Paris (AFP)
Emmanuel Macron greeted Friday Jean Daniel, a "huge journalist", "an example for a whole profession" and a "great conscience of the left", during a national tribute to the founder of the Nouvel Observateur who died last week at 99 years .
"Jean Daniel was a huge journalist, happened by accident in the ink bath of the press reinvented in these years by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber. He was one of the great figures of the profession," said the president of the Republic, welcoming the "few master strokes" which "enabled him to write his legend in capital letters".
"What made Jean Daniel a monument, an example for an entire profession, was above all his daily practice of the profession. This unique way of crossing the profession of journalist, love of letters and that of ideas", said he greeted.
Several members of the government, including the Minister of Culture Franck Riester, and personalities like Anne Hidalgo, Bernard-Henri Lévy or Lionel Jospin attended the ceremony. A text by Albert Camus, friend of Jean Daniel, was read, before the interpretation of a concerto for piano by Mozart. The French army choir sang "Le Chant des partisans".
It was the 9th tribute of Emmanuel Macron to the Invalides, after Simone Veil, Jean d'Ormesson, Charles Aznavour or Jacques Chirac.
The president hailed a "great conscience of the left, support of Pierre Mendès-France, fascinated by Mitterrand" which brings together "Sartre, Foucault, Barthes, Lévi-Strauss ... in the columns of the same newspaper, this common house to the entire left which was so dear to him, Le Nouvel Observateur ", a newspaper which" was of all the fighting, all the conquests, all the progress ".
He also paid tribute to the writer for whom "writing was more than a profession, it was a mission".
"Jean Daniel, in recent weeks you have often mentioned the editorial that you dreamed of writing for your 100 years, fate alas did not leave you the time (...) It is up to us to 'write the moved editorial of your farewell,' he said.
A great figure in journalism and the left, founder of the Nouvel Observateur who became the Obs where he was director of the publication until 2008, Jean Daniel died last Thursday.
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