On June 19, 1986, France was in shock: one of its favorite personalities died in a tragic road accident in Opio in the Alpes-Maritimes. Coluche, whose talent is delightful in The Inspector the blunder this August 17 on TFX, suddenly disappeared at the age of 41 when he was hit by the driver of a heavy goods vehicle. Since that day, the sadness remains great. For his family first, he who had two children Romain and Marius, Véronique Kantor, and for all the French population who loved his humor as much as his irreverence and his commitment with in particular Les Restos du coeur. The popularity of the artist is such that after his death conspiracy theories arise, ensuring that the drama was not a coincidence.
In the book Coluche, the accident – counter-investigation, written in 2006 by Antoine Casubolo and Jean Depussé, questions the thesis of the accident, as we can read on the back cover: “In the aftermath of the tragedy, no one bothered to consult the witnesses. The newspapers contented themselves with repeating the information broadcast by AFP. Now, it turns out that Coluche was driving sixty kilometers an hour in a straight line. The truck was coming in the opposite direction practically at a walk and at the last moment, it veered left.“This is how certain things in the book fuel the conspiracy theory.
The book repeatedly quotes Didier Lavergne, one of two friends who were following Coluche on a motorbike at the time of the accident: “He was rolling towards us, that I’m sure. Because that too, he would have been stopped, and then he would have turned and maneuvered when we arrived, well, maybe I would have asked myself fewer questions. But there, it was as if he had done it on purpose, to fuck us up, you see.“Questions that were enough to support the idea that Coluche would have been voluntarily killed, the target of “powerful”. On several blogs, as pointed out by the intox hunter of Release, checknews, the idea spreads that Coluche was disturbing the agri-food industry with the creation of his Restos du Coeur association. However, even the authors of this publication had nuanced the idea of a conspiracy when promoting the book, acknowledging that they had only suspicions and no proof.
A too “banal” death
The police investigation concluded in an accident and if it was recognized that Coluche was not driving at a crazy speed but 60 km / h, he was not wearing a helmet, lack of protection which certainly has an obvious link with gravity of his injuries after the impact. The two other motorcyclists who were with him had time to brake, but Coluche, unprotected, could not avoid the collision: his head hit the front right of the 38-tonne vehicle which made a sharp turn, and he was killed instantly.
On RTL in 2020, Coluche’s son, Marius Colucci, put forward his idea of the conspiracy theories that abound since the death of his dad, rantings according to him: “It’s a bit the same as for Elvis Presley, Hitler or Lady Di: people can’t admit that such an extraordinary guy [que mon père, NDLR] can have a ‘banal’ death and so fantasy takes precedence over reason and they start thinking anything and everything.“