INTERVIEW
Journalism ... But in the form of a comic strip! The journalist Annick Cojean, great reporter for the newspaper Le Monde , publishes with Plon Steinkis a comic strip dedicated to Simone Veil, three years after his death, and which she co-signs with the scriptwriter Xavier Bétaucourt and the designer Etienne Oburie. Simone Veil or the strength of a woman sweeps the path of the one who obtained the legalization of abortion, but from a quite unexpected angle: Annick Cojean puts herself on stage, while she is charged by her editor in chief to write the obituary of Simone Veil, who has just disappeared.
"I got caught up in the game"
"The comic book allows you to reach another audience, young people in particular. I would like us to make Simone Veil a heroine, I think that it is, intrinsically, but I would like it to be obvious to everyone, in particular little girls ", explains Annick Cojean, at the microphone of Philippe Vandel, Tuesday in Culture Medias on Europe 1. However, there was no question that the format forced him to simplify his story. "It's the complexity that is interesting. In my reports I track down the complexity, nothing is schematic, black or white, it's in between. Could the comic strip allow me that? Yes!", assures the journalist.
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The comic begins on June 30, 2017. It was three years ago. When Simone Veil dies. Le Monde orders a paper from Annick Cojean, who has had the opportunity to meet several times with the former Minister of Health. "Something personal. Simone and you," we tell her. "It's a kind of making-of of an article. I am told of the death of Simone Veil and I have 15 hours to write an article," says Annick Cojean. "At first, I didn't think I would appear in the comic book, I had to be pushed so that I became a little character, who was moderately pleasant, and then I got caught up in the game."
"His eyes compelled us not to lie"
Because during her career, the journalist had the opportunity to forge a personal bond with Simone Veil, whom she met for the first time in 1979, at the end of a council of ministers. "She had a charisma, a strength and then that look!" Recalls Annick Cojean. "Her eyes forced us not to lie, we had to be clear, honest, sincere in front of her." Later, she will have the opportunity to interview him at length, notably for the summer series published in Le Monde , in which personalities were invited to speak about their parents.
Simone Veil, or the strength of a woman, also looks back at unknown moments in the career of the former President of the European Parliament. "It was not only the law on abortion, it was also necessary to speak about her childhood, of what she did when she was in the prison administration, in the civil administration, her work on the divorce and adoption, "says Annick Cojean.
And of course: his passage in the concentration camps, through the memory of a visit that the two women made, together, to the Auschwitz memorial. "It is obviously a fundamental moment, which changed everything," insists Annick Cojean. "This experience in the camps will determine the rest of his life, even if Simone Veil is proof that we can be resilient and that with a fortitude like hers we can rebuild."