We thought he was as indestructible as his bikes.
The 109-year-old cyclist from Seine-et-Marne Robert Marchand died in his sleep on the night of Friday to Saturday, May 22 in the nursing home where he lived in Mitry-Mory (Seine-et-Marne).
“Robert was a great champion, someone who made you dream and who kept his head on his shoulders.
He was also a friend, someone very committed to unions and politically on the left!
It was the image of our city, ”greets Charlotte Blandiot-Faride (PCF), mayor of Mitry-Mory.
Born on November 26, 1911, he remembered the entry of German troops with peaked helmets into the streets of Amiens, his hometown, in the summer of 1914. He remembered the church bells announcing the armistice of November 11, 1918. Robert Marchand was not yet 7 years old. He has known two world wars, lived through life under seventeen presidents of the Republic. The eternal cyclist had 25 years under the presidency of Albert Lebrun, 50 years under Charles de Gaulle, 75 years with François Mitterrand and celebrated his centenary under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2011. When Emmanuel Macron came into the world in 1977, he was already 66 years old.
He, the bicycle fan, has been able to follow from near or far 98 Tours de France. Decreased and tired, he was still in front of his TV when the latest one arrived on the Champs-Élysées on September 20. He has lived on three continents, had been a widower since the early 1940s.
