WE WERE THERE – The singer’s funeral took place on Monday, May 9, in the morning, at a time when the “queen of the night” was going to bed. A ceremony in his image, simple, but with its share of spectacle.
A murmur rises from the crowd gathered in front of the crematorium of the Père-Lachaise cemetery as a carriage carrying his remains drawn by two black horses advances with a loud noise on the cobblestones. It is covered with an armful of white roses. “Is this a shoot?”is surprised a blonde lady who hoped to take advantage of this beautiful May morning to gather in peace.
Discretion has never been the forte of Régine, “queen of the night” who died on the 1er May at the age of 92, to whom a hundred anonymous people and many personalities came to pay their last respects.
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As the coffin of the singer and actress enters the ceremonial hall to the applause, according to the tradition reserved for the people of the show, fans begin to sing The big Zoa. A song that sums up well who Régina Zylberberg was by her real name, as Françoise tells us, who was able to meet this “great lady of show business”. “She was the great Zoa, a real Parisian. She was simple, adorable, generous, extraordinary. she continues.
Family, friends and guests were gathered under the large Dome of the Père-Lachaise crematorium, where a photo of Régine, dressed in a green evening dress and with her feet in champagne buckets, was on display. Among them, the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot, Marc Lavoine, Carole Bouquet, Anthony Delon, Rachida Dati, Carla Bruni, the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, Cyril Hanouna but also the director Yamina Benguigui or Bernard Montiel, who also appeared on Saturday among the guests at the investiture of Emmanuel Macron.
“She was everywhere the lights shone»
Singer Catherine Ringer opened the ceremony with an a cappella version of Régine’s famous song The little papers, written by Serge Gainsbourg, taken up in unison by the assembly. A song that all the muses of the man with the cabbage head envied him.
“We heard his songs again, we heard his voices again, and above all we heard his farewell”, confides at the end of the ceremony Marcel Campion, visibly moved. He came to pay homage to the one who was to the night what he is to fairgrounds.
Owner of some twenty nightclubs around the world, including the mythical “Chez Régine” near the Champs-Élysées, the singer embodied “a whole era” as explained by this sixty-year-old floating in his somewhat old-fashioned gray suit.
For many of the fans present in front of the crematorium at this early hour for night owls, it is a page that turns, “a certain way of partying”. “She made my nights the best days of my life”, even explains this regular of the artist’s Parisian nightclubs, dark glasses on his nose to hide his tears. But who is he crying? Régine or the party animal that he was? Frequented by the whole of Paris and the jet-set, these establishments quickly became institutions of the night world. It was she who had replaced the “jukebox” (vending machine for songs recorded on discs) by record players and disc jockeys. She reigned not only over the night but over an empire, that of disco, as rightly noted by the New York Times, which dedicated her to the day after her death.
All speak of their idol with deep respect, saluting the strength of character of this woman who has gone through many hardships, from the assassination of her first love and the death of her son at the age of 58.
“She was everywhere the lights shone, in her clubs, on the stages of the Olympia, Bobino, the Folies Bergère or Carnegie Hall, and even on our screens”, greeted the Elysée after his disappearance. “The President of the Republic and his wife salute a great figure in Parisian nightlife and French song. They send to his family, to all those who have danced at Régine, to all the French people who like to sing his songs, their heartfelt condolences. had added the services of Emmanuel Macron about the one who will forever remain as the Grande Zoa.
SEE ALSO – Regine’s funeral: “She was the queen of the night”, explains Bertrand Guyard
Read alsoThe Eye of INA: When “Little Regine” became “the great Zoa”