Stéphane Bern, edited by Alexis Patri 3:42 p.m., December 22, 2021

In "Historically yours", the program he co-hosts with Matthieu Noël, Stéphane Bern tells the story of the life of François Mitterrand, President of the Republic from 1981 to 1995, focusing on his relationship to mysticism.

Beliefs amplified over the years when he knew he was sick and condemned.

INTERVIEW

We are on December 31, 1994, under the gold of the Élysée Palace, in Paris.

François Mitterrand, the President of the Republic, sits in front of the tricolor and European flags, his face pale, his air solemn.

It is 8 pm, it is the moment for him to address his "dear compatriots", for the traditional televised greetings of the new year.

The President began his speech by recalling the event that kept all French in suspense the previous week: on Christmas Eve, a terrorist group took hostage the passengers and crew of an Air Algiers-Paris flight. France, before the GIGN forces intervened.

>> Find all the shows of Matthieu Noël and Stéphane Bern every day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

François Mitterrand then recalls the importance of solidarity between fellow citizens, like that of the fight against injustices.

Finally, it evokes the greatness of Europe and the primacy of the notions of Liberty and Equality.

But as the Head of State's speech draws to a close, he utters an enigmatic formula that has remained famous ever since: "Next year, it will be my successor who will send you his best wishes. Where I am, I will listen to him. , my heart full of gratitude for the French people who have entrusted their destiny to me for so long. And full of hope in you. I believe in the forces of the spirit. I will not leave you. "

17 years of presidential mandate

At the head of the country since 1981, this is indeed the last time that François Mitterrand sends his wishes to the French.

Because, after two presidential terms and as provided for in the Constitution, he will not be able to stand for the 1995 presidential election. Nearly five months later, on May 17, he is a right-wing man, the former Prime Minister and mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac, who will be elected head of state.

However, on that evening of December 1994, it was the President's state of health that gave his words a whole new dimension.

The French have known it for a few months, François Mitterrand is ill and knows he is doomed.

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Back in 1981. On May 10, at 8 pm, the face of François Mitterrand appears on all the televisions of households in France.

The first secretary of the Socialist Party, 64, has just been elected President of the Republic with 51.7% of the vote against the outgoing president and right-wing candidate, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

The onset of the disease, two months after his election

If some fear the arrival of Soviet tanks on the Place de la Concorde, at the headquarters of the PS rue de Solférino, as in the four corners of France, we are witnessing scenes of liesses.

To celebrate the victory, we brandish red roses.

Because for the first time in the history of the Fifth Republic, it is a man of the left who is preparing to lead France. 

 In June of the same year, the Socialists won an absolute majority in Parliament. The first major laws which appeared in the program of the candidate Mitterrand are adopted: creation of the tax on great fortunes, increase of the minimum wage, family allowances and the minimum old age. Soon, we will adopt the law on the abolition of the death penalty presented by the Minister of Justice, Robert Badinter. This victory of the left, a bearer of hope for many French people, is also sung by the immense Barbara.

But while François Mitterrand takes office in a comfortable position, misfortune strikes. In July 1981, only two months after his election, he suffered severe back and leg pain. In the greatest secrecy, the newly elected President undergoes a battery of examinations at the Parisian hospital of Val-de-Grâce. In November, the diagnosis falls, relentless: François Mitterrand is suffering from prostate cancer which has spread to the bones. The specialists do not give him three years. Himself affirms it: "I am screwed".

François Mitterrand is haunted by the memory of Georges Pompidou, swept away by an illness never made public, in 1974. The President was then in full mandate.

However, the socialist president decides to assume the presidential function and to knowingly hide his own evil from the French.

For more than 10 years, Mitterrand assumes a state lie, with the complicity of his doctors, who provide falsified health reports and promise silence.

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It is a sick man but standing who makes vote the fifth week of paid leave and the 39 hours, which is the first French head of state to go to Israel, which puts an end to the monopoly of the State on the radio and the television, or who seizes, in a historic gesture, the hand of the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, thus symbolizing the reconciliation between the two countries.

The President defies disease and all statistics.

In 1988, he represented himself and was re-elected.

But during all these years during which he assumes these high responsibilities, François Mitterrand tames the death that lurks around him.

François Mitterrand, a mystical being

In the shadow of his apartments, in the privacy of his library and his bedroom, the Head of State reveals a very singular spiritual depth ... Metaphysical questions run through him. He shares them with his friend, the psychologist Marie de Hennezel, who will reveal these intimate and profound exchanges in a book, 

Believe in the forces of the mind

. Aware that death will soon take him, he is fascinated by the mystery of the passage from being to nothingness, by the themes of the afterlife and the agony. It was also under his presidency that the very first French palliative care unit was opened.

 François Mitterrand is a mystical being, he is sensitive to the energies of the earth and places.

The President likes to go to cemeteries or slip incognito into the golden light of a Romanesque church.

It was in Vézelay, this "inspired hill" on the pilgrims' path to Saint Jacques de Compostela, that he made an important decision: that of running for the presidential election.

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In the middle of the pines of the Landes, listening to the songs of the monks of Taizé or on the side of Mount Sinai, in Egypt, Mitterrand feels the invisible forces of nature.

Agnostic, he is not convinced of the existence of God and the hereafter, but he likes to discuss the issue at length.

"If God exists, what is the word you would like him to welcome you with?"

One year to the day after his last presidential vows, François Mitterrand is still alive.

He is spending his last New Year's Eve in his house in Latche, in the Landes.

At 8 p.m., perhaps he is watching television, when his successor at the Elysee Palace, President Jacques Chirac, wishes the French a Happy New Year.

But a week later, on January 8, 1996, François Mitterrand died in his Parisian apartment on avenue Frédéric-le-Play. 

A few months before his death, when Bernard Pivot asked him "If God exists, what is the word by which you would like him to welcome you?", Mitterrand replied: "Finally, you know".

Is there life after death?

Since January 8, 1996, François Mitterrand may have known it ...