On had left FOG in 1970, a young journalist in mourning for the great Charles. Here is The good timesseason 2 of its politico-intimist fresco, its roaring and paradoxical seventies: a France which is on fire economically but which is sinking into politics, which includes FOG, which entered the New Obs, makes its honey. It was time for decisive encounters: Mitterrand of course. At the age of 23, hair blowing in the wind, Franz got into the car with François, determined to write his biography and assure him that he would be president. With him, it will be serious: “He is my Pygmalion, I am his Galatea whom he sculpts as he pleases. »
In the shadow of the old mentor, he eats life, politics, France, and learns to “never let go of a single piece of your freedom”. A lesson he applies by saying no to… Mitterrand who wants to make him a deputy.
And since there is no father who does not kill himself, the biography published in 1977 will mark a twelve-year estrangement. Mitterrand quickly saw clearly in him: “You are right-handed. » Mitterrand, he left the PS. To drain their blood “Communists whom their stupidity will kill”. Because these 1970s also marked the triumph of Gramsci: “Power eventually falls to those who embody the dominant ideology. “. This is the real turning point. The economy no longer decides the elections: for not having felt it, Giscard and Barre will be sent back to their dear studies in 1981. According to FOG, this drift, encouraged by Fabius, Attali, Jospin, paved the way for the wanderings, the anathemas of 1981, then those of our time, where populism, feminism, environmentalism set the tone. The truth ceases to have a foot in the other camp. We ostracize. Each “Belle Époque” carries the germ of war.
From VGE, FOG says he learned much the same lesson as from Mitterrand: “My hunting instinct gave me a head start in politics. I anticipate. It takes a long patience and, when the opportunity arises, to aim straight, entrusts him with VGE. What he did with Chaban in 1974. Mitterrand: “Talent, everyone has it. What makes the difference is stubbornness, perseverance. I have a lot. »
Mitterrand, much more obstinate than Rocard, will eliminate him in 1981. The 1970s were also strange pairs of President and Prime Minister. Either the agreement: Pompidou with Messmer, VGE with Barre. Either the reciprocal misunderstanding, when the conservative Pompidou accuses Chaban and his “new society” of being the Trojan horse of the left, or when VGE believes he is training the steed of Chirac, convinced that the other will spend his time hunting. Thereafter, we will see the same marital (mis)adventures.
These seventies, it was finally work of “negro” where FOG probes the hearts and the kidneys. Chaban le gentil, here rehabilitated. Mendès France, admired by his mother, exhausted by the son who has to shape his insipid remarks. Mauroy, finally, sincere and tragic, who, in the summer of 1981, confided to him: “Everyone has gone crazy. Even Mitterrand. You know how I love him, Mitterrand, but he thinks he’s Lenin. In what state are we going to leave the country? » In what condition, yes!
This will be the subject of a last volume, which promises, between requiem and Sicilian vespers. Let’s leave this funny, lively and abundant volume with Jean Cau – often quoted by FOG -, leftist defector who pinned tourists on just causes, Algeria, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Cambodia… Mitterrand? “Stiff with plaster and anointing for whom everything about him is of an old-fashioned 19th century Christiane century: the solemn and sly gravity of behavior, the lip awaiting the host or the damning kiss. » Giscard? “He believed he would lead France by leaving a delicate scent of soap in his elegant wake. This was to forget that people, like dogs, love the smells of the soldier (de Gaulle), the peasant (Pompidou), and even, troubled and adventurous, those released by Mitterrand. » And FOG adds that if VGE was de Gaulle le Petit, Macron looks like a Giscard le Petit. It promises §
“Franz-Olivier Giesbert. Intimate history of the Ve Republic. The good times “. Gallimard, 380 pages, €22.