France: death of Frédéric Mitterrand, former Minister of Culture with a “bad life”
Former French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand died Thursday March 21 in Paris, at the age of 76, after a battle of “
several months against aggressive cancer
,” his family announced to AFP. Nephew of former President François Mitterrand and minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, this unclassifiable personality, a great film buff, indicated in April 2023 that he was “
sick
”, without saying more.
Former French Minister of Culture, Frédéric Mitterrand, is photographed on December 8, 2015 at the Élysée presidential palace in Paris. © Stéphane de Sakutin / AFP
By: Siegfried Forster Follow
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Evoking his “
immense sadness
” , Nicolas
Sarkozy
paid tribute on
“
He was an enthusiastic and passionate Minister of Culture, who carried out his duties with panache and talent. He will leave his films, his books, his broadcasts as so many testimonies of his love for art and culture
,” he added.
There is poetic sensitivity and human drama. In
Madame Butterfly
, his sublime 1995 adaptation of Giacomo Puccini's opera, Frédéric Mitterrand brings out the candor and sincerity of Madame Butterfly, doomed to a tragic destiny.
Frédéric Mitterrand had several lives, professional and otherwise, before giving a title of nobility to his first name. Often felt torn between his fascination with General de Gaulle and the social pressure to be loyal to his uncle, he long called himself "
the fag nephew
" of the former President of the Republic
François Mitterrand
. Among the general public, Frédéric Mitterrand has long remained this “
bad boy
” that he portrayed in his book
La Bad Vie
, published in 2005.
For his merits and risk-taking as a screenwriter, writer, actor, cinema operator and director of documentaries and films, he was highly appreciated by part of the artistic and cultural community. Jovial in nature and endowed with both a certain charisma and pragmatism, Frédéric Mitterrand was in charge of television animation-production as well as the management of the prestigious Medici city. It was this position in Rome that allowed him to take off in the political spheres, pushing
Nicolas Sarkozy
to entrust him with the Ministry of Culture in 2009.
Legacy at the Ministry of Culture
Faced with the immense cultural heritage left by his uncle François Mitterrand – the French National Library, the Louvre pyramid or the Arab World Institute, in particular – Frédéric Mitterrand's assessment does not weigh very heavily.
This is reflected in his own book
La Récréation
, published in 2013. In this diary of the three years spent as minister, he gives the impression of a man more occupied by his sexual impulses than by culture. Apart from the decision to return to Egypt fragments of wall painting from an Egyptian prince's tomb kept in the Louvre and his support for the restitution of Maori heads, the name of Frédéric Mitterrand does not resonate very strongly in the history of the ministry.
Once at the ministry, the controversy around
The Bad Life
Worse, from the start of his ministerial mandate, his novel
Bad Life
stuck to him. Sold more than 200,000 copies, the publication in 2005 did not cause a scandal. But, once Frédéric Mitterrand entered the political arena, accusations of “
sex tourism
” with “
minors
” multiplied against this openly homosexual man and father of three children, including an illegitimate son born in 1981 and two sons (born in 1989 and 1991) adopted in
Tunisia
.
Frédéric Mitterrand initially claims
La Bad Vie
as an autobiographical story. Then, once the controversy broke out, he continued both to accept and to regret his recourse to male prostitution in the brothels of Bangkok: he however refused the accusation of pedophilia, ensuring that "
the boys
" mentioned in the book were all over 18 years old.
In recent years, his commitment to his friend Roman Polanski, a filmmaker on the run from American justice after several accusations of rape by women who were then minors, has only worsened Frédéric Mitterrand's sulphurous reputation.
From the big screen to the small screen
Born on August 21, 1947 in the very bourgeois 16th arrondissement of Paris, Frédéric Mitterrand accumulated contradictions from an early age. His father is a polytechnic engineer and senior civil servant. His mother, niece by marriage of the co-founder of a clandestine far-right, anti-communist and anti-Semitic organization, La Cagoule, founded by dissidents from Action Française.
This did not prevent Frédéric, at the age of 12, from making an appearance in
Fortunat
, a film by Alex Joffé about the Occupation in France, alongside actors Michèle Morgan and André Raimbourg, known as Bourvil.
Graduated from Sciences Po Paris in 1968, he tried his luck as operator and owner of a cinema, the Olympic. He became one of the first to show films by Ingmar Bergman, Akira Kurosawa and Yasujirō Ozu on the big screen in France.
But his adventure of creating a real network of around ten “ art house
” cinemas
ended with two results: great respect from the profession for the quality of its programming and an equally large financial debt. The latter forced him to sell his small cinema empire in 1986.
In the same year, he also established himself on television thanks to his show on cinema,
Étoiles et toiles
. He continued on the small screen with the shows
Acteur Studio
,
Permission de nuit
,
Destins
and
Du Côt de Chez Fred
. The latter, which had become cult, was stopped by the management of the Antenne 2 channel in 1991. But he immediately received the
7 d'or prize,
which rewards small screen shows, as best host. During the ceremony, he gave his speech, placed his trophy on the ground, then took offense by saying: “
This is where the public service is
”.
Despite this passage, Frédéric Mitterrand remains in high demand on television and occupies several positions in the country's cultural institutions, particularly in the field of cinema. From 2003 to 2005, he became deputy general director in charge of programs and the antenna of TV5 before hosting the show
It happened like that
on the LGBTQ+ channel Pink TV .
From the Academy of Fine Arts to coronavirus and cancer
After the end of his mandate as Minister of Culture in 2012, he remained rather discreet. In 2018, Frédéric Mitterrand was again called to present a ten-episode program:
Writer at the Peril of War.
In February 2020, he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts, in the chair of the cinema and audiovisual department: the latter had previously been occupied by the actress Jeanne Moreau.
Last November, he published with Robert Laffont Editions
A Funny War
, a book telling the story of the fight of his brother Jean-Gabriel Mitterrand and his family against the coronavirus, caught in March 2020. It is not the coronavirus caught during a Christmas celebration, but a “
several months’ fight against an aggressive cancer
” which prevailed.
“
The death of Frédéric Mitterrand upsets me. A friendship of more than 60 years linked us with unalterable affection. Throughout his life he served the arts with passion, erudition and love. Our common loyalty to François Mitterrand united us deeply
,” reacted former Socialist Minister of Culture Jack Lang on X (ex-Twitter).
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