Jean-Pierre Pernaut: the brutal descent into hell of JPP

PERNAUT. If his health problems were known, the death of Jean-Pierre Pernaut will have upset the world of television and well beyond. The journalist has suffered a sudden deterioration in his condition in recent weeks, when he seemed to be fighting vigorously against a third cancer…

He was the main face of the 1 p.m. newscast, but also the spokesperson for a certain forgotten and nostalgic France. Jean-Pierre Pernaut, who spent 33 years at the head of the midday newspaper on TF1, died at the age of 71 on Wednesday March 2, 2022. The announcement was made the same day by his wife, Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut, to Agence France Presse. “Tom, Lou, Olivier and Julien’s father died of lung cancer” could we read in the press release on Wednesday afternoon, a few minutes before another press release from TF1, confirming the death of “JPP”.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut had been fighting cancer since 2018. The journalist was treated for prostate cancer in 2018, but three years later and twice, he had to fight lung cancer. Operated on for a lung tumor during the summer, Jean-Pierre Pernaut was placed in convalescence and then was able to resume his activities on LCI, which began at the end of 2020 after his retirement from the 1 p.m. news. In the fall of 2021, the other lung will in turn be struck by the disease, this time inoperable.

The testimony of Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut

In an interview broadcast on March 3, 2022 in the 8 p.m. newspaper of TF1, Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut confided in the last days of her husband, without giving details on his health. “He fought until the end, he was super strong. Yet Jean-Pierre, he was someone who complained for nothing sometimes. A little flu, a little sore”, she greeted , marked by this rapid disappearance. “At first, he didn’t want to retire,” she says of her withdrawal from 1 p.m. “I told him ‘I want you to take advantage of us, the children are grown up, I want us both to travel’. We were eager to be together, to be an old couple.” And to admit: “He was not retired, after all. He was a workaholic. He always worried about the TF1 family, he always wanted it to be done well”.

For 33 years, Jean-Pierre Pernaut had established himself as the king of midday news, with a news centered on forgotten France and the land. A line and tone often criticized but still very popular. JPP had withdrawn from the news on December 18, 2020, when he was at the height of his audiences and his popularity. Since the announcement of the death of JPP, it is the whole world of television and France in the broad sense which pays homage to this pillar of the info.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut suffered from lung cancer inoperable, as he announced in the fall of 2021. This was not his first battle with the disease. In 2018, after a period of absence on the air, he announced that he had overcome prostate cancer. The journalist had also tried to break a taboo by speaking very freely about the disease and the way in which he had put all the chances on his side to defeat it. In the summer of 2021, JPP was again diagnosed with cancer, this time of the lung, which he was able to have operated on. It was his other lung, which was impossible to operate on, which forced him into radiotherapy sessions. According to several sources, including TV columnist Isabelle Morini-Bosc, he was getting the better of this cancer when he was overtaken by health problems.

The journalist suffered several small strokes in January 2022. It was his wife Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut who had announced it herself on the Touche set not at my post. Isabelle Morini-Bosc also explained on this subject that it was a general deterioration in his state of health which would have caused the death of Jean-Pierre Pernaut, and not directly lung cancer “which he was apparently in winning”.

open heart surgery was also decided at the start of 2022 according to Isabelle Morini-Bosc. Jean-Pierre Pernaut had undergone this emergency heart operation at the start of the year. Still according to information from the TPMP columnist, the JT presenter “recovered well” from this intervention but then faced “a sudden worsening of his general condition”.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut would have been plunged into a coma a few days before his death. This is at least what Isabelle Morini-Bosc still announces, who would hold this information directly from Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut. The worsening of the journalist’s state of health would indeed have “forced him to fall asleep”. In the end, there will have been no miracle. Jean-Pierre Pernaut died on March 2, 2022 at the Georges Pompidou Hospital.

Born April 8, 1950 in Amiens, Jean-Pierre Pernaut was a journalist and television presenter. From 1988 to 2020, he served as presenter of the 1 p.m. newscast on TF1. For several decades, Jean-Pierre Pernaut has established himself as the true pope of midday television. With him, the 1 p.m. news took on a very specific identity, dedicated to rural France and its heritage. Jean-Pierre Pernaut will also be a monster of hearings, bringing together some 5 million viewers every lunchtime at the height of his news, or four out of ten people on this time slot.

The journalist also had a very long life on the air: Jean-Pierre Pernaut celebrated his thirtieth birthday at 1 p.m. in February 2018. On December 18, 2020, he left the JT with emotion after 33 years on the air on TF1 to embark on new projects on the television group. On November 22, 2021, barely a year after his departure and three years after recovering from a first prostate cancer, his wife Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut confirmed that her husband had lung cancer.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut was born on April 8, 1950 in Amiens, where he spent his childhood, in Quevauvillers more precisely. Her mother is a pharmacist, while her father is the manager of a machine tool factory. He has an older brother, Jean-François, a doctor, who died in 2016 following a long illness. Before becoming a journalist, Jean-Pierre Pernaut studied at the Cité Scolaire and at the Saint-Martin private school in Amiens.

After taking courses at the Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Lille, Jean-Pierre Pernaut was first chosen to host the 11 p.m. newscast on TF1. From 1978 to 1980, he co-presented Yves Mourousi’s 1pm newscast. Then, he became a reporter and section editor in the channel’s economics department. In 1983, he was promoted to deputy head of the “Investigations and Reports” service. The summer of 1987 was a new milestone in his career. He is designated as the official replacement for the presentation of the 1 p.m. and 8 p.m. newspapers. This led TF1 to entrust him with the chair of the 1 p.m. newspaper on February 22, 1988.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut will only leave this seat for seven weeks, in 2018, to treat his prostate cancer, then during the confinement of March 2020, for security reasons due to his age and his past illness. He finally leaves the presentation of the 1 p.m. news on December 18, 2020, but continues his projects for the first channel. Marie-Sophie Lacarrau has been chosen to replace Jean-Pierre Pernaut at the presentation of the 1 p.m. newscast on TF1 since the start of 2020.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut presented his last 1 p.m. news on December 18, 2020. After 33 years at the presentation of the midday meeting on TF1, the presenter bade farewell to his viewers during a special edition. For the occasion, many surprises were reserved for the 70-year-old journalist. At the end of the JT, Jean-Pierre Pernaut delivered a message full of emotion. “It’s time for me to say goodbye to you”, simply began Jean-Pierre Pernaut, sobs in his voice, welcoming the “very strong links” forged with his viewers. After thanking his “three bosses”, his correspondents, colleagues and technicians, Jean-Pierre Pernaut spoke of his companion and his now deceased mother “who never missed a newspaper”. And to conclude with tears in his eyes: “Admit that at my age you may want another rhythm […]. I wish you a Merry Christmas despite the difficulties, I love you, I will never forget you”.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut therefore justified his departure from the 1 p.m. newscast on TF1 by evoking a desire to change pace. However, it is difficult to talk about retirement: the 70-year-old journalist has since been developing other projects with the TF1 group. The presenter launched JPP TV on December 18, a free online video platform offering the most beautiful reports and the most beautiful archives of the 1 p.m. news as well as playlists on themes dear to the presenter, in particular around heritage, environment, culture and regional news. There were also special heritage defense operations such as SOS Villages or Your most beautiful market. On January 9, 2021, Jean-Pierre Pernaut launched a new weekly program entitled “Jean-Pierre and you on LCI”, the news channel of the TF1 group. This program honored the vision of the French on the news with live interventions from several regions and exchanges with LCI journalists on set. The favorite presenter of the French also offered reports devoted to the terroirs for the magazine Grands reportages of TF1.

Jean-Pierre Pernaut married on June 23, 2007 with Nathalie Marquay. His wife was elected Miss France in 1987 and has since worked as an actress and television host. The couple met during the election of Miss France 2002. Together they had two children. Before marrying Nathalie Marquay, Jean-Pierre Pernaut was married to Dominique Bonnet, with whom he had two children.

In September 2018, Jean-Pierre Pernaut was – to be extremely rare – absent from the JT of TF1 and left the presentation of the newspaper to Jacques Legros, fueling intense rumors about his health. On Tuesday, September 25, the TV star finally indicated that he was sick to his 80,000 fans on Twitter and specified that he had just been operated on for prostate cancer. The journalist himself indicated that he suffered from this disease without specifying when it had been detected, nor for how long he had been treated.

In an interview with Le Parisien a few weeks after the operation, on November 12, 2018, Jean-Pierre Pernaut explained that his doctor had told him that he could “consider himself cured.” His return to the 1 p.m. news on TF1 will take place the same day, a little less than two months after the start of his medical leave.

On November 22, 2021, three years after being treated for his prostate cancer, Jean-Pierre Pernaut spoke again on social networks to confirm a new cancer, in the lung this time. An inoperable disease. The presenter then indicated that “everything [allait] well, everything [était] under control”. On the C8 channel, his wife, Nathalie Marquay, revealed that her husband had been operated on for the first time in July 2021, but that this time, his other lung was affected. cannot go through an operation again, because it is much too heavy. So there, he is doing radiotherapy.

According to Nathalie Marquay-Pernaut, new examinations were to be carried out in January 2022 to “see more clearly”. “He has a moral of steel and then, we are with him. He fights […] We won against the prostate and against the second lung. So I don’t see why we wouldn’t win. Cancer does not mean death“, then affirmed the wife of Jean-Pierre Pernaut. This will be the latest news delivered by his relatives on his health.