Frédéric Zeitoun is one of the faces of the show Telematin on France 2 since he has been a columnist there since 1998. He is also a lyricist, singer and author of books about music. He was born a paraplegic, which could have prevented him from believing in a happy and positive future, but his parents brought him a very strong energy and love of life. For them, nothing should be impossible for him. This is the story he tells in his autobiography, Artist armchair, published by the Archipelago.
franceinfo: Artist’s chair is a book to tell that nothing is impossible?
Frederic Zeitoun: So, of course, we must not fall into caricature. Of course, when you travel with a difference, when you travel in a 4×4, in a wheelchair, indeed, there are things that are more complicated than others. In any case, these things are never prohibitive. Me, I always tried, but because my parents raised me like that. It was a kind of religion with my parents to think that in life, you should always see the bottle half full rather than the bottle half empty. Said like that, it sounds very very carebear. But I assure you that when it is applied, indeed, it is a real belief and I ended up believing it.
You even say at the time of your birth that the doctors made it clear to your father that they were going to take care of you and that you were not “viable”. He was not satisfied with a medical verdict which was dramatic. He took you under the arm in Tunis, where you were born, and took you to Paris to meet the best doctors. He wanted to know how to save you and how to lighten your life.
I was a wanted child, the third in a family. My father believed very strongly in life and therefore this sort of hasty diagnosis, saying: “Don’t worry, don’t declare it to the civil registry, we’ll take care of it“, gave him the effect of an electric shock. My parents had come in 1950 on their honeymoon to France to see Maurice Chevalier at the Alhambra. The only relationship he had with France was an uncle who was said to be that he was doing medicine and so they arrived with me in the bassinet.
“My mother gave me life. My father gave me life again.”
Frederic Zeitounat franceinfo
What is strong, moreover, is that at the beginning, he really preserved your mother.
Totally. She didn’t know anything. Poor thing, she almost went through it during labor because the doctors didn’t understand why I wasn’t going out. There is a very small difficulty. I couldn’t use my lower limbs so pushing was a bit complicated. The poor thing almost stayed on the delivery table.
Your parents made the decision that you were deprived of your legs, yes, but you could not be deprived of knowledge and the rest. So they fought and you tell of the standoffs with the principals who prevented you from recreation because it was dangerous…
They didn’t even want to enroll me in their establishment. I owe my registration in sixth form to the fact that my father, at one point, lost his control. He was someone who was fairly calm, fairly level-headed, fairly level-headed. And at one point, indeed, I tell it in this book, he comes out of his hinges and takes the headmaster by the collar.
“This scene, while writing it, it still hurt me because I witnessed it. I was in the principal’s office between mom and dad, with my honor rolls and my good results from And my father, at one point, yells: ‘But it’s not because he can’t walk that he can’t learn!’ It was so right and it’s so true.”
Frederic Zeitounat franceinfo
You go to the end of your convictions by telling what you live the feelings and the emotions which you have. You say that people with disabilities are still invisible in the PAF and that a lot of work needs to be done.
Totally. Out of 1,500 hours of indexed programs, there were 0.6% of people with visible disabilities, including the Paralympic Games. I believe that between Mimie Mathy and me, we must already make 0.3%! It is absurd. There are roughly between 10 and 12 million people with permanent or temporary disabilities and we see 0.6 – 0.8% per year. We never arrived at this figure which would be oh so symbolic of 1%. Never 1% of the population with disabilities is visible on the small screen, it leaves you dreaming all the same!
You wrote for Enrico Macias, Annie Cordy or Frédéric François who were people you were very close to, who also made you want to do this job. We can also mention Louis Bertignac and Daniel Lévi who unfortunately have just left us. Proud of this journey, of the work already accomplished?
Happy. Proud, I don’t know what that means. Proud, it’s not for me to say. Happy, happy to continue to pursue my dreams, happy to be on stage, happy to perform at the Casino de Paris on December 5, 2022. That was really a dream. Happy to have met on my way people who help me to believe in my dreams. Believing in your dreams, it’s a bit like that, hair in the wind utopian, but there are people, professionals who are around me and who say to me: “Go ahead, carry on“. Indeed, at the age when some retire, I go there and I have a lot of fun.