A village hall almost one hundred and fifty years old, with its gilding, its 18th century tapestries, its baccarat crystal chandeliers, a ceiling height of six meters, located in the heart of a palace symbol of the State in majesty , it camouflages itself. Hide these golds that cannot be seen. On December 3, 2020, Emmanuel Macron solemnly addressed the nation to pay tribute to Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in a minimalist white setting on which the acronyms of the French Republic appear. This is a first for a speech broadcast at 8 p.m. on all channels, outside of a health crisis. The president is at this moment in the party room, where sobriety is not the primary mark. The white decor serves this purpose: to hide everything. History is teasing, Emmanuel Macron greets Valéry Giscard d’Estaing not far from where, one evening in May 1981, the latter took leave of his fellow citizens with his unforgettable “goodbye”.
Since the television interview of July 14, 2020, the village hall has been transformed into a cardboard TV studio, it will still be used for the interview of October 14 on TF1 and France 2. Chance obviously did not its place, the decor is a message. That those close to him highlight: “Emmanuel Macron no longer speaks from a gilded salon, he does not look rich.”
When you are told that power is no longer what it used to be. Welcome to the 21st century, it’s been a long time since the thaumaturge king turned into Venus of Milo. In the party room, the president is hardly more protected than the average Beijinger in the metro. Down with the masks. On December 16, 2020, in the midst of a health crisis, Emmanuel Macron dined with 12 relatives, around a table “15 meters long”, said François Bayrou, one and a half meters from each other, in order to respect the famous gestures barriers – that’s why this piece was chosen. In the hours that follow, we will learn that Emmanuel Macron is positive for Covid-19 and that that evening he did not respect the rules laid down by his own government for the holidays, precisely.
A parade of decorated celebrities
Power is also shown, it is exhibited. The village hall is used for this. The power to say. Here is officially invested, after proclamation of the results, each President of the Republic. Here took place Emmanuel Macron’s last press conference, like most of those of his predecessors, or the meeting in support of Ukraine with 27 heads of state and government or their ministerial representatives, on Monday 26 FEBRUARY. Here, we learned that between Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni, it was “serious”. Here, journalists had tears in their eyes when they heard Georges Pompidou declaiming Paul Eluard to answer a question about the Gabrielle Russer affair, the suicide of this teacher, condemned for having had an affair with one of His students. “Understand whoever wants. My remorse was the reasonable victim with the look of a lost child, the one who resembles the dead, who died to be loved.”
The power to decorate. Sadi Carnot had a nose, who undertook the construction of this reception room, one of 365 in the palace, to brighten up life and entertain with dignity – until then a large tent was erected in the park following the garden of ‘winter. What a parade since… In disorder, Charles Trenet, David Lynch, Sting, Gérard Depardieu, the Blues world football champions, Céline Dion, Clint Eastwood, Tony Parker, Giorgio Armani, Karl Lagerfeld, Sylvie Vartan, Paul McCartney, Christian Clavier (it would take a book to list them all). Line Renaud. And also Line Renaud. And also Line Renaud (she was singled out by all the more or less recent presidents). More sulfurous, Robert Bourgi, pillar of Françafrique, or even Patrick Buisson, to whom Nicolas Sarkozy addressed, in the presence of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a resounding: “Patrick, I wanted to decorate him alone, because without him I would not be not here today” – suffice to say that it was well before the recordings affair.
Decorate: on March 22, 1988, at 6 p.m., it was François Mitterrand’s last act before heading to Antenne 2 to announce, on the 8 p.m. news, that he was a candidate for his own succession. On the sidelines of another ceremony, Mitterrand will indulge, in these august places, in rudeness, a rarity for him. “You see this one,” he slips to his neighbor. He talks about Pierre Méhaignerie. “This guy is an idiot and even a big idiot!” – he did not appreciate that in the middle of a period of cohabitation, the Minister of Justice did not keep him informed of the Schuller-Maréchal political-judicial affair.
The power, if not to give, but to announce life, death. Here, Jacques Chirac appeared before a crowd of journalists to wish the press: “President Mitterrand died this morning.” And he left immediately. Here, the same Jacques Chirac, decorating his faithful Lydie Gerbaud, advanced as never before on the ground of his intimacy: “I am going to tell you something that you do not know, that I knew before you, which is rare and noteworthy: imagine that I am a grandfather for the first time in an hour and a quarter!”
Mazarine presented to the Emperor of Japan
Small moments, big moments, and vice versa. Here the most famous world leaders have paraded, during state dinners and other official receptions. Here, Charles de Gaulle had projection equipment installed, at his own expense, to watch films with his grandchildren on Sunday afternoons – his successor Georges Pompidou installed a cinema room in a basement. We bet it: the general wasn’t very Walt Disney, but he saw it several times The red balloon by Albert Lamorisse, about the friendship between a little boy and a big red balloon hanging from a street lamp, in Paris in the 1950s.
Here, François Mitterrand presented his long-secret daughter, Mazarine, to the Emperor of Japan at a state dinner on October 3, 1994. Paris Match has not yet revealed his existence to the whole of France, but the guests open their eyes wide when they see the old man take the young girl by the hand so that she goes to greet Akihito.
Here, if the walls have no ears, at least we hope so, they have unsuspected riches. François Mitterrand, who had already had the curtains covering the French windows removed so that we could see the trees, played with History, or even better, with eternity: he had the emblem of his presidency, the oak, engraved and the olive tree, on a small zinc plate which has since been hidden above the ceiling and which can only be seen from the roof (the anecdote is revealed by Patrice Duhamel and Jacques Santamaria in the latest edition of The Elysée, history, secrets, mysteriesat Pocket).
Here, witnesses heard Nicolas Sarkozy, a very young Budget Minister, conversing near the buffet with François Mitterrand, not skimping on compliments towards the longest serving head of state in the Fifth and his political talent.
Emmanuel Macron’s predecessors would not recognize the room
One recent day, Emmanuel Macron actually set a fire, thinking he was only watching a candle being lit: at the end of a ceremony of the European Conference of Rabbis, the Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia, under the eyes of the President of the Republic, lights the first Hanukkah candle. Secularism is a hot topic, controversy is guaranteed.
It’s not a story about firefighters, more about plumbers. The old Evreux hotel dates from 1722, water infiltrations were discovered behind the tapestries. At the end of 2018, the village hall is getting a makeover. Brigitte Macron is keeping an eye on things. 150 craftsmen, eight weeks of work. We were going to forget: and 500,000 euros in expenses, the maintenance of heritage has a cost. The world will reveal that the carpet alone costs 300,000 euros: a piece of two tonnes of wool, dyed in Belgium and woven at the royal factory in Aubusson Park. No more “empire red” style, make way for “18th century gray”. The tapestries with an aging style were removed and entrusted to the Mobilier national in order to give a more refined look to the room. The idea, explains the palace, consists of chromatically linking this function room with the Winter Garden and the Salon Napoléon in a more contemporary style.
There will be a before and an after Emmanuel Macron. His predecessors would not recognize the room. Dominique de Villepin, who was not president (except perhaps in his head), found it very ugly, when he discovered the piece during a party of former collaborators of Jacques Chirac organized by the current head of the state. He no longer felt the presence of De Gaulle, “by believing they were giving more pomp, they removed all the mystery”, had estimated the former Prime Minister, quoted by The world. Are ghosts mortal?
The village hall, or how to say goodbye. It fell hard that day, yet François Hollande was still far from the Elysée. It is May 16, 1995. Tomorrow, after a final breakfast with Jean d’Ormesson, François Mitterrand will transmit the nuclear code to Jacques Chirac, at the end of fourteen years as President of the Republic. His wife Danielle has a little surprise in store for him. Without warning him, she invited a hundred young socialists, who arrived dripping in the prestigious room. She asks her husband to come down from his office, he comes to chat for an hour with these guests like no other.
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