Anne Lauvergeon recounts “her” Mitterrand to the purpose of denial | EUROtoday

Thirty years later, the affect of François Mitterrand (1916-1996) over his entourage nonetheless operates. Thus, Anne Lauvergeon, former CEO of Areva, who as we speak runs Anne Lauvergeon Partners, her consulting and funding firm, printed on Wednesday April 17, The promise (Grasset, 384 pages, 23 euros), impressionistic and grateful account of his 5 years spent within the wake of the previous socialist president.

One night in June 1994, François Mitterrand made the girl he had appointed secretary normal of the Elysée and “sherpa” – private consultant liable for getting ready worldwide summits – promise to “to one day write a book about these years, about our exchanges, about our conversations”. The younger girl, then aged 34, balks: there are such a lot of people who find themselves going to jot down their “Mitterrand and me”and even their “Me and Mitterrand”she protests. “Do this book in ten years, do it in twenty years. Do it when you want, but do it! Promise me you'll write it down.”tells him François Mitterrand, who feared oblivion, this second death “more tragic” than the primary, as a result of definitive.

The mining engineer, by her own admission, fumbled a lot before finding the time for the story, the tone, the method. A first publication was announced by Grasset in 2015, which was unsuccessful. She finally decides to go as simple as possible, to “bear witness to what I saw, the conversations we had, his way of working and his way of life”. But by refraining from judging or distancing oneself from the one who will nevertheless have left, after fourteen years at the Elysée, a contrasting record.

“Compartmentalization to the extreme”

This story ” workers “ depicts a Mitterrand ” shy “, “with impressive silences”, adept at rare speech without it being necessary to see the influence of the communicator Jacques Pilhan. Reluctant to worry about “small subjects”because a statesman does not have to “behave like an office manager at the Ministry of Finance”. Having known “elevating one’s delays to the rank of fine arts”but having difficulty supporting those of others. “Ah, there you are Jacques! We've been expecting you “, he stated, on the finish of the Rio summit in 1992, to the president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, who had simply joined him inside Concorde for Paris. Before turning away “to not converse to him once more throughout your complete journey”.

François Mitterrand organized his life “in boxes”, completely sealed from one another, testifies Anne Lauvergeon. Regularly invited to Sunday dinners, rue de Bièvre, round Danielle Mitterrand, she discovered from a “advisor to the Elysée press service” the existence of a hidden lady. “He achieved compartmentalization to the extreme. He knows how to arrive and leave a given circle without any other argument than “I have to leave”, “it is time” or “I am expected”, on days of nice prolixity”she describes.

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