Paris (AFP)

Icon of French song, Juliette Gréco died Wednesday at the age of 93 after more than 60 years of a career where she interpreted the greatest, from Vian to Prévert, via Aznavour and Gainsbourg.

"Juliette Gréco passed away this Wednesday, September 23, 2020 surrounded by her family in her beloved house in Ramatuelle. Her life was out of the ordinary," the family said in a text sent to AFP.

"She was still making French songs shine at 89," she added.

Until the stroke (cerebrovascular accident) which had struck her in 2016, when she also lost her only daughter Laurence-Marie.

Until recently, the one who also triumphed on television in the series "Belphégor" in 1965, proclaimed her unconditional love of song.

"I miss it terribly. My reason for living is to sing! Singing is total, there is the body, the instinct, the head", she said in an interview published in July in the weekly Télérama.

Born February 7, 1927 in Montpellier, she began her career in the post-war period, in a liberated Paris where the very young woman then seduced, by her beauty and her spirit, the intellectuals and artists of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. .

"Saint-Germain has lost its muse. Saint-Germain existed through Juliette. Saint-Germain is in mourning and weeps for her. I am very sad. Juliette was an interpreter even more than a singer. She said the poets", declared Line Renaud at AFP.

- "Transgressive" -

On stage, Juliette Gréco first sings Raymond Queneau or Jean-Paul Sartre to whom she owes her first successes, "Si tu t'imagines ..." and "La Rue des Blancs-Manteaux".

From 1954, it was the consecration with a first visit to the Olympia.

Over time, she broadens her repertoire with Prévert, Desnos, Vian, Cosma.

Or Charles Aznavour who signs "I hate Sundays", Léo Ferré his "Pretty kid" or Serge Gainsbourg who offers him "La Javanaise".

"She was elegance and freedom. Juliette Gréco joined Brel, Ferré, Brassens, Aznavour and all those she interpreted at the Panthéon de la chanson française. Her face and her voice will continue to accompany our lives. The + muse of Saint-Germain-des-Prés + is immortal ", reacted Emmanuel Macron on Twitter.

Much more recently, the one who survived the fashions also sang Olivia Ruiz and Benjamin Biolay, or Miossec, who wrote her very last song, "Merci", presented in 2015, the year she began her farewell tour.

"My favorite is obviously the song + Undress me +", commented on RTL the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot.

"Juliette Gréco makes a whole masterpiece, she has made a masterpiece of her life and this transgressive song is the symbol of this code breaker, of this image breaker," he said. -she adds.

A "Undress me" that she still sang while celebrating on stage in Paris, at the beginning of 2016, her 89 years: "I shouldn't sing it, I know, I know but I will do it", she said then, mischievous, at the Théâtre de la Ville, where she premiered this song in 1968.

"Juliette was a very great lady of French song, iconic of the Paris of Saint-Germain-des-Près. She is a wonderful and fabulous performer who is leaving us," singer Mireille Mathieu told AFP.

Divorced from actor Philippe Lemaire, father of his only daughter, then from actor Michel Piccoli, Juliette Gréco married in 1988 her pianist and arranger Gérard Jouannest, who died in 2018.

"Juliette, my heart is heavy but it becomes lighter thinking of Gérard's wriggling to find you", commented singer Olivia Ruiz on Instagram before adding, "Thank you miss. For everything".

© 2020 AFP