François Hollande has always taken pleasure in making his audience laugh. “Mister little jokes”, one of his nicknames in the Socialist Party, is now a stage character. The resounding book of his secrets to two journalists, A president shouldn’t say that…, which had dynamited its end of quinquennium, is adapted on the boards in Paris *. “Any resemblance to reality may not be coincidental…”, immediately warns the Free Theater, where the play is being performed until the end of April. Very realistic, the show, which we attended, paints a François Hollande who has become a fictional character, sometimes comic, sometimes tragic. And often in spite of himself.
A larger-than-life Holland
Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme didn’t have to look far to find inspiration. The two journalists from World have drawn for their work from the sixty interviews conducted between 2012 and 2016 during the mandate of the former president. On stage, for almost an hour and a half, the actor Scali Delpeyrat portrays a tragicomic François Hollande, whose lines are… remarks made “to the word” by the former French president. Long-term interviews, without witnesses, without proofreading, often conducive to confessions. “As the news progressed, he needed to confide. We were able to play the role of analysts from time to time…”, notes Gérard Davet to AFP. The authors did not need any editing to make the former president a full-fledged theatrical character. It does not need to be named so that we know who it is.
A comic Holland in spite of himself
On stage, the true-false Hollande makes laugh several times. And often at his expense. When journalists ask him about the ambitions of his young economy minister, Emmanuel Macron, he refuses to see the danger. “It’s not someone who came like that out of opportunism […] He is not in a personal strategy on the political level, ”he says. “I can see that it has become a media object, others have tried it. But there is no room! The challenge is to win, not to appear, I told him: “If you are a candidate, you can make 7-8 or even 10%…” “, he adds, as a false prophet.
He is naive when he convinces himself that his protege will not be a presidential candidate. “I would be sorry if he wanted to escape, to carry out some personal adventure. It would be without future. So that would be a mess. I don’t want to waste talents, there aren’t that many. The system is very voracious, it would crush it, ”he continues, in comments still taken from the interviews.
A Vaudeville Holland
When the play evokes the intimate relations of the former head of state, we slide towards Vaudeville. The “normal president” finds himself at the heart of a love triangle. His famous escapades to secretly go see the actress Julie Gayet, revealed by a paparazzi, are evacuated in a playful tone. “The scooter story, for example, doesn’t make sense. Except to say that the President of the Republic can never be on a scooter…”, he told his interlocutors, dodging security questions.
He is also ironic about the terms of his laconic press release, who announced in January 2014 the end of his relationship with his spouse at the time, Valérie Trierweiler. “If I had made a press release saying: ‘Here, I am announcing that we have decided to separate’, she would have said: ‘But no, it’s not true, since I don’t consent to it…’ “. And has fun: “If I had thanked my companion for what she did by my side for eighteen months, for her qualities and her intelligence, it would have been said that I was making these compliments as if I were parting with a Prime Minister…”. The words of François Hollande do not need any artifice to make people smile.
A Holland at the tragic end
“We have to agree on the quotes, mine, in the book. What are you going to keep? Are these phrases in quotes? Over the interviews, and the play, François Hollande seems to worry about the book and the release date. Imagined as a book “giving meaning” to his action for a future re-election, it ends up escaping him. His confessions, made public in October 2016, had the effect of a bomb and finally prevented him from representing himself. As a Shakespearian character (we dare), the one who defines himself as the “specter of the Elysée” seems to see his tragic end coming.
François Hollande then leaves the stage to join the public and defends himself as best he can. “How could the president devote time to journalists when he has so many urgent matters to settle? As if my predecessors never met journalists. Libraries are full of these stories. Bad trial! A president could say that, ”he breathes. Words taken from… another book, that of the president himself, The lessons of power, released in 2018. The circle is complete, especially since he again cannot help but make one last joke: “The two journalists have recognized the honesty of my action. It’s not that often…”
* “A president shouldn’t say that…”, by Gérard Davet and Fabrice Lhomme, dialogues by François Pérache, directed by Charles Templon, at the Théâtre Libre in Paris until April 22.