François Léotard: his last meeting with L’Express

He was waiting for us at the Gare de Lyon, in this historic and listed café du Train bleu, seated in an armchair, slightly out of sight. Beneath the huge golden ceiling, no one seemed to pay attention to this 81-year-old man flanked by his small suitcase on wheels, a book in front of him, an XL glass of Chablis on the table, dressed in a gray hooded sweater that looked like a young man. François Léotard had arrived early, this Thursday, March 2, he had warned us. That afternoon, he didn’t seem sick or tired. Only a little overwhelmed by technology, unable to find his e-ticket in his smartphone. “You can help me ?” The former Minister of Culture from 1986 to 1988, then of Defense from 1993 to 1995, looked like an octogenarian like the others, careful not to miss his correspondence, happy to have visited his son, whom he adored, and anxious to find his wife, who was waiting for him in Fréjus. “With his disappearance, we are losing a free spirit, a man of books and commitment,” said the President of the Republic in a message posted on Twitter, announcing his death on Tuesday, April 25. “Carried away during his sleep,” said his friend, the former mayor of Toulon, Hubert Falco.

You had to hear him talk about Fréjus to understand how much François Léotard loved this town in the Var, of which he was mayor between 1977 and 1997, like his father before him. “A small Provencal town. As a child, we ran in the streets, we had the accent. A village…”, he slipped, laughing blue eyes. He could talk for hours about this mandate as aedile which he adored, and for which, he said, he sometimes longed. “My most beautiful political memory,” he said, before swearing hand on heart that he did not miss national politics, its scandals and its low blows. Many, however, saw him run for the Elysée one day. But the man symbolized, reluctantly, the politics of the 1980s and 1990s, where commissions, retrocommissions and kickbacks lay. He was sentenced in 2004, in the Fondo affair, to a ten-month suspended prison sentence for money laundering and illicit financing of the Republican Party. Then, in 2021, a two-year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 100,000 euros by the Court of Justice of the Republic for complicity in the misuse of corporate assets in the context of the financial aspect of the Karachi affair. It was better now, for the brother of the late actor Philippe Léotard, to avoid this world.

David Rachline “null, very low level”

From Fréjus, François Léotard also said he was disappointed in recent months. He could no longer recognize his city. The record of its mayor, David Rachline? “None, very low level.” As for the weight of business in the region… “The scourge of money has fallen on Fréjus”, he noted, referring to the troubled links between the local construction giant Alexandre Barbero and the municipality led by the National Rally. The vice-president of the RN for his part split a message on Twitter, expressing his emotion and saluting “the memory of a man who remained attached to his territory, whose name will continue to adorn our buildings. “

The former leader of “Léo’s band” did not venture, on the other hand, to comment on the climate of social anger linked to the debates on pension reform. “You know, I am above all a retiree”, slipped with a hint of coquetry, the one who was however hard with Nicolas Sarkozy during his presidency. He just wanted to talk about Ukraine and France’s role in the world. He bitterly regretted that his country did not show firmer support in the war against Russia. “Emmanuel Macron is a man who constantly plays the balancing act in terms of international politics. France’s role should be much clearer and more vigilant,” he said three weeks ago in a final interview granted to L’Express. A discussion that should continue. “Above all, come and have lunch at home when you come to Fréjus,” he insisted regularly on the phone. We didn’t have time to jump on the train.