“Georges Pompidou was an exceptional press attaché”

Actor and singer Jacques Dutronc is the special guest of Le Monde d’Élodie Suigo from July 8 to 12, 2024. Five days to trace the thread of his professional and personal life.

Jacques Dutronc is considered one of the greatest French artists. He welcomes us into his refuge, his haven of peace in Monticello, Corsica. When we say: “Jacques Dutronc“, we obviously think of music with a real incarnation, a real presence on stage and its cult titles which have become Proust’s madeleines: And me and me and me (1966), I like girls (1967), It’s five o’clock, Paris is waking up (1968), The Playboys (1966) or again Shit in France (1984). We also think of cinema when we talk about him, with the starting point in 1973 being the film Antoine and Sébastien of Jean-Marie Périer or Maurice Pialat who entrusted him in 1991 with the role of Van Gogh and in the end, the César for best actor. All these ingredients can be found in his memoirs, And me and me and me published by Cherche Midi. A funny and fascinating work, as its humor, self-mockery and sincerity ring true.

franceinfo: After And me and me and me and immediate success, you stayed in your line of conduct: be yourself and not change. Is it difficult to remain yourself in such an “artificial” and “superficial” environment?

Jacques Dutronc: Sure. Well, there are accessories to have an artificial world, but I don’t do that kind of thing. But if I’ve remained myself, it’s up to you to tell me, I don’t know. Compared to the photo on my ID card at the Condorcet high school, I’ve changed, but I haven’t changed my goal, if in any case I had one. And that’s perhaps why I’ve always followed this kind of path as you say, with an “e” as in: “liver”. Besides, at times, it served me, with Richard Bohringer, we did gamma GT competitions, with supporting evidence from such and such a certified laboratory and we weren’t bad at all. We were very good.

“Alcohol is over. It was a different time. But I still have a certain admiration for all that. When I see people drinking good red wine, my memory comes back.”

Jacques Dutronc

to franceinfo

You also address this relationship with alcohol in your book. There is no taboo in this work. We feel that it was important for you to be fair.

Alcohol, yes… So, we can reverse it. I often said that alcohol is a friend who hurts you, or an enemy who does you good. I would settle for one or the other, or both, and then if you don’t drive, you already have a little advantage.

Another essential song about your personality and career is the title The Cactus. Its writing came about because of, or thanks to, recurring acne linked to junk food at concerts. This song, even today, is talked about. This hit was even cited by Georges Pompidou, then Prime Minister, in 1967 at the National Assembly: “I learned that in government life there are also cacti“.

Yes, perhaps. First of all, Pompidou was an exceptional press attaché, which proves that he was listened to anyway. Now, if Mr. Macron spoke about the CactusI might sell ten, but with Georges Pompidou, I sold 400,000, impeccable! Cactusit’s old, it dates back to the Condorcet high school, I had a huge pimple that I called a cactus. Afterwards, it was taken up by quite a few people, including, and especially, Vanessa Paradis. She sang it well. She had asked me to come and sing it with her, in fact, she came to sing with me on stage, but not that song.

“Vanessa Paradis, who covered ‘Les Cactus’, played what I sang to her partner at the time, Johnny Depp, because he was a fan. That’s proof that he’s weird.”

Jacques Dutronc

to franceinfo

You gave a private concert to Georges Pompidou. There was Brigitte Bardot in the audience who was totally offended because you sang. The Cactusbut changing the lyrics and you said: “It has become equal pay for equal work.“, on the other hand, Georges Pompidou, himself, drank buttermilk.

Yes, Brigitte Bardot was not for it. She went to see Françoise and said: “Please tell him to stop, that’s enough!“I was in a frenzy, it was good. Before going on stage, if I may say so, it was in an apartment where there was a gigantic entrance with valets and lots of thugs, I got naked to make them laugh and I said to myself, what if I went like that! And then, they said to me: “But you are crazy ?“But yes, let’s go. And there, no, I got dressed again, otherwise it would have been the height of it. There, what I call being a nickel-plated foot, it’s beautiful and there’s the President of the Republic and it’s magnificent. That’s where I had a long discussion with Jacques Prévert, it’s incredible all the same. We talked at length about a village that I knew well in Brittany, Piriac. A very pretty village at the time, now, there must be 50,000 houses, it was very small and there were fishing nets with beautiful colors. It was magnificent.