Sons are often the most emotional at their fathers' funerals.
A moment of truth, a river that emerges for an instant from its bed, something stronger than oneself, a fragment of intimacy and dignity that breaks the solemnity.
This Tuesday, in the Saint-Thomas d'Aquin church (Paris 7th), Mathieu, the eldest son of Frédéric Mitterrand, who died on March 21 at the age of 76, surrounded by his brothers Jihed and Saïd, paid tribute to his father, but his real father, not just this man of merits highlighted by other relatives.
“We lived with you, your sorrows and your wounds,” began the son of the former Minister of Culture before speaking of his difficult end, not only the illness, but before that, the bitter feeling of fading from his life. alive: “Your feeling of being a has-been had become unbearable”, “Dad, so handsome and finally at peace” in his final ceremonial costume.
Calm after so much torment.
Frédéric Mitterrand was widely criticized, mocked in politics, "slandered", said one of his brothers, attacked on social networks at the time of his disappearance for his venal taste for young men in poor countries that he had -even told in “The Bad Life”.
“He was a completely atypical minister”
“He was the first to overwhelm himself”, the worst judge of himself, also said the publisher of his books Betty Mialet.
A man who did not always like himself but to whom those who worked with him seemed deeply attached.
His ministerial cabinet from 2009-2012, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, was there in full force, forming a square full of smiles: “He gave us our chance.
He was a completely atypical minister who told us:
Invent, fed up with the procedures
.
We didn't know who was left or right.
It was a great team,” breathes a former collaborator now occupying a major cultural position.
Stéphane Bern, the other expert on crowned heads, was present at the funeral of Frédéric Mitterrand.
AFP/Stéphane de Sakutin
In the church, almost everyone knew him, like Stéphane Bern, the other expert on crowned heads.
Who, like him, brought together five ministers of Culture at his last farewell, from Jack Lang to Rachida Dati via Roselyne Bachelot, Rima Abdul-Malak and Franck Riester?
Several former ministers from both camps for the one who straddled them, from the socialist Edwige Avice to the liberals Gérard Longuet and Brice Hortefeux.
Nicolas Sarkozy sat among the last shortly before the ceremony.
When Patrick Poivre d'Arvor crosses the church to the front rows, clearly recognizable in the middle of the seated audience, penultimate to enter, a voice whispers: "He's burnt."
Arielle Dombasle appears just before the first gospel sung by Liz McComb.
“Who is left of the Mitterrand family?
», says another voice in this crowd which forced the organizers to add chairs at the last moment.
Mazarine Pingeot, seated in the first rows.
Of Mitterrand, without knowing them, we believe we can distinguish among certain relatives, a family resemblance, this demeanor.
The parish priest Jérôme Angot brought smiles to a few faces during his unique and brief slip of the tongue: “As we celebrate the funeral of Mr. François… Frédéric Mitterrand.”
The nephew ultimately did not live in the shadow of his giant uncle, according to even the faithful heir Jack Lang.
The latter wanted to first greet the minister, even if it was from a right-wing government, whose Hadopi law protecting the rights of creators on the Internet, "is among our major laws voted with François Mitterrand, like the price unique to the book.”
A stamped passport for posterity.
“This innate kindness that didn’t want to offend anyone”
An empress was needed to pay tribute to him: Her Majesty Farah Pahlavi, widow of the Shah of Iran, who could not stand up but greeted on the microphone “this innate kindness which did not want to offend anyone”.
The youngest of a large family, Frédéric Mitterrand did not grow up in silk that much.
His brothers reported the undetected mistreatment of a governess.
That the youngest had found the casting of “Fortunat” on his own at 13, with Bourvil and Michèle Morgan.
And that he had not presented himself at the ENA oral exam - such a fine speaker and well of knowledge, it was suicide - to embark on the adventure of creating cinemas rather than become the senior civil servant his parents expected.
Surprising to the end, he blew Jack Lang and Betty Mialet a week or two ago by announcing his imminent death.
“It’s the end, come see me,” he says to his editor.
He manages to get up in “his wonderful apartment with books up to the ceiling” and gives her two manuscripts.
“There will just be two small chapters missing in the middle,” he smiles.
He will be missed by those who gathered, sometimes in tears, often with a sad smile.
He will even be missed by the Albanians, said this country's ambassador to France and close friend of the deceased, who bequeathed numerous works to the national library of Tirana.
Outside, it was raining.
The last notes of Gounod's “Ave Maria” could be heard from the street.
Inside it was hot.
As if all those close to him had wanted to tell their worried friend, before God, between a gospel and a homily, that he would not be alone, up there, among his black and white stars of “Stars and Canvases” .