The applause lasted for long minutes, without stopping, as if no one wanted to break the last of the thousand threads that connected him to the actor.
When the coffin of Jean-Paul Belmondo left the main courtyard of the Hôtel des Invalides, to the sound of Chi mai by Ennio Morricone, anthem of the film The professional, interpreted by the orchestra of the Republican Guard, the emotion was not played among the family of the cinema and the thousand admirers authorized to attend the tribute paid Thursday, September 9 to “The national friend”, as Pierre Lescure, president of the Cannes Film Festival, has aptly described it.
During the ceremony, the tenth celebrated by Emmanuel Macron at the Invalides since the start of his five-year term, Jean-Paul Belmondo, who died on September 6 at the age of 88, was entitled to all the honors. “Giant among the giants”, “Hero with a thousand faces” for the head of state, who praised the man who “Married France” and was “The face of all the upheavals of our glorious thirties”. But also “An eternal sun” for Victor Belmondo, the artist’s grandson, who spoke surrounded by the five other grandchildren of the Ace of Aces and Stella, his youngest daughter. “Throughout his life, he never ceased to seek happiness but above all to give it”, added the 27-year-old actor.
“Cop, thug, always beautiful”
Sign of the exceptional career of “Bébel”, who had turned in 80 films, several generations of actors had wanted to be present. Around Jean Dujardin, very moved, Gilles Lellouche, Nathalie Baye, Richard Anconina, Patrick Chesnais, Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard, Albert Dupontel, Julie Gayet or even the directors Costa-Gavras and Michel Hazanavicius were there, just like Pierre Vernier, 90 years, the last representative of the “band of the Conservatory”, where Belmondo rubbed shoulders with Jean Rochefort, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Claude Rich or even Annie Girardot. A blessed promotion.
Sports personalities, passion of the actor, had also come, like Luis Fernandez, the ex-boxers Louis Acariès and Brahim Asloum, or Philippe Candeloro.
At the request of the family, the Invalides were opened to the public in the evening, so that admirers of the “Cop, thug, always beautiful” can pay him a last tribute, the funeral to take place in family privacy, Friday morning at the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Only Jacques Chirac had been entitled to this favor so far, a sign of the popularity of the actor.
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