The people I met

1960s, for AFP

In the 1960s Che was far more than a Cuban minister: he was the face of a revolution that meant to win over the whole Third World, from Latin America to Africa. I interviewed him for Agence France-Presse, as my publisher Albin Michel recalled on the dust jacket of my first book in 1969. For a young wire reporter, getting that close to such a figure was a lesson in what this trade can offer: a place within reach of history. He was killed in Bolivia in October 1967.

1960s, for AFP

In the 1960s Richard Nixon was first of all Eisenhower's former vice-president, beaten by Kennedy in 1960, written off by many, travelling the world while he prepared his comeback. He entered the White House in January 1969. I interviewed him for AFP: the dust jacket of my first book, published that year, lists him among those I had questioned. In August 1974 I was anchoring the evening news on France's first channel in the very days he was forced out of office.

1960s, for AFP

Zhou Enlai was the diplomatic face of Mao's China: the man of the Bandung conference, the one who spoke to the world when Beijing was closed to almost everyone. In that decade, when de Gaulle's France recognised the People's Republic, putting questions to him was a rare privilege for a Western journalist. I did so for AFP, and the dust jacket of my first book, in 1969, records it.

Lomé (Togo), 24 November 1972, for the news on the ORTF's first channel

I followed Georges Pompidou on his official travels, from the United States in 1970 to Gabon in 1971. In November 1972, at the end of his tour of Upper Volta and Togo, he gave me an eight-minute interview in Lomé, broadcast on the evening news and preserved by the INA. Less than two years later, in April 1974, it was from the studio of "24 heures sur la Une" that I took French viewers through the week of his death.

1960s, for AFP

A hero of independence, Ahmed Ben Bella became in 1963 the first president of the new Algeria and one of the great voices of the Third World, before being overthrown in June 1965. I interviewed him for AFP, as the dust jacket of my first book recalls. For the wire reporter I then was, whose job was to tell the story of Africa's independence years, he embodied an era in which a whole continent was changing hands.

Senegal, in the 1960s for AFP, then January 1971 for the ORTF

I first interviewed him when I was AFP's correspondent in Senegal, in the early years of independence. I met him again in January 1971 for television, and the INA still holds that interview. Poet, grammarian, head of state: Léopold Sédar Senghor remains one of the most intelligent men I have ever had the chance to question.

Rome, during my years as TF1 correspondent (1977-1983)

A Resistance fighter, jailed and then exiled under Mussolini, Sandro Pertini was elected President of the Republic in July 1978, in the thick of the Years of Lead, and became one of the best-loved heads of state Italy has known. I interviewed him and devoted a programme to him for French television, one still cited in an Italian book published in 1985. My parents had fled fascism; he had fought it all his life.

Rome and Vatican City, 26 October 1978, for TF1

In May 1974 I was anchoring the evening news during the campaign that took him to the Élysée. Four years later I met up with him in Rome, ten days after the election of John Paul II: an audience with the new pope, the taking up of his stall as canon of the Lateran, talks with Giulio Andreotti. My report, with his statement, ran on TF1's eight o'clock news that same evening.

2 June 1970, filmed interview for French television, with Claude Manuel

In 1970 Nicolae Ceausescu passed in the West for the maverick of the Eastern bloc: two years earlier he had condemned the entry of Soviet tanks into Prague. On 2 June, shortly before his official visit to France, he received my colleague Claude Manuel and me for a filmed interview, broadcast on 15 June by both ORTF channels. The party daily, Scînteia, reported it. History would later reveal the other face of the man.

April 1970, interview for the news on the ORTF's second channel

Olof Palme had just become head of the Swedish government when I questioned him, in the spring of 1970, about his country's neutrality and about the "Swedish model" that then fascinated the whole of Europe. The interview was broadcast on 13 April 1970 and is held by the INA. Sixteen years later he was shot dead in a Stockholm street.

Rome, 3 May 1978, at the height of the Moro affair, for TF1

Aldo Moro had been in the hands of the Red Brigades for nearly seven weeks and Italy was tearing itself apart: should the state negotiate? Bettino Craxi, the Socialist leader, was one of the few to argue for a humanitarian way out. That is what he explained to me on 3 May 1978, for TF1. Six days later Moro's body was found in the boot of a car in the heart of Rome.

Port Harcourt (Nigeria), 30 July 1968, for AFP

I had just spent three days at the front when Colonel Adekunle received me at his headquarters in Port Harcourt. He assured me that the war was over as far as he was concerned, that he needed only two weeks to take Owerri, Aba and Umuahia, and he launched a violent attack on the Red Cross. Le Monde ran the interview on 31 July 1968, the very morning the French government took its stand on Biafra; the next day the US State Department summarised it in a cable to its embassies in Lagos and Paris.

Dakar, 1962, for AFP

This was the very first interview of my career. In the autumn of 1962 AFP posted me to Senegal, independent for two years, and in Dakar I found myself facing Lamine Guèye, president of the National Assembly, the man who had given his name to the 1946 law granting citizenship to the peoples of France's overseas territories. That day also produced the first photograph of my life as a journalist: I reproduced it in my 2023 book.

Senegal, January 1971, for the ORTF

In January 1971 I went back to Senegal for television. Alongside President Senghor stood a young prime minister appointed the year before: Abdou Diouf. I recorded a brief interview with him, which the INA has kept. Ten years later he succeeded Senghor as head of state.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

In 1984 Marguerite Yourcenar had been, for four years, the first woman ever elected to the Académie française. The author of "Mémoires d'Hadrien" and "L'Œuvre au noir" had built her work far from Paris, never yielding an inch to fashion. She is one of the thirteen figures who told me their story for my book on success: hers showed that one can reach the summit and remain entirely free.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

By 1984 Paul Bocuse was already a monument: three stars for nearly twenty years at his inn in Collonges-au-Mont-d'Or, near Lyon, and a reputation that had travelled the globe. He had brought chefs out of their kitchens and turned French gastronomy into an embassy. He fully belonged among the thirteen figures of my book on success: a craftsman who had become the face of a country.

Hollywood, August 1976, for TF1's eight o'clock news

In the summer of 1976 I shot a series of reports in Hollywood for TF1's eight o'clock news. The fourth, broadcast on 16 August, was devoted to Charlton Heston, who talked to me about his new film, "Midway". Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid: there in front of me, in the flesh, sat half the heroes of the big screen. The INA has kept the interview.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

In 1984 Maurice Béjart was directing the Ballet du XXe siècle in Brussels, the company he had founded in 1960. With "Le Sacre du printemps" and then his "Boléro", he had taken dance out of gilded theatres and filled sports arenas with it. That destiny, popular and demanding at once, is what I set out to understand when I interviewed him for my book.

Hollywood, August 1976, for TF1's eight o'clock news

I met him on a Hollywood set where a film starring the stuntman Evel Knievel was being shot. The report, with interviews of both Gene Kelly and Knievel, ran on TF1's eight o'clock news on 14 August 1976, as part of my summer series on Hollywood. The man of "Singin' in the Rain" and "An American in Paris": for a Frenchman, he was Hollywood in person.

Hollywood, August 1976, for TF1's eight o'clock news

Three years after "The Exorcist", which had terrified the whole world, Linda Blair was shooting the sequel. I interviewed her for my summer series on Hollywood, while she was out jogging. The INA keeps the report under the title "Rencontre avec Linda Blair".

Paris, September 1976, for TF1's eight o'clock news

In September 1976 Johnny Hallyday was rehearsing his new show at the Palais des Sports in Paris. I went to watch him at work and interviewed him for TF1's eight o'clock news, which ran the piece on 25 September. I was then head of arts and culture at the channel: from the Cannes festival to Hollywood, it was a year of show business.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

Baptiste in "Les Enfants du paradis": that was him. In 1984 Jean-Louis Barrault, with Madeleine Renaud, was running the Théâtre du Rond-Point in Paris, after a lifetime on the boards, from the Comédie-Française to the Odéon. He was among the thirteen in my book because he embodied a particular kind of success: that of a man who gave his entire life to the theatre.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

Famous at twenty, rich before thirty, Bernard Buffet had known everything painting can bring: glory, money, and then the disdain of critics who never forgave him his success. In 1984 the public remained loyal and Japan had given him a museum of his own. It was that destiny, adored and disputed, that I wanted to examine in my book on success.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

From "L'Impure" and "La Brute" onwards, Guy des Cars sold his novels by the million, in station kiosks as well as bookshops, while the critics looked down their noses. In 1984 he was one of the most widely read writers in France. His success, the most popular of all, had its place in my book: that of a storyteller who only ever wrote for his readers.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

His compressed cars caused a scandal; his expansions and his giant Thumb toured the museums. In 1984 César Baldaccini, the boy from the Belle de Mai district of Marseille, was one of France's most famous sculptors, and since 1976 the trophy of the French film awards had borne his name. I interviewed him for my book on success: his had started from a very long way down.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

In 1949, in Landerneau, a young Breton grocer started selling at wholesale prices. Thirty-five years later Édouard Leclerc headed one of the country's leading retail networks and was still crossing swords with every monopoly going, from petrol to books. Among the thirteen in my book he was the entrepreneur who started with nothing, the man who changed the way the French do their shopping.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

The year my book came out, Michel Legrand collected his third Oscar in Hollywood, for the music of "Yentl". The first two had rewarded "The Thomas Crown Affair" and "Summer of '42"; before them, "Les Parapluies de Cherbourg" and "Les Demoiselles de Rochefort" had set the whole of France singing. A French musician fêted in Hollywood: he fully deserved his place among the thirteen of "Ils ont réussi".

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

In Marseille in 1932 Paul Ricard created the pastis that bears his name, then in a few decades built one of France's great spirits groups. He also developed the islands of Bendor and Les Embiez and built, at Le Castellet, the motor-racing circuit named after him. In 1984, retired from business, he remained the model of the builder-boss, and it is as such that he appears in my book.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

In 1984 Professor Léon Schwartzenberg was one of the best-known cancer specialists in the country. With "Changer la mort", written with the journalist Pierre Viansson-Ponté, he had broken a taboo: telling patients the truth, talking about the end of life. His success was neither one of money nor of glory, and that is exactly why it belonged in this book.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

Every day on Europe 1, listeners in their thousands brought her their questions. Madame Soleil was so famous that President Pompidou himself once remarked at a press conference that he was not Madame Soleil. Whether or not one believes in the stars, her success was a social phenomenon, and that is why she is among the thirteen in my book.

Interview for my book "Ils ont réussi", France-Empire, 1984

To racegoers he was simply "the" jockey. In 1984 Yves Saint-Martin had dominated French racecourses for more than twenty years: champion jockey many times over, several times winner of the Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe. In my book he stands for sporting success, the kind that is decided at forty miles an hour on half a tonne of muscle.