“He died in his bed”: a relative of Michel Berger lifts the veil on his last moments

Michel Berger’s vacation ended in tragedy. In August 1992, the singer took advantage of a few days of rest in his house in Ramatuelle with his partner, France Gall, and several of their friends. As often, he played several games of tennis against Marie-Françoise Buart, better known to the general public as Framboise Holtz, without knowing that he was going to lose his life only a few hours later. Exhausted, he collapsed on the court victim of a first heart attack. “At one point, Michel abandons the gamesays the composer Michel Pelay in the book Michel Berger, a life in songs by Francois Alquier. He sits on a bench along the court and then gets up saying to us: ‘It’s really not okay, I’m going back home’. We don’t worry more than that, because we know he’s a little tired at that time.”

His relatives and especially France Gall failed to reason with him and prevent the emergency services so that they examine him. Victim of two new heart attacks in the evening, Michel Berger died at the age of 44struck down in the middle of vacation. “The cardiologist tells us that he had three heart attacks before the arrival of help, which took an hour to come because of the traffic jams in Saint-Tropez, continued the close to the singer. Michel was already dead. The story goes that he died in the ambulance. No, he died in his bed.” During the last months of his life, Michel Berger experienced a health problem that had already worried his doctor. Under pressure because of a new musical project and a long-hidden love affair, the singer pulled on the rope and put his body to the test. Too tough.

Michel Berger “was fed up with taking medication”

And the singer didn’t seem aware of the risks he was taking. “Michel had a very high cholesterol level. That day, he told me that he had stopped his treatmentremembered Michel Pelay in this book which will be published on June 16th. He was tired of taking medication.” At the time, the composer seemed worried. “I told him to be careful of him because it could be very dangerous. It’s crazy to have had this conversation on the exact day of his death”, still remembered the friend of Michel Berger, aware of the state of health of the singer at the time: “Given the state in which Michel was, if it had not been that day, it would have been a maximum of fifteen days later. All the arteries were blocked”.