Hallyday rocks French charts from beyond the grave

JOHNNY HALLYDAY, France’s answer to Elvis Presley, has proved that death has not diminished his power to sell records after his posthumous album became an instant hit, selling 300,000 copies on its first day of release.

Fans of Hallyday, whose death last December at the age of 74 plunged the country into mourning, queued outside record stores to get their hands on the album when it went on sale at one minute past midnight on Friday.

Warner, his label, said the sales figure did not include downloads from streaming platforms.

The album – Mon Pays c’est L’Amour (My Country is Love) – is likely to become one of the biggest hits ever for Hallyday, who in his lifetime sold 110million albums in a 60-year career.

Its release was delayed by several months amid a bitter inheritance feud between Laura Smet and David Hallyday, his two biological children, and Laeticia, 43, his fourth and last wife.

The singer left his entire estate to Laeticia, and their adopted daughters, Jade and Joy, but nothing to his two eldest children from previous relationships.

Ms Smet and David Hallyday also took legal action to demand the right to oversee the production of the new album of 10 songs, but a court rejected their suit and it was Laeticia who took control of the record.

On Friday said she had been trying to negotiate with the pair.

“We are trying (but) it is complicated, because a lot of things have been orchestrated,” she said. “There is a lot of hate, contempt, humiliation, lies, which hurts. It’s difficult to hear, it’s difficult to suffer that,” she told TF1 television.