INTERVIEW
He worked for Politis, Le Parisien, L'Express, Le Monde, France Inter, RTL, France Info, Europe 1, Canal + or LCI .... During his career, the journalist Jean-Michel Aphatie, who just published I have an accent, so what? chez Michel Lafon, co-written with Michel Feltin-Palas, the editor-in-chief of L'Express, interviewed his share of political figures. Guest of Anne Roumanoff, Friday on Europe 1, he returns to those with which he has enjoyed exchanging ... or not.
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"Alain Juppé had the respect to answer the question you asked him"
If Jean-Michel Aphatie remembers some interviews under tension, in general, "it always went well" he assures. In particular with François Fillon, with whom he "always enjoyed working". Ditto for Alain Juppé: "You asked him a question, he answered. (...) He had the respect to answer the question you asked him", he notes. "I have known others who did not have this respect ...", quips the journalist, without giving further details.
The editorialist also remembers a policy "very amusing in its great period": Nicolas Sarkozy. "He was a political athlete (...). Nicolas Sarkozy in great shape ... you had to be awake," he said.
François Hollande and his broken down car
But Jean-Michel Aphatie also has in memory "liars", whose "list is very long", as, according to him, François Hollande. And the journalist to tell an anecdote, dating from the time when he was First Secretary of the Socialist Party. Five minutes before an interview, the politician still does not answer the phone. When he finally picked up, "he has the voice of someone who's woken up by the phone, you know, those hoarse voices," he recalls.
A little annoyed, the journalist said to him: "Hello François Hollande, so the alarm did not ring this morning". To which François Hollande responds: "Not at all, it was my car that broke down". "I found it too funny," he remembers still amused. "At the end of the interview, I said to him on the air: 'You know what you have to do now François Hollande?'. He does not understand well and says to me: 'No, what I have to do? '.' Repair your car '. He had already forgotten that it had broken down. "