Guest of the program "En balade avec", on Sunday on Europe 1, the actor confides to the microphone of Frédéric Taddeï to have had the opportunity to meet several presidents of the Republic during his career. An anecdote, a great moment of embarrassment facing Nicolas Sarkozy, particularly marked him.

INTERVIEW

"I started small arms". The first President of the Republic whom Patrick Chesnais encountered was Alain Poher, who was acting in the interim after General de Gaulle, in 1969. At the time, the actor intended to obtain a "one-year stay" for the military service, in order to be able to carry out first projects at the theater. He was still unaware that the story would allow him to meet several other occupants of the Elysée ... with more or less hooked atoms, he confides on Europe 1 Sunday, in the program En balade avec .

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"I still do things for culture, right?"

For military service, it did not work: "Pompidou came to power two months later, and everything that came from his rival ..." Patrick Chesnais then met Jacques Chirac, through his daughter Claude. "He was funny, he was nice," he recalls. "As President of the Republic, it was softer. But when I knew him at the beginning, at the town hall of Paris, he liked to eat, drink well, mess around with his friends."

And then, the one who tells these anecdotes in Life is beautiful, I kill myself to tell you (Ed. L'Archipel) tells more about another meeting, experienced this time with Nicolas Sarkozy. "His staff invited me to come and listen to his speech on culture in the great hall of the Elysée." The speech finished, the President of the Republic approaches the actor and asks him: "I still do things for culture, right?"

"After a while, he left without saying anything"

"He felt the mistake he made after asking me the question," laughs Patrick Chesnais today. "I was not awake, I had barely listened to the speech, I was chatting with my friend Claude Rich who was there. (...) I did not know what to answer, even a noise, even a sound, nothing came and the wait continued, for a long time. I did not even sigh. I could have said: 'no you do nothing for the culture', even send it a little on the roses or be against it, or something..."

But the story ends there: the actor remained silent. "Nothing, not a breath!", He says. "After a while, he left without saying anything."