Journalist François Debré, brother of Jean-Louis and Bernard, is dead

Journalist and former major reporter François Debré, one of the four sons of former Prime Minister Michel Debré, died at the age of 78, just hours after his brother Bernard, we learned from his daughter, the writer Constance Debré.

François Debré died at his home in Montlouis-sur-Loire, near Tours, on the night from Sunday to Monday, she told AFP.

His death came a few hours after that of his brother Bernard, urologist, former minister and former deputy, who died at age 75 from cancer.

After studying law, François Debré, 2nd son of Michel Debré, embarked on journalism, covering for newspapers, then television channels, conflicts on several continents, including the war in Biafra and the fall of Saigon.

A major reporter on TF1 from 1977 to 1981, he received the Albert-Londres Prize in 1977 for his book on the Khmer revolution, "Cambodia, the forest revolution".

Decades of opium and heroin addiction

We also owe him documentaries such as "Les trottoirs de Manille" (jury prize at the Monte-Carlo international festival), and novels including "The man of power", "The book of the lost", and "Thirty years of stay ".

In this biographical novel, he had recounted his decades of addiction to opium and heroin, the death of his wife, but also his differences with his family, especially on the political level.

He was also sentenced in 2011 to two months in prison suspended in the case of fictitious jobs of the mayor of Paris.