Feared for many years for his questions as piquant as they were confusing, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach died Tuesday at the age of 86. In particular, he left behind some famous exchanges with political figures.
“A sacred monster of French journalism.” Emmanuel Macron paid tribute, Wednesday October 4, to Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, who died the day before at the age of 86. “France loses one of its outstanding interviewers, an erudite journalist whose name made generations of political leaders tremble”greets the Elysée in a press release.
Over the course of his half-century career as a political journalist, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach had indeed developed the art of confusing questions, particularly during interviews that remained famous on Antenne 2 or Europe 1. Franceinfo rewinds and offers you a selection .
The “shame” of Marine Le Pen
This is one of his most famous punchlines. The day after the historic march of January 11, 2015 after the attacks in Charlie Hebdo and from Hyper Cacher, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach receives Marine Le Pen. The one who is still president of the National Front is questioned about her absence in the Parisian procession the day before. She demonstrated alone in Beaucaire (Gard), far from national unity. The flagship interviewer of Europe 1 does not wait for the round of observation and attack from the outset.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “Hello Marine Le Pen. Aren’t you ashamed?”
Marine Le Pen : “Pardon ?”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “You have no shame ?”
Marine Le Pen : “Ashamed of what?”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “You have no regrets?”
Marine Le Pen : “But what are you talking to me about, Mr. Elkabbach? I recognize you there in the provocation but…”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “The whole world was in Paris yesterday, it was beyond national unity, the European Union, the planetary union to fight against terrorism (…) and the democrats did without you because you wasn’t there. You preferred to go in front of a thousand people to Beaucaire, that is to say, to your people.”
Marine Le Pen : “No, it is the government and a certain number of political parties which, a few hours after the attack, fell into low political politics.”
On X (ex-Twitter)the leader of the National Rally greeted Wednesday morning “a emblematic figure of journalism”. “His pugnacious interviews, his incisive style and his freedom of tone will be remembered. The media world has lost a rigorous and demanding professional”she added.
The meeting given “Monday morning” to Bruno Le Maire
In November 2016, Bruno Le Maire was not Emmanuel Macron’s Minister of the Economy but a candidate in the right-wing primary. During the last debate of the campaign, broadcast on France 2, he presented himself as the candidate of “renewal”. A posture that seems to leave the interviewer skeptical.
Bruno Le Maire: “Let’s not leave the monopoly of political renewal to the left. It would also be good if we, on the right, in the center, were able to show that there are new ideas, new faces. We are capable of to change.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “Why isn’t this working with you?”
Bruno Le Maire: “But what tells you, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, that it’s not going to work? Do you already know Sunday’s result? Do you know what the French are going to vote for? You know, there is a France of polls, a France of commentators, there is a France of journalists, it is totally free, it has the right to comment. And then there is the France of the French…”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “We’ll talk about it Monday morning…”
Bruno Le Maire: “Mr. Elkabbach, I am a candidate in the primary, that simply deserves respect from you. And I have no lessons to receive from you on my candidacy. It is the French who will judge, it is not YOU.”
The “color of the wall” by André Vallini
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach liked to throw his interlocutors off-guard from the start of the interview. André Vallini can attest to this. In May 2014, on Europe 1, the then Secretary of State for Territorial Reform came to defend his bill. Like Bruno Le Maire, André Vallini will come up against a “wall” that he did not see coming.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “What color do you prefer for the wall?”
André Vallini: “For the wall? What wall?”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “What wall? The wall on which your territorial reform will crash.”
André Vallini: “First of all, it is not going to fall apart. I think we can succeed in this reform even if there is a lot of resistance, the French are waiting for this reform.”
When the journalist’s death was announced, André Vallini made a humorous reference to this interview that had gone down in history. “Dear Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, we will never know what color the wall was! Great sadness after the disappearance of this legend of political journalism”wrote the socialist on Tuesday evening on X (formerly Twitter).
Gérald Darmanin’s “housekeeper” mother
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach sometimes let the interview take place before asking the annoying question. In September 2014, he received the UMP deputy and mayor of Tourcoing, Gérald Darmanin. If the interview starts in a classic way, it takes a more personal turn and focuses on the profession of the parents of the current Minister of the Interior. And in particular that of his mother, for a question which shocked Internet users.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “Gérald Darmanin, you come from far away. Where do your parents come from?”
Gérald Darmanin: “I have a Maltese grandfather. Darmanin is Maltese. I have an Algerian rifleman grandfather and I have two Flemish grandmothers.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “What do your parents do?”
Gérald Darmanin: “My mother is a housekeeper and my father, now retired, was a trader.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “She’s still a housekeeper?”
Gérald Darmanin: “Yes, she’s still a housekeeper.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “You let her be a maid?”
Gérald Darmanin: “I find this question a little indecent. Besides, I think she must have stopped for a few minutes to listen to me this morning.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “She did well!”
Fleur Pellerin’s reading time
If he knew how to start an interview with a bang, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach sometimes kept a card up his sleeve when it was time to conclude. In May 2015, on Europe 1, he received Fleur Pellerin. A few months earlier, the Minister of Culture in Manuel Valls’ government had said she had not had time to read a novel for two years. As the interview draws to a close, the journalist does not fail to question him about this incongruity.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “It seems that now you are reading ?”
Fleur Pellerin: “What does that mean? I never stopped reading Jean-Pierre Elkabbach.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “The technical sheets and files, right?”
Fleur Pellerin: “I said I read less, which is normal, because I work 16 hours a day.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “Now you read, that’s what I mean. I want to give you the last two Pleiades.”
Fleur Pellerin: “No, but Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, I don’t really like this somewhat contemptuous approach, I have always read a lot.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “It’s not disparaging. I really like culture and reading.”
Fleur Pellerin: “Well, I agree too on this point.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “Watch ‘Medici Library’ [une émission que Jean-Pierre Elkabbach présentait sur Public Sénat], you will be fixed. And what we do at Europe 1.”
The “brain” and the “little head” of Georges Marchais
Before his years at Europe 1, Jean-Pierre Elkabbach had a lot to do on the set of the show “Cartes sur table” on Antenne 2 with the leader of the Communist Party, Georges Marchais. In January 1980, the latter was invited to explain the international policy of the USSR, after meeting Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Alongside Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, another young political journalist, Alain Duhamel, conducts the interview.
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “What you just said reflects a little of what you heard, about the fight against imperialism?”
George Marchais: “I’ve spoken with you 20 times now…”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “You never talked about it like that…”
George Marchais: “You can’t get it into your little head that I too have a brain and a brain that is capable of reasoning, reflecting and formulating proposals and assessments. I’m not going to learn my lessons from the stranger, me.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “In my little head, I remember…”
George Marchais: “When I go abroad, I discuss, I listen… I may only be a worker in your eyes, but I am a worker activist who, with my intellectual comrades in his party, is capable of carrying out analyzes that stand up.”
Georges Marchais’ “shut up”… which never existed
Georges Marchais had another famous exchange during a debate with Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, electric again, for the second round of the 1978 legislative elections. It was on this occasion that the communist leader was attributed a sentence passed to posterity, the famous “Shut up Elkabbach”.
But these words, in reality, never came out of the mouth of Georges Marchais that evening. They were invented by comedian Thierry Le Luron, as the Huffington Post recalls. The comedian was, however, inspired by a skirmish between the journalist and the secretary general of the French Communist Party.
George Marchais: “Wait, listen, you have already received a warning from all the journalists’ unions against the fact that we cannot express ourselves at Antenne 2.”
Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “Which is false. We must not get involved in journalists’ problems, we will respond to them when necessary, Mr. Marchais.”
George Marchais: “Listen Elkabbach, it is, I think, a sufficiently serious evening… If you think that my place is not desirable since the right has won, I leave the place to the right and I go elsewhere. ask me elsewhere, I can go there. Because it is extremely unpleasant to discuss with you. I believe that the unions are right to protest against the fact that the information with you on Antenne 2 has difficulty expressing itself. “