The Belgian poet and singer Julos Beaucarne, who for half a century denounced all injustices in committed texts, died this weekend in Belgium at the age of 85.
His disappearance provoked many reactions throughout the French-speaking world.
"A rebel with a broad heart", headlined Monday the newspaper
La Libre Belgique
, while
Le Soir
celebrated this "citizen of the Universe" having "carried high the colors of tolerance, justice and love".
In Quebec, this humanist artist with 49 albums and the eternal rainbow sweater was considered "the Walloon Vigneault".
In France, the country of his beginnings, he was so successful that he was a regular at summer festivals for a long time.
"The most inspiring Walloon songwriter"
On Twitter, the Francofolies festival in La Rochelle paid tribute to him on Sunday by recalling that he had performed there for the first time at the age of 75, in 2011, "sold out".
"He leaves us his words, his poetry and this precious injunction: 'I think with all my strength that you have to love each other right through" ", added the direction of the festival.
"Julos Beaucarne was indisputably the most inspiring Walloon songwriter," reacted for his part the former Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo, president of the Walloon region.
Born in June 1936 in Brussels, raised in the Walloon countryside in Ecaussines (South), Beaucarne has always remained faithful to his origins.
He sometimes sang in Walloon dialect.
In his texts, he denounces pell-mell police violence, the plundering of the wealth of the Third World, Western imperialisms with the assassination of the Congolese independence leader Patrice Lumumba or that of the Chilean singer Victor Jara (
Letter to Kissinger
, 1977).
The honors of the Charles Cros Academy in 2012
In 1974, his sixth album "Front de liberation des Trees Fruitiers" became a gold record.
The title marks its opposition to European measures that it considers harmful for the environment.
Three years before the release of his first 45, it was in 1961 that his career as a singer began, in Provence (south of France).
"To pay for the repair of his car" he performed that summer with his guitar in village squares, the Belga press agency recalled.
He often returned to Provence and owned a house in the Vaucluse.
In 2012, the singer had received in France the honors of the Charles Cros Academy with a prize for the whole of his career.
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Disappearance
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