Philippe and François Léotard, failed destinies

2023-04-25 15:15:00

Dn the TGV Nice-Paris which took François Léotard, in January 2021, to his own trial, a man in an alcoholic coma had to be exfiltrated urgently. Unexpected stop, delay, rising anxiety for the former minister, obviously fearing to arrive last in the courtroom… Alcohol, once again, came to complicate everything, as if his brother Philippe, this adored brother but to destructive alcoholism, still maliciously reminded him: the former Minister of Defense, who died on April 25, forever pursued by this brother who described himself, in a devastating reverse shot, as Minister of Stoned …

In March 2021, after a two-month trial, François Léotard was sentenced, in the so-called “Karachi” case of hidden financing of the 1995 presidential campaign, to two years in prison suspended and 100,000 euros. fine. He had, of course, announced his appeal in cassation, but the political destiny of the former golden-boy of the right obviously remained tainted, for a long time, by this story of corruption which had pursued him for years… Like that of his accursed brother was also, despite his immense talent, hampered by his addictions… Two brothers with failed destinies.

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Two faces of the small screen

Philippe, who would be 83 today, died in 2001. François, who died at 81, sometimes walked the streets of Fréjus, the city of which, like his father, he was mayor for twenty years. François had retired from political life the year Philippe died, as if he needed the distorted mirror held up to him by his brother in order to exist, as if, without his dissimilar elder, the great game of power was of no use. nothing more.

Their two faces, in the 1980s, are constantly displayed on the small screen, political section for one, arts and entertainment section for the other, two faces so different from each other that it is difficult to believe them brothers. François has rough-hewn features, hollow cheeks and close-cropped hair: the former seminarian has become one of the leaders of the Republican Party, he will be Minister of Culture, Minister of Defense, President of the UDF. Philippe, with soft features, curly hair, misty eyes and eyelids heavy with alcohol very early on, left his job as a French teacher to found the Théâtre du Soleil with Ariane Mnouchkine, and, now an actor, he is the darling of French cinema. . We see him in the films of Truffaut, Lelouch, Berri, Sautet, Pialat, Boisset… Alas, his repeated bites and his taste for self-destruction make him a cumbersome partner, who sows desolation on the sets and whom the insurers, soon, no longer want to cover.

Dislike and preferences

François and Philippe: each is like the absolute contradiction of the other and their curious face-to-face draws so much light that you would think they were only two. In fact, among the Léotards, they are seven children. Three brothers and four sisters all damaged, unloved by strange parents. The father, André, a senior official at the Court of Auditors, is a cultivated, distant and authoritarian character who only drives with gloves, never touches his children, speaks to them in a harsh, brittle tone. Antoinette is a strange woman, versatile, singularly lacking in maternal tenderness, and whom nothing else really worries except her husband, with whom she is very much in love.

André and Antoinette, both only children, form such a fusional couple that they could well be enough for each other. But fate gives them seven children, a sibling undermined by lovelessness and preferences. As Katia Chapoutier tells in the chapter she devotes to them in her book Siblings of power, the father is only interested in Mireille, his eldest daughter. As for Lili, the governess, who arrives permanently in the family at the time of François’ birth, she only loves him, the second of the boys, to whom she indulges all her whims. In appearance, the Leotard tribe is a family of bourgeois notables that could not be more ordinary. Behind the scenes, as Brigitte, the last, will reveal in 1995 in a terrible book (Little memory of a clan), chaos reigns…

The “Leo gang”

However, in this large and dysfunctional family, Philippe, the eldest of the boys, very quickly chooses his role: he is the one who will make his brothers and sisters laugh, who will bring life and spectacle, and who will conscientiously taunt, as soon as he can, this brittle father that none of the other children dares to contradict. Philippe advocates anarchy and disorder, goes against all the conservatism of his father, and sometimes even comes to blows with André. His younger brother, François, conversely seeks to escape the noise and family fury, willingly hides under tables to escape arguments, seeks calm, peace at all costs… This much desired silence, he will end up finding it. , at the abbey of Pierre-qui-Vire, where he will be a seminarian for a time.

The careers of the two brothers, political and artistic, take off at the same time. But Philippe, who has been drinking since adolescence, begins a deadly consumption of narcotics. During this slow descent into hell, punctuated by rare respites and frequent hospitalizations, François, his younger brother, never quite let go of his hand. It was difficult for the leader of what was then known as the “Léo band”, to embody power, order and the young, invigorating right when his own brother, an actor and now a singer, sometimes fell scene as he is so drunk, multiplies comas and overdoses, is often accompanied home by the police.

The press at the time constantly opposed the two brothers. But Philippe and François do not betray each other. Never have a word against each other. And, in the somewhat awkward book that the politician devoted to Philippe in 2003 (To my brother who is not dead), the former minister writes: “Because I’m going to explain to you, old […], the fights, the silly feeling that the girls, the sisters, would never understand anything about it, this virility which only flourishes because the father is not there, it is useless. It’s a war against time. You led her, you lost her. Like everyone else…” A phrase he seems to be addressing to his eldest as much, basically, as to himself… An epitaph to their two failed destinies.