Lumio (France) (AFP)

"It was really a very good start": fifty relatives attended Monday in the cemetery of the small village of Lumio, in Haute-Corse, the burial, near the sea, of the humorist and actor Guy Bedos , died May 28 at age 85.

Nicolas Bedos, the younger son of the humorist had revealed, in a moving letter read on France Inter, the tone that would take on this Corsican funeral after the ceremony Thursday at the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés: "On takes you off to Corsica, to this village that gives you a little bit of your Mediterranean from Algiers. We will sing with Izïa and the Tao, from Higelin, Trenet, Dabadie and Nougaro. We will make you violins, melodrama a capella: you should not put your grief aside after leaving an actor. "

And it is indeed in songs and under a beautiful sun that the hour-long ceremony took place Monday afternoon, between tears and smiles, starting with the Dio Vi Salve Regina, the Corsican anthem, sung by three women, AFP journalists found.

Then Izïa Higelin, a capella, sang two songs including "Calvi", from her album "Citadelle".

The Corsican singer Patrizia Poli succeeded her before a magnificent and joyful "Bella ciao" interpreted by Tao-By, figure of the bar "Chez Tao", Mecca of Calvese nights installed in the heart of the citadel of Calvi where Johnny Hallyday, Michel Sardou , Jacques Higelin and Guy Bedos in particular had their habits.

The songs were greeted by the applause and the smiles of the humorist's relatives gathered around his widow Joëlle Bercot, her daughter Victoria and her son Nicolas. The comedian Muriel Robin or the actresses Doria Tillier, close to Nicolas Bedos, and Véronique Genest were also present.

"It was really a very good start," said Véronique Genest, saying "an extremely moving and funny ceremony" with "tender moments". "I think she looked like Guy, she was pretty unconventional," she added.

White roses and immortals, small yellow and fragrant flowers very present in the Corsican scrub, were then thrown on the coffin and Nicolas Bedos made a sign of goodbye to his father and sent him a kiss before a final volley of applause.

A hundred onlookers were present to pay a final tribute to the humorist and waited at the entrance to the cemetery.

© 2020 AFP