Mitterrand

by Philip Short

  Any form of euthanasia is illegal in France and Tarot has never commented on suggestions that he might have eased Mitterrand’s death. He gave a different account of the final hours. Tarot was Jesuit-educated. After Danielle and Gilbert left, he said, Mitterrand asked him to administer the last rites, giving him absolution for his sins.9 At dawn, with Tarot beside him, he died in his sleep. A year earlier, he had been asked: ‘When you appear before God, what will you say to him?’ ‘At last I know,’ he had replied.

  The doctor called Anne and then Danielle. President Chirac was informed and came at once to offer his condolences. For the next two days, an unending procession made its way to the small, blank room where Mitterrand’s body lay in a dark grey suit, under a white coverlet, small and frail, his face an ivory mask. Giscard came, to pay tribute to the man who had defeated him in 1981; Michel Rocard, to the man who had helped destroy his political career; and Fabius, to the man who had failed, not for want of trying, to anoint him as his political heir.

  Mitterrand’s comrades from the Resistance – Jean Munier, Chaban-Delmas, Pierre Guillain de Bénouville – made the journey. So did his old mistresses, whom Pierre Tourlier, his driver, who knew all his secrets, gently turned away. De Bénouville, Roland Dumas and Mitterrand’s sister, Geneviève, took turns to watch through the night beside him.

  On Tuesday, January 9, the coffin was sealed in the presence of Danielle and Anne. After thirty years when neither family had acknowledged the existence of the other, they now grieved together. Roger Hanin had proposed that the body lie in state, to allow the people of Paris to pay their last respects, at the Trocadéro, on the Right Bank of the Seine, where the UN General Assembly had adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. But Gilbert objected to his father being ‘lugged about’ and it was decided instead that the Socialist Party would organise a memorial ceremony the following evening at the Bastille. The party faithful gathered under a fine rain to light candles. In his will Mitterrand had said he wanted no speeches. A recording was played of his New Year wishes to the French people a year earlier, which he had concluded with the words, ‘I believe in the forces of the spirit. I will not leave you.’ Then Barbara Hendricks sang Le Temps des Cerises (‘Cherry Time’), a nineteenth-century ballad associated with the destruction of the Paris Commune, where the ‘cherries’ were the drops of blood of the revolutionaries.

  Next morning there was not one Mass but two.

  The coffin was escorted to the military airport by an arrowhead formation of police motorcyclists in white uniforms, like a skein of geese, followed by the cortège of family and friends. Flags all over France were flown at half-mast. At 11 a.m., there was a minute of silence. At Jarnac, Anne and Mazarine waited in the church beside Jean-Christophe, Danielle, Gilbert and the grandchildren. Charasse stood outside, holding Baltique on a leash. The disparate circles of friends, which all his life Mitterrand had carefully kept apart, had come together at his death.

  De Gaulle, twenty-five years earlier had chosen a similar arrangement: a simple, private ceremony at Colombey and a formal Mass at Notre Dame. For the General, eighty Heads of State and government had attended. Sixty came for Mitterrand, a comparison which would probably not have pleased him. For the homily of Cardinal Lustiger, Fidel Castro was placed next to Prince Rainier of Monaco while Prince Charles, representing the Queen, sat beside the Togolese dictator, Gnassingbé Eyadéma. Arafat, Shimon Peres and Mitterrand’s recent host, Hosni Mubarak, were there. So were the Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, Al Gore, representing Bill Clinton, Juan Carlos of Spain and King Sihanouk of Cambodia. But the image that remained fixed in the minds of the millions who watched on television that day was of a tear rolling down the cheek of a colossus. Helmut Kohl, who had grasped Mitterrand’s hand at Verdun, mourned the passing of his friend.

  On the night of Mitterrand’s death, Jacques Chirac found the words to transcend the country’s political divisions and voice a tribute to which the nation could relate. He spoke of what Mitterrand had bequeathed to France – ‘a modern, calm democracy, thanks notably to the experience of alternating political power which we mastered [and] which has made our institutions stronger’ – and of his commitment to social justice; to humanism, through the abolition of the death penalty; and to ‘a Europe in which France, working with a Germany with which she is reconciled, has a place in the first rank’. He went on:

  François Mitterrand . . . was the reflection of his century . . . The war. The Resistance . . . Life in dark times and in glorious ones . . . My position is peculiar because I was [his] adversary. But I was also his Prime Minister and today I am his successor. All that creates a special bond, in which there is respect for the statesman and admiration for the man who struggled in private against his illness with remarkable courage . . . From our relationship, the lessons I have retained are that courage is strong when it is supported by willpower; and that we must place man at the centre of all we do . . . At this moment, when François Mitterrand is becoming part of history, I wish us to meditate on the message he left behind.10

  It was a generous speech. Two years later, when the emotion of the moment had passed and politics reclaimed its rights, Chirac was more circumspect, speaking rather of his predecessor’s faults – his having encouraged, for electoral reasons, the growth of the extreme right-wing National Front; his lack of ‘solid convictions’; his attitude to France, which ‘he loved . . . with his head, not with his guts’; his ‘archaic views’; even, surprisingly, that ‘if he knew France, he did not know the world outside’ – and expressing regret at having given the impression that Mitterrand could be held up as an example.

  The Left, too, would express growing reservations about its former champion.

  Even before Mitterrand’s death, Lionel Jospin had called for a ‘right of inventory’, by which he meant that the Socialists should pick and choose what they wanted to retain from his years in power and jettison the rest.

  Like Chirac, Jospin condemned his mentor for having encouraged the National Front. History would prove them both wrong. Mitterrand had gambled that bringing the extreme Right into the open, rather than forcing it underground, would help to neutralise its venom, just as respectability had accelerated the Communists’ decline. Twenty years later the National Front – having become no more, if no less, extreme than the right wing of the Republican Party in America – was well on the way to becoming part of the mainstream of French politics, while in Britain, and elsewhere in Europe, the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment among the electorate, finding no other outlet, fuelled the emergence of diehard racist parties.

  The Left professed to be offended in its virtue by the ambiguities of Mitterrand’s past, by the monarchical aspects of his reign (which the Socialist Party’s courtiers had assiduously served) and by the use of state funds to protect his second family. That, too, would be forgotten. Sixteen years after his death, 90 per cent of left-wing voters and 60 per cent of the whole electorate viewed his presidency positively. François Hollande, who, in 2012, became the next Socialist to enter the Elysée, was seen, according to opinion polls, as the left-wing candidate who most resembled him and during his campaign worked assiduously to portray himself as Mitterrand’s heir. To later generations, the anomalies which had troubled Mitterrand’s contemporaries – Bousquet, Vichy and the flirtation with the far Right – no longer seemed so important.

  Mitterrand never liked discussing his legacy. He preferred to quote the epitaph on Willy Brandt’s tombstone: ‘I did what I could.’ Yet of all the twentieth-century French leaders, only he and de Gaulle left France a changed country. One had consoled it for its humiliations and its loss of empire, bringing stability and strong leadership. The other cajoled it into entering the modern world. De Gaulle had closed one chapter of French history; Mitterrand had opened another.

  During his fourteen years in power, France, which had defined itself for the previous two centuries by reference to the Revolution of 1789, began a slow and pa
inful accommodation to the economic and political realities of the world outside. The French are change-averse and the transformation is incomplete. Mitterrand may be reproached for not putting the French Socialists more firmly on the road to become a reformist, social democratic party, able to confront the challenges of the coming century rather than wallowing in the illusions of the last. But there is a limit to what one lifetime can achieve. ‘Ideas ripen like fruits and men,’ Mitterrand wrote. ‘All works – artistic, aesthetic, philosophical, practical, political – are unfinished.’ The construction of Europe and the quest for social justice, the two great causes which had sprung from Mitterrand’s experience as a prisoner of war, and modernisation, which had imposed itself as a necessity during his time in office, must be legacy enough.

  * * *

  fn1 Afterwards, Danielle recounted, her banker called her. ‘He said to me, “Madame Mitterrand, there’s a bit of money in your account. It’s a pity not to put it to work.” I told him, “It’s lazy, that money, it does not want to work.” He said, “But it would bring you some income.” I told him, “I don’t need it.” Then he said to me, “They warned me that that might be your reaction. You must admit, it’s not very common”.’ Money, she said, ‘only serves to fatten the fortunes of those who produce nothing’. It was not logical: Danielle was happy to accept donations for the Third World NGOs she had founded without asking her benefactors embarrassing questions about the source of the wealth which allowed their generosity. But it reflected a genuine disdain which she and François Mitterrand shared: so long as money was available for essentials – in the sense in which Oscar Wilde would have understood that term – it was not something either of them wished to think about. Five years later, when Jean-Christophe was charged with illegal arms dealing in Angola, of which he was afterwards acquitted, she borrowed five million francs (£500,000 or US $700,000) from friends for his bail. In 2013, the courts were still trying to establish whether she had ever paid it back. She auctioned off many of François’s possessions – including his clothes, the gifts he had received and the wine in his cellar – to raise money for charitable work in the developing world.

  Yvonne and Joseph Mitterrand at the time of their marriage in 1906.

  The siblings: François (fourth from left), between his younger brother, Jacques, and Robert, a year older, c.1923.

  At St Paul’s College, Angoulême, c.1932.

  Goalkeeper (front row, centre) in the school soccer team.

  Protesting against ‘the Wog invasion’, February 1935. Mitterrand is in the front row on the left.

  With his brother, Robert, during the ‘phoney war’ in 1939.

  At Stalag IXA in Germany, 1941 (back row, right).

  With Marshal Pétain at Vichy, October 1942. Marcel Barrois (centre) helped found the prisoners’ resistance movement, the RNPG.

  ‘Morland’ on his return to France after meeting de Gaulle in Algiers, March 1944.

  Marie-Louise Terrasse, aged 20.

  François and Danielle on their wedding day, October 28 1944.

  Addressing a meeting of the PoWs’ federation, the FNPG.

  With Henri Frenay (left) at the War Veterans Ministry, 1945.

  Interior Minister in the government of Pierre Mendès France (right), 1954.

  Big game hunting in West Africa in the 1950s.

  At the Cannes Film Festival in 1956 with Danielle (right) and Brigitte Bardot (back to camera), whose film And God Created Woman was the success – and the scandal – of the year.

  A contemporary newspaper cutting showing a campaign poster for the 1965 presidential election, urging French voters to ‘take their future in hand’.

  Anne Pingeot, photographed by François Mitterrand on a beach near Hossegor.

  Jean-Christophe Mitterrand (left), with his younger brother, Gilbert, and their parents on his nineteenth birthday, which coincided with the second round of the election.

  Danielle overseeing the rebuilding at Latche, 1967.

  Anne and François at Charles Salzmann’s home in the Lozère, 1973.

  Valéry Giscard d’Estaing greeting Mitterrand at the Elysée on May 21 1981.

  An uncooperative sitter. After eight sessions in 1982, the sculptor gave up in disgust before being persuaded to try again – this time successfully – a year and a half later.

  Shaping government policy with his Prime Minister, Pierre Mauroy.

  With Mikhail Gorbachev in Kiev a month after the fall of the Berlin Wall, December 1989.

  Reconciliation with Germany: hand in hand with Helmut Kohl at Verdun, September 1984.

  Even Margaret Thatcher succumbed to the charm.

  Despite their manifold differences, Mitterrand and Ronald Reagan also struck up a quizzical rapport.

  In Sarajevo to break the siege by Bosnian Serbs, June 1992.

  ‘God’…

  … and his minions on earth below:

  Fabius, the dauphin (left), and Rocard, the bête noire…

  … Jacques Chirac (left) and Édouard Balladur.

  With Rene Bousquet at Latche in the 1970s.

  At Pierre Bérégovoy’s funeral with his widow, Gilberte (centre), and Danielle in 1993.

  In 1988 with Patrice Pelat, who was shortly afterwards charged with insider trading.

  After the second operation for cancer in 1994.

  Autumn 1995: one of Mitterrand’s last public appearances.

  Anne and Mazarine at his funeral at Jarnac, January 9 1996.

  Picture credits

  Protesting against ‘the Wog invasion’ (© Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho); Marie-Louise Terrasse, aged 20 (Collection Jean-Marc Terrasse); with Henri Frenay (© AFP); in the government of Pierre Mendès France (© Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho); big game hunting (© Pierre Vals/Paris Match/Scoop); at the Cannes Film Festival (rue des Archives); Jean-Christophe Mitterrand’s 19th birthday (© AFP); Anne and François (Jean-Loup Salzmann); Valéry Giscard d’Estaing greeting Mitterrand at the Elysée (© Jean Gaumy, Magnum Photos; and © Archive/AFP); sitting for the sculptor, Daniel Druet (© Guy le Querrec, Magnum Photos); with Pierre Mauroy (© Guy le Querrec, Magnum Photos); with Mikhail Gorbachev in Kiev (Philippe Janin); at Verdun with Helmut Kohl (DPA); with Margaret Thatcher (Lionel Cironneau/AP/PA Images); with Ronald Reagan (© Bettmann/Corbis); in Sarajevo to break the siege by Bosnian Serbs (© Christophe Simon/AFP); campaigning for a second term (© Raymond Depardon, Magnum Photos); Laurent Fabius and Michel Rocard (© Jean-Michel Turpin/Sygma/Corbis); Jacques Chirac and Édouard Balladur (© Derrick Ceyrac/AFP); with Rene Bousquet at Latche (Julien Quideau); at Pierre Bérégovoy’s funeral (© Michel Gangne/AFP); with Patrice Pelat (© Frank Perry/AFP); after the second cancer operation (Dominique Aubert); Anne and Mazarine at the funeral (© Derrick Ceyrac/AFP).

  All other photographs are from private collections, all rights strictly reserved.

  Acknowledgements

  Books are written for all sorts of reasons. The genesis of this one dates back to the 1980s, when I represented the BBC in Paris and, over the course of ten years, scarcely a day went by without my finding new reasons to thank the tutelary deities for having put me in France at a time when its presidency was in the hands of François Mitterrand – a gifted, devious man, part visionary, part pragmatist, who when he was not shooting himself in the foot could run rings round his political opponents – rather than either of his two worthy but uninspiring predecessors.

  To be intrigued by a man, however, is one thing; to write a book about him is another. For a long time my attention was distracted by the lives of two other complicated men, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot. But the project began to take shape one summer after a conversation with Bruno Philip, then the correspondent for Le Monde in China, who, through the intermediary of a colleague in India, introduced me to Dominique Hernu, who had married Mitterrand’s close friend, Charles Hernu and afterwards worked for Danielle Mitterrand at the Elysée. Dominique proved to be an open sesame, unlocking so many doors that, had I walked throug
h all of them, this book would occupy multiple volumes and still be a work in progress. Through her I met Pierre Avril, Georges Fillioud, Louis Mermaz, Guy Penne, Laurence Soudet and, last but not least, André Rousselet, whose affectionate, ironic and lucid appraisals of his old friend, François Mitterrand, I have found invaluable.

  Anne Pingeot put aside her legendary discretion to talk about the man with whom she acted out an extraordinary, and courageous, love story, spanning more than thirty years – the ‘heroine of a film which no one will ever see’, as their daughter, Mazarine, put it. And, through one of those happy coincidences which come when least expected – a chance encounter one evening on a houseboat on the River Seine with a professor of Renaissance literature, Caroline Trotot, whose uncle turned out to be a friend of Danielle Mitterrand’s companion, Jean Balenci – I met the third member of the ménage à trois which constituted Mitterrand’s ‘official’ family until the start of his presidency in 1981. He, too, has until now remained silent about the twenty-three years he spent as a member of the Mitterrand household.