“My dad is black, my mom is white”. Yannick Noah has his roots in Sedan in France, where he was born. And in Etoudi, the Cameroonian village which saw him grow up and of which he is today the chief in Africa. In the podcast “Yannick Noah, between you and me”, the French champion says: “I remember the fact that all of a sudden, we moved here [NDLR : au Cameroun] in countryside. Dad didn’t want to come because then and still now, when you’re African, the goal is to go to Europe, or abroad, to be able to make a living and send money to family…”
Zacharie Noah, the father of the ex-tennis player, was 26 when he ended his career as a professional footballer after serious injuries, and decided to take his family to his native Cameroon. For the Noahs, it’s a radical change of life. But during the school holidays, the family goes back to the Ardennes, to Aiglemont more precisely, in the suburb of Charleville-Mézières.
At the time, Zacharie Noah was a real figure in Sedan sport. He was part of the team that won the Coupe de France in 1961. And it was in this city that he first crossed paths with Marie-Claire Perrier, his future wife. “It was thanks to football that dad met mom,” recalls Yannick Noah. When the Noah family returned for the holidays to Sedan in those years, “mom was at home”, says Yannick Noah again, who also discovered at that time “the affection that the Sedan people had for dad”.
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With his sisters, every summer, Yannick Noah discovers the Ardennes through his child’s eyes. He still says: “We were coming from Cameroon, where it is hot all the time, and all of a sudden it was cold and we had to put on a jacket… There were wild strawberries, gooseberries. We made fern huts. For us, it was a party.”
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After having traveled all over the world, Yannick Noah still speaks today of his native Ardennes with great emotion. “I never said to myself in my childhood: ‘This is great.’ Over time, I tell myself that there are plenty of little-known places like that in France. The Ardennes, whether it’s the French Ardennes or the Belgian Ardennes, it’s wonderful.” And he adds with humor, at the microphone of journalist Jacques Vendroux: “And I’m not talking to you about the beer from La Meuse, which I love, it’s the best in the world…”
To listen in full to Yannick Noah’s intimate and rare account of the highlights of his life, find the podcast “Yannick Noah, between you and me” on your favorite listening platform.