2024-03-21 19:25:10
Nephew of François Mitterrand, he was appointed Minister of Culture from 2009 to 2012 in the government of François Fillon, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Former Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand, nephew of François Mitterrand, has died at the age of 76, his family announced to AFP.
“The former Minister of Culture passed away on Thursday March 21 at his Parisian home,” said the family press release, “he had been battling an aggressive cancer for several months.”
Frédéric Mitterrand, in turn cinema operator, television host-producer, documentary and film director, managed the Villa Medici in Rome before being appointed Minister of Culture from 2009 to 2012 in the government of François Fillon, under the presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy.
In February 2020, he was installed at the Academy of Fine Arts, in the chair previously occupied by actress Jeanne Moreau, in the cinema and audiovisual section.
“Bonsouââr”
Born on August 21, 1947 in Paris, Frédéric Mitterrand was the son of Robert Mitterrand, older brother of the former President of the Republic. After studying at Science-Po Paris, he managed a cinema in the 14 arrondissement in Paris, the Olympic, the premise for the creation of a network of arthouse cinemas which promoted the films of Bergman, Kurosawa and Ozu. .. and will ruin it. Ten years later, in 1981, he made his first film, entitled Love Letter to Somalia, about the end of the romantic passion he had with a collaborator.
The same year, the general public discovered him, a chic dandy with a very particular phrasing launching his famous “good evening”, strong and nasal, through the show that he hosted and produced on TF1, Etoiles et toiles, until 1986, date on which the channel is privatized. Frédéric Mitterrand then moved to the second channel, then called Antenne 2, to present several programs: Du Côt de Chez Fred, until 1991, Étoile Palace in 1990, C’est votre vie in 1993, Les Amants du siècle in 1993 or Caravane de nuit in 1994.
On television, he imposes his style with slow phrasing and sprinkled with circumlocutions as convoluted as they are lyrical.
“I had gone too far”
His long collaboration with the public service group, which became France Télévisions, is punctuated by programs such as Ciné-Club, Légendes du siècle, Les Aigles foudroyés, Mémoires d’exil, Les Nuits du ramadan and a memorable coup brilliance in 1990, when receiving the 7 d’or for best host for On the side of Fred’s, which had just been arrested, he put the award on the ground and said “That’s where the public service is”. He apologized to the channel the next day: “I had gone too far.” “I didn’t regret it, but I paid dearly for it,” he told Catherine Ceylac in Thé ou Café in 2016.
Passionate about cinema – from the age of 12, he appeared in the cinema alongside Michèle Morgan and Bourvil – he directed for the big screen, an adaptation of Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, in 1995. In 2005, he published La Mauvaise vie, autobiographical story, in which he speaks openly about his homosexuality and sex tourism in Thailand, of which he says he is fond.
Mucem, Philarmonie and Hadopi
Supported by Carla Bruni, he was appointed director of the Villa Medici in 2008, then Minister of Culture for Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009. “The truth is that I know Carla Bruni very little. Even if I know that she protects, we are not intimate. In fact, we have mutual friends, like the actress Farida Khelfa or Inès de la Fressange. (…) I know she said she was very proud of me. It made me happy because I never asked him for anything,” he told Le Parisien.
In this position, he notably confronted intermittent entertainment workers, had the Hadopi law adopted and led major projects, some launched before his arrival: the Mucem in Marseille or the Philharmonie in Paris.
“I don’t have much time left to try to make the life I’ve had and what I feel into something that defies death,” he confided to Marc-Olivier Fogiel in Le Divan in 2015. .
In April 2023, he confided that he was suffering from an illness without specifying its nature, referring to a “very tough fight” against it.
Tributes multiplied this Thursday evening upon the announcement of his death, including that of Jack Lang. The former Minister of Culture says he is “upset” by the disappearance of his “friend of over 60 years”. “I appreciated his lively intelligence, his caustic humor, his infinite tenderness, his rare kindness. Frédéric was both elegance and passion,” writes the president of the Arab World Institute.
Magali Rangin and Hugues Garnier with AFP
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