One day, he returned from a funeral at the Invalides anxious and nervous. Was it the music played by the organist or the tribute speeches that had terrified him? On this, the versions differ according to the narrators, almost all former collaborators of Jack Lang. Be that as it may, the president of the Institute of the Arab World (IMA) had just returned from one of those grandiose and sinister funeral ceremonies, which regularly punctuate political life and his own since his former companions recently disappeared. little. “If I die one day, I surely don’t want something like that”, he launched to his collaborators, prohibited. “If I ever die”, as if it were an uncertain hypothesis. In the midst of Covid-19, all of its employees wore a mask. Not him. “But in the end, no virus would want to attack me”he said, laughing in the face of danger.
At 83, Jack Lang would like to begin a new three-year term after a decade at the head of the IMA. Monthly salary of 10,000 euros, trips to the Orient and certain cultural prestige. The decision whether or not to sign his renewal is up to the President of the Republic, before being validated by the establishment’s board of directors, made up of seven Arab ambassadors (Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Qatar) and seven personalities chosen by the Quai d’Orsay, including the head of TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanné. It is expected for Monday March 6, unless Emmanuel Macron lets things drag on, as he has already done for the appointments at the head of the Louvre, the Villa Medici or Versailles.
“I don’t want to seem like I’m hanging on. But it’s true that I want to continue what I started. Not necessarily a whole term, maybe one or two years”, said Jack Lang, before pointing out that, “at the same time, three years is not eternity”. He therefore requested in writing an audience at the Elysée, without obtaining an answer, before being received by the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak.
From his office overlooking Paris, Jack Lang shows the messages praising him and holds out his cell phone so that Stanislas Nordey’s text message can be read. “I read the newspapers a little… Age doesn’t matter. The world is teeming with young imbeciles, wrote the director. What you did with IMA is similar to what you did before: it worked because you have the curiosity and enthusiasm of a young man! The maturity of a man full of experience and wisdom, but also the impatience, the rage of a child. » Just below is Lang’s response, who suggests he write it in a newspaper op-ed…
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