On September 27, 1979, between twelve thousand and fifteen thousand people followed, from the Paris forensic institute to the Père-Lachaise cemetery, the hearse carrying Pierre Goldman, murdered in the street seven days earlier, at the age of 35. Having left the banks of the Seine around 3 p.m., the crowd arrived around 5 p.m. at the entrance to the cemetery, whose large doors could not swallow this human tide. The ceremony, both dignified and messy, continues around the body temporarily buried in a depositary vault.
Young people, lots of young people, bags tucked under their armpits, schoolbags or motorcycle helmets at the end of their arms, straight out of the lecture halls or the first job of their promising career. The oldest, too, recognizable among a thousand by their tie and their suit: become professors, architects, doctors, journalists, they come to pay homage to the one who will not have compromised with this hated society.
In the photos, the uniforms of the protest: enchantment of bright colors, hand-knitted jacquard sweaters, fancy shirts, Perfecto, synthetic under-sweater, bell-bottom pants. No worker’s overalls or craftsman’s blouse. Multiplicity of hair and hair, audiences of all kinds and all revolutionary groups. The people of the far left. The 1970s, a little longer, not for long.
There are funerals where friends reunite and others where they separate. That of Pierre Goldman remains that moment when the grieving far left said goodbye to a friend and – a little – to itself. “Sometimes, ephemeral events mark the end of great periods,” summarizes author Marek Halter. “We buried all our illusions. People were stripping themselves of their utopia, their dreams. It was a collapse,” confirms director Frank Cassenti. “It was the exhaustion of a generation that had followed its dreams,” assures historian Benjamin Stora. “This burial marked the end of a cycle: the river returned to its bed,” adds academic Janette Habel nicely.
Convicted of murder then acquitted
All this goes back more than forty years, but is not yet a thing of the past. Of course, in the fourth division of Père-Lachaise, the tomb of Pierre Goldman is forgotten by the guides who wander around with their groups of tourists. The name fades on the bare concrete slab, the memories fade. Goldman, for the general public, is now Jean-Jacques, the singer, the half-brother seven years his junior, and his hits which accompany our lives.
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