The journalist Pierre Péan, an experienced investigator with the favorite subjects of Africa, the media and the dark side of political figures, including the troubled past of former Socialist President François Mitterrand during the Nazi occupation, died Thursday, announced Obs .
Christophe Nick, author with Pierre Péan of an investigation on TF1 in 1997, also announced this death on his Facebook page: "It is terrible.The Boss, Pierre Péan, my friend, left tonight." "Pierre Péan, the great investigative journalist, died Thursday evening July 25 at the age of 81," wrote for his part L'Obs on its website, greeting "one of the greatest investigative journalists French".
Pierre Péan became known with his long-term surveys, which he published at the rate of one book every one or two years. His master stroke, he realized in 1994 with a French youth: François Mitterrand 1934-1947 ", in which the socialist president explains for the first time his belonging to the right Petainist who would engage France in collaboration with the Nazi occupier, before his action in the Resistance.
Bokassa's diamonds
Never afraid of polemics, he will also investigate Jacques Chirac, Bernard Kouchner or Jean-Marie Le Pen. In 1979, this son of a hairdresser from western France, who had started in ministerial cabinets in Gabon before embarking on journalism, passing through AFP and then the weekly L'Express , went out in Duck chained his first big deal. These are diamonds that Emperor Bokassa of Central Africa offered to French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. The scandal will have a great impact at two years of the presidential election.
In 1983, this third-worldist in the soul publishes African Affairs , on the relations between France and Gabon. He will come back to African subjects with the Rwandan genocide (in Black fury, white liars in 2005), where some of his remarks about Tutsis will be controversial. "My method is exclusively based on time, explained the one who was also interested in the major media with his book TF1, a power (with Christophe Nick) and his investigation The Hidden Face of the World (2003, with Philippe Cohen) which puts the reputation of the most respected French daily.