Mitterrand’s secrets still fascinate France 25 years on

PARIS: “It’s not death that scares me, but not being alive,” said Francois Mi errand the day he passed away on Jan 8, 1996, eight months a er stepping down as France’s president.

But a quarter of a century later the enigmatic leader they called ‘ The Sphinx’ still fascinates France – in particular, the bombshell revelations about his illegitimate daughter and the illness he kept hidden as a ‘state secret’ for 11 years.

Double life

During his two terms in office France’s first Socialist president had overseen the end of the death penalty, the decriminalisation of homosexuality and grand architectural projects that remade the capital.

An ailing Mi errand spent his last days in Paris bedridden in his apartment near the Eiffel Tower.

His entourage knew it was the end.

The 79-year-old had stopped eating and ended his treatment for advanced prostate cancer.

Weeks earlier Mi errand had spent his final Christmas in Egypt with Mazarine Pingeot – a young woman who, the French public had learned a year before, was his daughter from a decadeslong affair.

Over the New Year Mi errand was back with his ‘official’ family – his wife Danielle and their two sons, Jean-Christophe and Gilbert – at their country home in the southwestern Landes region.

On the night of Jan 7, Danielle came to visit Mi errand in the apartment where he was staying with Anne Pingeot, his mistress of more than 30 years.

Anne held his hand till the end. He died peacefully in the early morning of Jan 8.

The doctor then called Danielle.

The government confirmed his death at 10.55am and AFP broke the news: ‘Mi errand is dead’.

Jacques Chirac, French president at the time, cancelled his appointments while radio stations and television channels interrupted their schedules.

The statesman

Visitors flocked to the apartment. Politicians, artists and friends all came to pay their respects and see Mi errand’s body lying in a dark room beneath an engraving of Venice.

Outside, the public laid flowers.

Tributes flooded in for the ‘great statesman’, and his ‘courage’ confronting a cancer he had for the whole 14 years he spent in power in the Elysee Palace.

German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who 10 years earlier had held hands with Mi errand in a landmark gesture of reconciliation between the two countries at a ceremony in Verdun, mourned the passing of a ‘faithful friend’.

Hidden illness

Rumours of Mi errand’s double life had run a long time, but the truth was only revealed to the public in 1994 with a photo scoop on the cover of ParisMatch magazine showing the president with a young woman who looked a great deal like him.

She was, the public discovered, Mi errand’s daughter Mazarine from his affair with Anne.

At Mi errand’s funeral, the two lives came together dramatically.

Jan 11 was a day of national mourning. Flags at half mast, a minute’s silence in schools, the ceremony broadcast live from Notre-Dame with 60 heads of state or government from Kohl to Fidel Castro in a endance.

But all this was eclipsed by what happened at the private ceremony in Jarnac, Mi errand’s native town in the southwest Charente region.

Here Mi errand’s two families walked side-by-side to the cemetery – Danielle with her two sons, Anne and Mazarine.

When Danielle took Mazarine in her arms, the image went

Francois was the father of my sons, I was his wife. As for Mazarine, she is her father’s daughter and that’s it. Danielle Mi errand

around the world.

“Francois was the father of my sons, I was his wife.As for Mazarine, she is her father’s daughter and that’s it,” said Danielle.

More secrets

Days later, more revelations. Paris-Match on Jan 16 published an unauthorised photo of Mi errand on his deathbed with extracts from a new book by a former doctor claiming Mi errand had ‘cancer that had spread to the bones’ as early as

1981 when he was first elected president.

The public had only been told of the prostate cancer in 1992.

For his last six months in the Elysee, he was ‘no longer capable of governing’, the doctor said.

Politicians on all sides slammed the violation of medical confidentiality.

But the media called out ‘cheating’ in the president’s health reports.

The family sued and the book was banned. — AFP

In this file picture taken on Jan 11, 1996 shows relatives of François Mi errand (le to right), Danielle Mi errand (with the white scarf), Jean-Christophe Mi errand, Mazarine Pingeot, Anne Pingeot, Gilbert Mi errand and Adrien Mi errand pay their last respects to him, in front of his coffin covered with the French flag on the Place du Chateau in Jarnac during his funeral.

In this file photo taken on Jan 3, 1994 Mi errand reviews Republican Guards in the court of honour at the Elysee Palace in Paris, before receiving the government’s wishes for the new year.

In this file photo taken on May 21, 1981 former French president Valery Giscard d’Estaing (le ) is about to shake hands with Mi errand before leaving definitely the Elysee Palace during the handover ceremony.

— AFP photos In this file photo taken on May 8, 1981 candidate of the Socialist Party for the presidential elections Mi errand, delivers a speech during a rally in Epinal.

In this file photo taken on Jan 11, 1996 a woman lays a rose on the tomb of late Mi errand in the cemetery of Jarnac.

In this file photo taken in January 1947 Mi errand poses in his office in Paris.