the arm of Catherine Deneuve, his companion at the time, that he goes to the sumptuary parties which follow each number of "Les Dulls, the show", at the Gabriel pavilion.
Pierre Lescure's only requirement to join Canal +: coming with Alain de Greef.
Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images / William Stevens
From 1994, no more laughing.
Lescure succeeds Rousselet and puts on the CEO costume.
"In football as on TV, it's always more fun to be on the field than to be club president", summarizes Denisot.
The little coconut has become the pattern, left trend for caviar.
Employees are treated well, and paid very well.
“One day, he shouted at unionists because they found them too soft,” laughs his right-hand man at the time, Alex Berger.
The ex-boss keeps a thousand anecdotes on those good years.
And he begins to imitate the anger of Patrick Le Lay, boss of the rival TF1, treating him as "jean-foutre" on the phone after a sketch of the "Guignols" where TF1 is nicknamed "the cons box".
“Canal was fashionable bobo and TF1 on the popular register.
Anything was allowed but, looking back, I realize that we had a lot of fun, ”recalls Etienne Mougeotte.
For his employees, Lescure never ceases to stage his “coolness”, participating in a Deschiens sketch, or making himself up as Didier l 'embarrassment, the rocker imagined by Antoine de Caunes, with banana, gold chains and finger 'honor.
“He started to really piss off in 2000, when Vivendi merged with Universal.
He moved into a business world where we no longer talk about content.
And he was constantly arguing with Messier, ”Berger recalls.
The Canal spirit: Pierre Lescure, Philippe Gildas and Alain De Greef, in the costume of Didier l'embrouille, the character created by Antoine de Caunes.
Canal + / Xavier Lahache
However, Pierre Lescure is living the American dream by taking the helm of Universal Studios.
What an accomplishment for the acrobat to manage the factory of the mythical films of his childhood!
But as often in Hollywood, the dream comes to an end.
In 2002, Jean-Marie Messier dismissed it manu militari.
The employees rebelled and squatted the antenna.
In vain.
“He went crazy… He wouldn't have seen himself king of the world too soon, we would have been for ten years.
», Laments Lescure who still has not forgiven.
"Bolloré's only ambition is to uninhibit the right"
Eighteen years later, he still watches the channel closely but no longer recognizes himself in the Canal Sauce Vincent Bolloré, capable of removing any support from an overly irreverent comedian.
“His way of constantly constraining freedom amazes me… What bullshit to have stopped the
Guignols
!
With Trump's puppet, we would have enjoyed ourselves!
Bolloré's only ambition is to uninhibit the right… ”he says, scathing.
But Lescure applauds the industrial strategy of the billionaire on the payoff.
“They came out of difficulties by reinventing themselves.
Subscribers once again get their money's worth ", admits Lescure, who reserves his Scuds for the lack of vision of his successor, Bertrand Méheut," this genius of the Carpathians "who" did not understand that Netflix was serious ".
The latter criticized the former mogul for the splendor and the lack of financial rigor.
He sued him for signing golden parachutes to some fifteen Canal executives.
Lescure won, but was banned from broadcasting for a long time.
Pierre Lescure has been the dynamic president of the Cannes Film Festival since 2014. AFP / Anne-Christine Poujoulat
Pierre Lescure's fault can be found near his second home in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (Vaucluse).
He allowed Maxime Switek to film his hangar, where mountains of trinkets are piled up: vintage Bakelite radios, boxes of illustrated matches from the 1940s, piles of magazines over which he slashes with iron. iron when they are horny, or tickets to the nearly 3,000 concerts he has attended.
“When I met him he had a whole room full of records.
He lived in a roommate 'with music,' recalls his former partner, the writer Katherine Pancol.
But the collection has turned into a compulsion.
“Pierre is still a child.
He does not know how to deny himself a pleasure, ”analyzes the novelist.
Pierre Lescure has swallowed up colossal sums of trinkets.
The money earned at Canal?
Everything has been slammed.
Or shared.
"For years, Pierre paid the taxes of relatives", she assures.
The person confirms but refuses to say more.
Generosity is no longer a generosity when it is advertised.
"I don't want to be pissed off with pissers anymore"
Since 2002, he has invested unsuccessfully in a few companies, and sits on several boards of directors.
Without ever finding the flame.
“Pierre Lescure is not a man of money.
He's a kiffeur, he just needs to kiffer.
The rest does not interest him, ”summarizes Alex Berger.
"He doesn't care, he doesn't care and too bad if he gets into trouble from time to time.
He didn't have a career for that, ”confirms Maxime Switek.
"I am not a social case", defends Lescure, in a childish voice.
"There are people much more desperate than me, it would be indecent to complain", launches this convinced socialist.
Bakelite radios, boxes of illustrated matches from the 1940s, magazines, concert tickets… Pierre Lescure is a compulsive collector.
LP
In 2004, he decided to auction part of his collections at Sotheby's.
For his wife Frédérique and his daughter Anna, he "stopped the bullshit".
With regret.
He can't stand having to be careful, but he wants to pay off his debts.
Like that of 700,000 euros that he still owes to producer Stéphane Courbit.
The businessman cut ties when Lescure refused to provide advice.
"A stupid job", is justified by those who prefer to talk to their favorite artists on television.
“I was so spoiled.
It makes me demanding, I no longer want to piss myself off with pissers, ”Lescure defends himself as a final middle finger.
BIO EXPRESS
July 2, 1945.
Born in Paris (15th arrondissement).
His parents separate 6 months later.
1965.
Upon leaving journalism school (CFJ), he was hired at RTL by Philippe Gildas to support Georges de Caunes.
April 1968.
Transfer to RMC to present more than three hours a day with his comrade Jean-Michel Desjeunes.
1972.
Return to Paris.
It presents the 23 hours television news of the second channel of the ORTF, then the 20 Hours alternating with Jean-Michel Desjeunes, Jean-Marie Cavada and Jean-Pierre Elkabbach.
1974-1980.
Journalist at Europe 1 where he multiplies the programs: the prematinale, the weekend newspapers, “Anything can happen” with Anne Sinclair, “Europe evening”, “Coca Cola Music Story”, “Pierre qui roulle does not amass foam ", Etc.
Until his return to RMC in 1980, as director of programs.
1981.
Engaged by Antenne 2, as director of youth programs.
He created “Les Enfants du rock” there and then became its editorial director.
1984-2002.
Managing Director of Canal +, then CEO after the departure of André Rousselet in 1994. He was landed by Jean-Marie Messier in April 2002.
2008-2013.
Director of the Théâtre Marigny.
Since 2014.
Elected president of the Cannes Film Festival and columnist for “C à vous” on France 5.
