Romain Rouillard (interview by Jacques Vendroux) / Photo credit: LUDOVIC MARIN / AFP 06:00, June 06, 2023

For a little over two years, Yannick Noah has been acting as village chief in a small Cameroonian town, which has since become a district of the capital Yaoundé. A form of homecoming for those who grew up in this equatorial African country. A new life of which he tells the daily life on Europe 1 in a new podcast.

Tennis champion, singer, captain of the Davis Cup France team and now village chief. A little over two years ago, Yannick Noah returned to live in Cameroon, the country in which he grew up after being born in Sedan in the Ardennes. It is in Étoudi, land of his ancestors and his childhood, attached since to the capital Yaoundé, that the former tennis player now resides. A village from which he inherited the status of chief after the death of his father in 2017. At the microphone of Europe 1, in a new podcast, the winner of Roland-Garros 1983 tells this new daily life to the local population.

In Etoudi, Yannick Noah represents a kind of pillar on which the inhabitants rely in case of problems and grievances. "The last resort for an interlocutor is to come and see the village chief. And if I can, I help him," he said. A tedious role that is not always possible to carry out. "It's infinite the grievances. Three-quarters of the time, I can't," concedes the main interested party.

"As long as they don't pay, they die"

Most of the time, the demands of the population are related to health problems. "We don't have the vital card here. There are people who do not have 300 euros to pay for an intervention. And as long as they don't pay, they die. That's how it is here," said the former champion. And to illustrate this daily life sometimes heckled with a concrete example. "I had a young cousin. At 2am, the (phone) network comes back and I see ten calls from his wife. He was dying because he didn't have 200 euros. If I had the message the next day, he was gone."

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In addition to these grievances, Yannick Noah must also ensure the material equipment of the village. "I brought in a container of wheelchairs, I distributed 35 that left in six months. I made a small infirmary, a mini-dispensary at home in the village for first aid, where I can give medicine to the grannies and grandpa who are there."

"Joakim is the heir"

A work of all times and a new status that was initially difficult to apprehend for the former captain of the Blues in Davis Cup. "I'm coming from Paris there. I was in New York for a long time and then all of a sudden, Dad leaves and I become a chef. I was always Yann, "uncle Yann", "dad Yann". And now it's "Majesty". Ok, well... I have to play the game," he said at the time. Regarding the future, Yannick Noah has already appointed the one who would succeed him at the head of the village. "Joakim is the heir, period. That's it. He's my eldest son, he's Joakim, he's spiritually connected to here. He was very close to Dad, as were all my children." A family tradition that the person concerned intends to see continue.