Françoise Hardy, icon of French song, has died at the age of 80, announces her son Thomas Dutronc on social networks

She had been fighting cancer since 2004 and recently spoke out during the debate on the end of life.

“Mom is gone”, soberly declared Thomas Dutronc in a message shared on Facebook and Instagram. French song icon Françoise Hardy died at the age of 80, her son announced on Tuesday evening, June 11. Author, performer and composer, she leaves behind an impressive discography.

From All the boys and girlsalbum which revealed her to the general public in 1962, she recorded 28 albums until Nobody else, published in 2018. The melancholic singer icon, married to Jacques Dutronc, will have spanned 60 years of French song. She had been fighting cancer since 2004 and recently spoke out during the debate on the end of life.

Born in 1944 in the 9th arrondissement of still-occupied Paris, Françoise Hardy is the daughter of a single mother and an absent father. This one, originally from Blois, joined the Resistance and was deported to Dachau during the war. He will only recognize his daughter late. She was also raised by her maternal grandmother, who was known to be less than tender towards her granddaughter, whom she regularly reprimanded. This difficult childhood will forge the singer’s sentimental and complex personality.

It was at 16 that she encountered rock’n’roll, a discovery that pushed her towards learning the guitar. Later, she is selected in the show Mireille’s Little Conservatory of Song, where she will stay for two years. This visibility allowed him to sign, in 1961, a contract with Voguethe label which produced, among others, Johnny Hallyday.

Alongside Sylvie Vartan, Johnny Hallyday and Eddy Mitchell, Françoise Hardy is one of the emblematic figures of the generation Hi buddies, this magazine symbol of the French rock’n’roll years. In the 1960s, she revealed her talents in composition and writing. On October 28, 1962, during the evening of the results of the referendum on the election of the President by universal suffrage, she sang All the boys and girls during the musical interlude. A hit that will be exported all over the world.

Françoise Hardy’s music is characterized by songs charged with melancholy, nostalgia, her doubts and anxieties about love and romantic relationships. But throughout her career, she demonstrates a good capacity to adapt to her times, as evidenced by albums like I listen to music drunk (1978) or Gin and Tonic (1980) which allowed him to meet a younger audience fond of funk and disco.

In 1981, she married Jacques Dutronc, whom she had met in 1967, making one of the most famous couples in French song official. A complicated relationship, due to the singer’s absence and infidelities (notably with actress Romy Schneider). Françoise Hardy recently admitted to having been in a relationship “addiction” towards Dutronc, who made him suffer a lot. The couple still gave birth to Thomas Dutronc in 1973 and, despite their separation in 1988, they never divorced, maintaining a relationship “fraternal”.

In 2004, Françoise Hardy suffered from Hodgkin’s disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system. This event marks the beginning of a long fight against the disease, which she eventually overcomes thanks to chemotherapy. In the following years, this struggle did not prevent him from pursuing his musical career, with the release of albums (Parentheses…) in 2006, Rain without an umbrella in 2010 and Crazy Love in 2012.

But while she was thought to be cured, a relapse almost took place in 2015 when she was diagnosed with a tumor in her larynx. With the unwavering support of her son, Thomas Dutronc, she miraculously escaped death, but the singer struggled with the extremely heavy treatment she regularly underwent. As evidenced by her voice, still as beautiful but much more whispery, from her album Nobody else, released in 2018. In June 2019, she declared on RTL that she had lost her hearing in one ear, and announced the end of her musical career due to the fragility of her throat.

On December 14, 2023, in Paris Match, she declared that she was experiencing a “nightmare” and wanted to “leave soon and quickly”. The interpreter of How to say goodbye to youwho was to celebrate her 80th birthday on January 17, 2024, had already declared herself several times in favor of euthanasia.
At the question “What can we wish for you?”the singer responds to Paris Match : “Leave soon and quickly, without too many challenges, such as the impossibility of breathing.”
Asked by the magazine about her projects, in the last question, Françoise Hardy blurted out again: “Leave to the other dimension as soon, as quickly and as painlessly as possible.”