His relatives assured us, kindly: Jean-Marc Jancovici would eventually receive us and answer our questions. Moreover, these friends have bent over backwards to provide us with data, send us documents and put us in contact with specialists who share their analyses. Thus comforted, we wrote to the star. A first time, a second, a third. Results: one refusal, two refusals, three refusals. Blocking. The entrepreneur and lecturer has little time, this is what he courteously wrote to us, and then, he added, he does not like portraits, because – here are his words -: “They focus attention on the messenger instead of focusing on the message”.
An intriguing modesty. Because isn’t it precisely Jean-Marc Jancovici himself, a talented performer and brilliant pedagogue, who has voluntarily, and for more than twenty years, built his avatar as a public figure, embodying his message to the point of lending him his facial expressions, his jokes, his favorite expressions and his grumpy face? Have we ever seen Valérie Masson-Delmotte, Jean Jouzel or Hervé Le Treut put on a show in front of thousands of students? Moreover, which appears in the pages of his comic strip (the endless world, Dargaud)? Him.
By accepting to convey the message by the subterfuge of the messenger, he has moreover been very successful. Allowing thousands of French people to become aware of the finiteness of our planet and the need to change our lifestyles. It is thanks to “Janco” that boomers, business leaders, young graduates, city dwellers, cohorts hitherto reluctant to environmental alarms, understood that it was necessary to act, give up and invent. By answering questions, by accepting possible criticisms, wouldn’t the messenger have advanced the message, and therefore the energy and climate transition?