Twenty years after the death of Marie Trintignant, the last secrets of the Bertrand Cantat affair

Twenty years ago, Bertrand Cantat, star singer of the group Noir Désir, darling of critics and the public, committed irreparable harm by beating his partner Marie Trintignant to death in a hotel room in Vilnius.

Journalist Anne-Sophie Jahn reopens the case with an irreproachably rigorous investigation,

.

Starting herself in the footsteps of the drama, she traced the thread of a dark affair.

She demonstrates, over a relentless construction, that the death of the young woman was not an accident.

And proves that everyone around the singer, both professional and personal, had banded together to protect him by declaring that he was not a violent man when he had notoriously hit several of his companions.

The cleverly orchestrated lie was to lighten his prison sentence.

If the recidivism had been proven, the man would have remained behind bars much longer.

The author found the reports and declarations of the time.

Kristina Rady, wife of Bertrand Cantat at the time of the tragedy and mother of his children, deployed colossal energy to prove that her husband had never been violent, when she herself had already suffered his assaults of violence.

In 2010, after reconnecting with him, Kristina Rady committed suicide at their home.

A few weeks earlier, she had confided her distress to her parents.

Read alsoJean-Louis Trintignant: “The death of Marie was the greatest suffering of my life”

symbol of violence against women

Anne-Sophie Jahn also found the man with whom Kristina had confided a lot, and with whom she had had a romantic relationship.

This confirms the brutality of Cantat's treatment vis-à-vis his wife.

Above all, Anne-Sophie Jahn wonders how the case would have been handled if it had happened today, after the Me Too turning point.

The man certainly benefited from unhealthy benevolence, she says.

Become the symbol of violence against women, the singer was a crass indecency.

We discover, bewildered, the unkind remarks made by his brother Xavier about the deceased.

he said after Marie Trintignant's funeral.

And we relive the excesses of a man who, whining throughout exclusive interviews, had ended up disgusting many of his former admirers.

The evocation of his last Zénith in Paris in 2018, recalls the mixture of indecency and resentment that animates Bertrand Cantat.

he said.

We still have chills down our backs.

Courageous and fair, Anne-Sophie Jahn's book closes the subject.