A French rock figure is dead. The Breton musician, writer and activist Frank Darcel, founder of the Rennes group Marquis de Sade, was found dead Thursday March 14 on a beach in Galicia, in the northwest of Spain, we learned this Saturday March 16 from sources concordant.
According to Galician emergency services, the body of the 65-year-old guitarist was discovered on Thursday midday by walkers on rocks on Los Castros beach, in the town of Ribadeo. He found himself “in an easily accessible location, right next to the stairs leading to the beach”, they detail in a press release. Contacted, a spokesperson for the Civil Guard confirmed that the body found was indeed that of Frank Darcel. He did not specify the cause of his death, which remains under investigation.
“Infinite sadness”
On Instagram, singer Pascal Obispo paid tribute on Saturday to the musician, with whom he collaborated on several occasions. “And now Frank… Infinite sadness”he wrote under black and white photos of the guitarist. “My dear Frank, my friendreacted, also on Instagram, the singer Etienne Daho, close to Frank Darcel, who accompanied him on his first album in 1981 and even produced it in its beginnings. Thousands of memories flood in and the words cannot come to me to express this emptiness. Thank you for being in my life and changing it forever.”
Born in Côtes-d’Armor in 1958, Frank Darcel founded the rock group Marquis de Sade with singer Philippe Pascal at the age of 19, who died suddenly in 2019 at the age of 63. He has worked with many French musicians, including Alan Stivell. This son of a doctor also became known for his novels, including Ugly Wound, The Army of Free Men, or the Dinghy, but also for his political commitment in Brittany. Opposed to Parisian centralism, he joined the Breton party in 2002 and was one of the founders of Breizh Europa in 2013, which advocates the autonomy of Brittany in a federal Europe.
In 2020, he was a candidate for the municipal elections in Rennes for the small party Rennes Bretagne Europe (RBE), collecting less than 2% of the votes. “My aim is a Brittany with more powers in a federal France within a federal Europe, and it is neither right nor left,” he explained to West France during an interview in November 2019.