For years, Johnny Hallyday and Jacques Chirac have had a great relationship. After a car accident in the middle of Paris, the singer was able to count on the help of the former President of the Republic.
Johnny Hallyday and Jacques Chirac have long had close ties. It is in particular the former President of the Republic who presented the Legion of Honor to the singer in 1997, during a ceremony in a salon of the Elysée. The two men then crossed paths on several occasions, in particular during evenings for the benefit of the fight against AIDS organized by Line Renaud, or in 2005, during the inauguration of the Loulou Gasté square in Paris. The singer has also requested amazing services from Jacques Chirac several times, as Bernard Schmitt, Jacques Rouveyrollis and Roger Abriol recount in their book Johnny Hallyday – Private Access. In the good sheets, published by the Sunday newspaper this December 4, the directors of Le Taulier remember a crazy anecdote.
“Before meeting rock, Johnny wanted to be an actor. On stage, he was like a theater actor in the midst of his characters. As soon as music videos exploded in 1984, he understood their impact in terms of image. He saw them as films in their own right and, since the cinema was sacred, he was ready at 5 am to go shoot. Only once he arrived late“, they remember before telling that Johnny Hallyday had bought a Ferrari at the time. “In the evening, after the day of filming, he wanted to show us his skills as a pilot. We were shooting towards Bercy. Johnny takes us to the docks at 160 km/h, we read in this intimate book. But, taken by the rain, the car skids on a small square and fits into a gate: it was the Ministry of the Interior!
Johnny Hallyday: this mind-blowing gift given to him by Jacques Chirac
At one o’clock in the morning and while the former President of the Republic was sound asleep, Johnny Hallyday asked to join Jacques Chirac on the phone. “He was yelling on the phone but his interlocutor, very understanding, reassured him: ‘Stay still, Johnny, I’ll take care of everything’, remember Bernard Schmitt, Jacques Rouveyrollis and Roger Abriol. And Chirac called the Minister of the Interior.” Jacques Chirac then solved the problem of Johnny Hallyday very quickly. “Pierre Joxe took over and a police tow truck arrived fifteen minutes later to drop off the Ferrari at the garage in Neuilly where, a few hours earlier, the dealer had seen it leave brand new, they still describe. Then a car of cops took us back to Johnny’s.”
In addition to doing him a favor, Jacques Chirac once offered a very surprising gift to Johnny Hallyday: a blue flashing light, which he always kept in his car. “When we were going on tour and we had to take a private plane from Le Bourget to get to the provinces, its driver took out a blue beacon and put it on the roof of the vehicle to zigzag between the cars and avoid traffic jams”, told Robin Le Mesurier, author of My 1000 concerts with Johnny, in the columns of France Sunday. When he offered him this special gift, Jacques Chirac told him “gave permission to use it…in moderation!” But the rocker has sometimes used it for surprising reasons … as to sow Laeticia Hallyday.