“VYou know, I have a date with the angels soon. ” Two weeks ago, in the in-between rounds of this funny presidential campaign, we contacted Bernard Pons. We wanted to have his reaction to the failure of the right of Valérie Pécresse. He had dismissed us, gently but firmly. The Chiraquian baron and former minister has died at the age of 95. “The disappearance of Bernard Pons marks the end of an era. That of the great moments of companionship, of epic politics, of triumphant Gaullism. I loved this man who gave so much to his political family, ”tweeted Nicolas Sarkozy.
Engaged in the Resistance and a convinced Gaullist, Bernard Pons, general practitioner by profession, has gone through nearly fifty years of political life, accompanying Jacques Chirac in his failures and his victories. He participated in the founding of the RPR in 1978, was appointed minister when Chirac was elected president of the Republic in 1995, and was elected several times as deputy, whether in Lot, Essonne or Paris. He was sent to Nouméa as part of the hostage-taking in the Ouvéa cave in New Caledonia, which killed 21 people (19 Kanaks and 2 soldiers) between the two presidential rounds of 1988, and which he was told will place the responsibility for the military intervention by having announced, as Minister of Overseas Departments and Territories, to want ” restore order and morals “.
“One of the tutelary figures of the right and the memory of the RPR”
With Pierre Mazeaud, he was the guardian of the Chiraquian temple. The former president considered them his close friends – along with Jérôme Monod. “He was one of the faithful among the faithful of Jacques Chirac. Beyond political friendship, he was above all loyal to the man”, reacted to the Point Jean-Louis Debre. “He was one of my mentors in politics, one of the tutelary figures of the right and the memory of the RPR, points out Jean-François Copé. Humanly, Bernard Pons was an extremely warm person, with a singular authority, who, it is true, sometimes had his heads, especially towards those he did not consider faithful to Gaullist ideas. »
“With Bernard Pons, I have the memory of a journey in the car with Chirac on the bumpy roads of the Lot while eating sandwiches with all that the electoral campaigns included, at the time, of frank camaraderie and lack of sleep. …, reacts the former minister and defender of rights, Jacques Toubon, one of the fellow travelers of the former President of the Republic. “Bernard was a man from the South with a friendly, attentive and affable side, but above all a country doctor, able to get up at any time of the night to treat someone. His personality was controlled by his two aspects which influenced his political practice. When he was president of the RPR group in the National Assembly, he was attentive to the slightest symptoms, the slightest attitudes, anything useful in the management of a parliamentary group, ”adds Jacques Toubon, who succeeded him in the same position at the National Assembly in 1984.
Bernard Pons retired from political life at the turn of the 2010s. When convincing him to accept the interview, he only dropped one sentence: “Politics is no longer what it was. »