Alain Maneval, who was press officer for Iggy Pop, host of cult TV and radio shows or even head of Arte, died at the age of 69 from bone cancer, his family said. Thursday March 10. This media man, smuggler of pop, rock, punk and even rap music, died in Fontaine-les-Coteaux (Loir-et-Cher). There was “hospitalized at home in palliative care“, we said from the same source.
Alain Maneval once publicized his HIV status and made a documentary Live positive. The cremation will take place on March 18 at 10:30 a.m. at the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
His journey is exceptional. Born in Saint-Etienne, Alain Maneval left for Paris at the age of 17 to try his hand at acting. Chance encounters led him to be press attaché in London for the Heartbreakers, an American punk band of Johnny Thunders. He was also the press officer in France for Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.
He also slipped into the free radio circuit in France – such as, among others, the legendary Carbone 14 – before reaching a larger audience at the end of the 1970s with “PO-GO”, a musical program on Europe 1 which it will animate in a punk spirit. In “Arditube”, a program by Thierry Ardisson, he told of being fired from Europe 1 after calling for a boycott of Shell (one of the station’s advertisers) following the oil spill triggered by the sinking of the ‘Amoco Cadiz in 1978, which he had witnessed during a weekend on a Breton island.
In 1982, Alain Maneval received Laurent Sinclair from Taxi Girl in Megahertz
In 1982, he hosted the “Grande nuit rap” at the Hippodrome de la Porte de Pantin as part of the “New York City Rap Tour”, the first tour in France of the pioneers of American hip-hop, graffiti artists, break dancers, rappers and DJs, organized by Europe 1, and which marked the arrival of hip-hop in France.
The “dandy rock”, as he was nicknamed, then moved towards television, hosting in the 80s the musical programs “Megahertz” on TF1 and “Tam-tam” on TV6 (ancestor of M6), introducing many underground groups and a part of counter-culture to millions of teenagers.
Then he will become director of programs for Arte. He will also oversee the creation of Morocco’s first pay-TV channel, 2M. In the 2000s, he returned to the radio box on France Inter.
Many media personalities paid tribute to his memory on Thursday. “So sad but I still have everything he gave us: freedom, passion (…) an attitude, the love of radio and music“, commented the musical director of the antennas of Radio France, Didier Varrod, on Twitter.
So sad but I still have everything he gave us: freedom, passion, obsessions, attitude, love of radio, AND MUSIC!
So many memories! Thank you #alainmaneval pic.twitter.com/s5vF7wRBWO— Didier Varrod (@DVarrod) March 10, 2022
“Alain was curious about all music, all aesthetics, dandy, radio and television man, man of culture and so funny“, wrote for his part Pascal Nègre, ex-CEO of Universal France.
Alain was curious about all music, all aesthetics, dandy, radio and television man, man of culture and so funny.. RIP #maneval pic.twitter.com/3b07zVKvdZ
—PascalNegre (@PascalNegre) March 10, 2022