Jean-Jacques Debout is one of those whose lives resemble that of a character in a novel. Invited to the microphone of Europe 1 for the program "There is only one life in life", the French author, composer and interpreter told anecdotes about his life and in particular about his meeting with the French criminal Jacques Mesrine, when they were both children and interns in a boarding school in Juilly, in Seine-et-Marne. Whoever became close to Johnny Hallyday then received a very rigid education from his father, optician of General De Gaulle, afraid of seeing his son not taking a traditional route. Jean-Jacques Debout is therefore sent, at 10 years old, to a boarding house in Juilly.
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It is in this religious establishment that Jean-Jacques Debout meets Jacques Mesrine. As a child, the future French criminal was already a rebel. "But I didn't realize it immediately," remembers the composer. Jean-Jacques Debout then recounts the birth of their friendship, on the school bus: "The bus starts, it looks at me and then it says to me 'How is your name?', I tell him 'My name is Jean- Jacques Debout '". Obviously, the future gangster does not believe it. And why not "Jacques seated?", He jokes. "Then he said to me: 'My name is Jacques Mesrine, there is an' s' but we don't pronounce it. But call me Jacky it'll be faster. And all my life I've called him Jackie", remembers Jean-Jacques Debout.
The Robin Hood of the pension
Jacques Mesrine, whose parents were very wealthy, asked his mother for money for the orphans of the pension, tells the man who was then one of his comrades. "We were not far from the last war and General de Gaulle had asked all the colleges of France to take in war orphans. And there were quite a few." Young Mesrine asked for money to buy orphans' kits, school bags and on Sundays, when his parents took him to lunch, he demanded that those who did not receive visitors accompany him, says his former comrade. Jacques Mesrine, a kind of Robin Hood? "Yes", answers Jean-Jacques. "He was great. He had assembled a football team and when he did not win he would go to the goalkeeper and kick him!"
The memories are linked and become clearer. Jean-Jacques Debout tells, at the microphone of Europe 1, their awakening at dawn, as choirboys. Mesrine took advantage of this to plunder the Church's funds and pay money to her gang. "He had a hairpin and he opened the trunks and took the coins, the 5 franc banknotes (...) and he gave it to the orphans", recalls his former partner.
"He made me Claude Luther"
Her first escape, Mesrine did her internship, "hiding in the suitcases", recalls the husband of Chantal Goya. "He had a godfather who was in the police, even he couldn't find him!" Among their adventures as young boarders, one particularly marked Jean-Jacques Debout: this time when Jacques Mesrine steals a clarinet from a traveling orchestra, to give it to his friend at the time. "He had made me Claude Luther (famous clarinetist editor's note)!".
Beginnings in music which materialize at the end of his studies. Jean-Jacques Debout then misses his certificate, leaves the boarding school and moves in with his grandmother who lives in Paris. She introduced him to the Music Hall. His artistic life begins.