2023-09-28 06:00:36
Writers Jean-Christophe Rufin and Amin Maalouf, at the Institut de France, in Paris, June 14, 2012. FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP
Monday September 25, Amin Maalouf was invited to dinner with Jean-Christophe Rufin, in the latter’s Parisian apartment, one hundred meters from 23, quai de Conti, where the French Academy is located, in the extension of the Pont des Arts . The two writers were to quietly discuss the succession of the historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, who died on August 5.
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The former ambassador wanted to wish good luck to his « Ami Amin »in the running since September 12 to succeed “the Tsarina” to the prestigious position of perpetual secretary of the Company. But Maalouf immediately withdrew when he learned, stunned, just a few hours before dinner, that his host had finally applied as a candidate too, after assuring him that he would not. Rufin took note: “We’re going to eat the big roast together, with my partner. »
In a few hours, an election decided in advance due to a lack of fighters turned into a fratricidal duel between two thirty-year-old friends: Amin Maalouf, a 74-year-old Franco-Lebanese writer, 1993 Goncourt Prize for The Rock of Taniosand Jean-Christophe Rufin, 71-year-old former doctor and diplomat, 2001 Goncourt Prize for Red Brazil.
Monday, the latter surprised all of his “colleagues” et “sisters” by sending your letter of application to the election dean, Pierre Rosenberg, just before the closing date for applications, set for Monday September 25 at midnight. In the preceding days, Rufin assured anyone who would listen that he had given up on running for succession to Carrère d’Encausse, who reigned over the Company for twenty-five years.
“Sorry for not offering you the expected gladiator show”he even said to Mondeon September 18, explaining that he “unplugged”tired of the campaign led against him by a handful of academicians, including the writer Marc Lambron, who deployed all summer to try to discredit his candidacy.
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“Not the vocation of a Saint Sebastian”
The State Councilor pell-mell criticizes his yesterday’s rival (Lambron was an unfortunate finalist at Goncourt against Rufin in 2001) his proximity to the chancellor of the Institute, Xavier Darcos, his links with TotalEnergie and Sanofi (for whom he worked), his “absenteeism” and his « intrigues » and a thousand “deceptions” encore. “Now I’m waiting for my tax slip in the newspapers…”the diplomat said ironically a few days ago, exasperated, adding that he had not “not the vocation of a Saint Sebastian”riddled with poisoned arrows.
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