Call her Madame Mazarine Mitterrand-Pingeot.
On the occasion of the publication of her new work,
Vivre sans
, on the philosophy of lack, the 49-year-old author was invited to the set of the show “C à Vous”, broadcast on
France 5,
this Wednesday February 28.
For the first time in her career, she chose to write an “M” between her first and last name on the cover of her book, a reference to the name of her father, François Mitterrand.
Questioned on the subject by journalist Patrick Cohen, the one who was once nicknamed “the president's hidden daughter” and who only bore her mother's name for years, returned to this change: “Oh, it happened things, but you'll notice I don't put it in full.
It remains a trace, we will say,” she confided.
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A personal choice
In reality, it has been several years since Mazarine Pingeot adopted the surname Mitterrand: “In fact, I got my father's name back a few years ago.
I don’t know why it came out, perhaps through the mystery of algorithms on the internet,” she stressed.
Since 2016, the author's signature has been “Mazarine Mitterrand-Pingeot”.
A decision dictated by intimate motivations: “It was for a series of very personal reasons which only concerned me, because I did not do publicity.
For this philosophy book which contrasts with my fiction novels, I found it interesting to take on my whole surname,” she added.
This is not the first time that the author has spoken on the subject.
In an interview given to the Belgian magazine
Soir Mag
, Mazarine Mitterrand-Pingeot had already spoken about this change of name: "I asked myself the question at length before undertaking the necessary steps, quite complex I must say", can -we read in the columns of the Belgian magazine.
“I thought it was actually quite natural since I was his daughter.”
A natural connection, certainly, but one full of meaning.
By adopting the name Mitterrand, the writer keeps alive the memory of her father who died on January 8, 1996, just two years after the revelation of the open secret.
“It was also a way of paying tribute to him, of creating new links between my paternal family and my own children,” explains the woman whose identity was hidden from the general public for a long time.
Now, Mazarine Pingeot-Mitterrand is the mother of three children, Astor (19 years old), Tara (17 years old) and Marie (15 years old), born from her union with the director Mohamed Ulad-Mohand.
Separated from the father of her children in 2014, the author shares her life with Didier Le Bret, a discreet diplomat whom she married in 2017.
lips are sealed
Mazarine Marie Pingeot was born on December 18, 1974 in Avignon.
His mother, Anne Pingeot, is a French art historian.
His father is none other than a candidate in the 1974 presidential election named François Mitterrand.
Married to Danielle Gouze since 1944, the future president leads a double life far from the radar.
Reputation as a politician obliges, the existence of the young Mazarine becomes a “state secret” when François Mitterrand accedes to the supreme office.
The child grows up sheltered from the flashes of the paparazzi.
An anonymity that escaped her on November 10, 1994 when she was 20 years old.
Photographed with her father leaving a restaurant, her existence, known to circles close to power, was revealed to the French on the cover of
Paris Match
.
Nearly three decades later, in 2016, the woman who became a writer, associate professor and doctor of philosophy, chose to adopt her father's name.