Emmanuel Macron chaired the tribute to Jacques Delors paid by the nation to the former Minister of the Economy and President of the European Commission, on January 5, 2024. Martine Aubry’s father died on December 27, 2023, at the age of 98. On set on France 2, Julian Bugier followed the event and recalled that he was standing in “a particular context”. A remark that made Nathalie Saint-Cricq react immediately.
“Are we finished Nathalie?”
The journalist commented: “It’s kind of an open secret. We were told it was going to speed up today and Monday. There are a certain number of people who will no longer be ministers quite quickly, therefore for whom this will be their last tribute.. A remark which somewhat disconcerted the presenter of the show, who first noticed: “I haven’t finished my question and you are leaving immediately Nathalie”. And to add a little more dryly: “Are we finished Nathalie?”
Fortunately, Nathalie Saint-Cricq probably didn’t take offense. With a few years of career behind her, the one who headed the political service of France 2 and who moderated the debate between the two rounds of the presidential election in 2017 has had some experiences which have made her leather thick. We particularly remember a sequence, filmed in 1995 in the presence of Bernadette Chirac, which entered the annals of television.
A frosty meeting with Bernadette Chirac
Shortly after Jacques Chirac’s victory, that day, Nathalie Saint-Cricq asked the new first lady, with a microphone from France 2: “Madame Chirac, for France 2, I would have liked you to tell me a little about your state of mindit must have been a bit of a trying evening… You are happy ? Did you go to Concorde? Did you see the party in the street?” And Madame Chirac replied: “Please allow me to greet my colleagues? Thank you”.
In October 2023, on the set of Télématin, she remembered a “high time of humanity”with humor, to describe the dryness with which she was received by Bernadette Chirac.
F.A.