Two months before the American presidential election, this week we meet five historic “losers” of the elections in the company of Françoise Coste, professor of American civilization at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès. In this third episode, La Loupe draws the portrait of Bobby Kennedy, who saw his political career brutally stopped by the violence of the American political scene.
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The team: Charlotte Baris (presentation), Mathias Penguilly (writing), Léa Bertrand (editing) and Jules Krot (direction).
Credits: ABC News, ANC News, C-SPAN, HuffPost, INA, White House, Paramount, The ParisianPBS NewHour, Vanderbilt University
Music and design: Emmanuel Herschon/Studio Torrent
Logo: Anne-Laure Chapelain/Benjamin Chazal
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Charlotte Baris: In the lobby of a hotel thousands of miles from Washington, Robert Francis Kennedy, John Fitzgerald’s brother, gives a speech to thank his supporters. A large crowd gathers to listen to him: employees, supporters, real fans too. In this magnificent palace setting, he seems very small, but well surrounded. For several weeks, he has been traveling the country to convince citizens and has just won a significant victory.
The speech ends and his security detail begins to exfiltrate him from the hotel. His vehicle is waiting for him at the back of the building. Bobby Kennedy gets off the stage and crosses the kitchens, when several shots ring out. In the panic, his bodyguards react. He is hit several times.
RFK now lies in the kitchens of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The younger brother of the president assassinated four years earlier is at that time in the race for the Democratic primaries and benefits from a certain popular momentum behind his candidacy. The violence of American politics puts a brutal end to it…
To go further
Assassination attempt against Trump: “George Washington had warned the Americans…”
Populism and political violence: the American drift affecting France, by Jean-François Copé
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