Crédit Lyonnais, Bernard Tapie's disease does not let go<

On the second day of his trial before the Paris Criminal Court, Bernard Tapie is already making replies. The “actor”, since this is how he presents himself at the bar of the court, puts on a show. A lawyer for himself, the businessman interrupts President Christine Mée in her long presentation. “This is the fable we have been told for fifteen years! he exclaims as the magistrate unfolds the endless story of the Crédit Lyonnais affair which earned him this umpteenth return to justice. The recital begins. Scheduled to last until April 4, the Tapie show is already sold out.

Prosecuted with five other defendants for fraud and embezzlement of public funds, he pleads without notes and does not depart from his outspokenness. Sharp as ever, the septuagenarian impresses, talks and fascinates. He does not hesitate to go up on the platform to borrow the prosecutor's pair of glasses, in order to read a document on his computer. A way to put the laughers on his side. "Here, we are not at the show", the president lectures him. You have to see him taunting his lawyers Hervé Temime and Julia Minkowski, like vulgar supporting roles, when they are slow to provide him with a detail drowned in the heavy files which invade the defense benches.

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“Some treatments cause hair loss and memory loss. The hair grows back, not the memory, ”regrets the 76-year-old defendant. Prepared like a high-level athlete for "an Olympic final", according to the sporting metaphor he likes, the former boss of Adidas also counts on the help of Me Lantourne, his lawyer for a long time, today among the defendants. . Sitting behind him, this lifelong accomplice serves as prompter. And flies to his rescue when "Nanar" gets tangled up in the dates and numbers, which abound in this extended file which no one understands much anymore. A case partly settled by the civil courts which have already sentenced him to repay 405 million euros.

Convinced that he can still turn things around in his favor, Bernard Tapie puts all his strength into what looks like his final fight. Moreover, it is not he who risks the most. More discreet, Stéphane Richard, CEO of Orange and former chief of staff of Christine Lagarde, plays very big. He is suspected of having, at the time, facilitated the organization of the controversial arbitration over the sale of Adidas.

Known by 100% of the French, Bernard Tapie is loved by 45% of them

In his impeccable blue suit with his silver-colored helmet, the defendant Tapie looks good. He replays the match of his life as an entrepreneur, tells "how you make your business grow". Compares to Bolloré, Pinault, Arnault or Messier, "but he did not succeed", he slips. “We all have the same method to grow our holdings, we buy on credit! With Tapie, business would be simple. Well almost. Because, in court, the man of a hundred lives knows how to recognize his mistakes: “Between being a very, very rich industrialist and a much less rich politician, I did not hesitate for a second. But if I had to do it again, I wouldn't. »

Bernard Tapie has been thinking about and preparing for this show meticulously for weeks. Before the start of his trial, he received journalists at his home and toured the media. A warm-up lap where the former minister made "Nanar", sometimes annoying, touching, grotesque, lying, but also bluffing with his fighting spirit. There is always something going on with Bernard Tapie. Forty years it lasts. Forty years that the French love or hate the adventures of "Nanar". Known by 100% of French people, it is loved by 45% of them, according to an Ifop survey carried out before Christmas. Impressed by his fight against cancer, 69% of respondents consider him "courageous". A level of "good opinions" which would still place him, despite his sulphurous past, in the top 5 favorite personalities, between Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy! Nice companies.

You have to see him turn in circles, this Sunday, March 3, in the dressing room of BFMTV, before entering the studio for a two-hour interview. Nobody imagines this man suffering from a double cancer of the stomach and the esophagus. Upset by the declarations, the day before in "Le Monde", of his ex-parliamentary assistant Marc Fratani, he threatens at the last moment to leave the channel. They hold him on the doorstep. He sits on the stool opposite the journalist Apolline de Malherbe. " It is too cold ! Turn down the air conditioning,” he demanded. Generic. The “actor” starts. Threaten again. Gets up, then sits down. The former minister comes alive and gives his advice to Emmanuel Macron so that he "become the greatest president of the Fifth Republic". Just that ! Everything is always huge with Tapie, who ends the show exhausted. The next day, he puts it back to Europe 1. And sees red when the interviewer Audrey Crespo-Mara questions him about his decision to stop his chemotherapy treatment: “Bernard Tapie, so you have chosen between your cancer and your trial? He slams the door.

A few days earlier, Bernard Tapie welcomed Match to his home, in his mansion on rue des Saints-Pères, in the heart of Paris. Slender and elegant in black pants and sweater, he receives himself in a salon furnished with Louis XV. He recounts his illness without false modesty, his operation for a hernia 11 centimeters long after the tearing of all the peritoneum. “Doctors told me that getting bad blood and bile was a big factor in my illness. It's been twenty-five years that I worry about this lawsuit that never ends. My cancer has a name: Credit Lyonnais! »

Without Dominique, where would Bernard Tapie be?

Suddenly very moved when he evokes the suffering he inflicts on his family and "especially on [his] little wife", he breathes: "I I'm ruining his life for him. “When Tapie-le-pudique evokes his wife, it is no longer the same man who speaks. The big mouth changes register to make way for sweetness. Before meeting the one who said "yes" to him thirty-one years ago, he was, he says, a great horseman attracted by women older than him and not necessarily beautiful. And then there was Dominique. His rock, his port, his refuge, which he listens to and preserves in all circumstances. With no regrets, he says, about his life, there is at least one thing he is "proud" of today, and that is his personal and family life. Without Dominique, where would Bernard Tapie be? It was she who made him definitively renounce politics in 1998 and, above all, the town hall of Marseille. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of OM's victory in the European Cup, Jean-Claude Gaudin came to shake hands with his wife in person, whispering in her ear: "Madame Tapie, I know everything that I owe you. I was able to win because, thanks to you, your husband did not run for office. »

With Tapie, we always come back to Marseille. The still boss of "La Provence" has also surprised by making available to the yellow vests a room of his newspaper. The businessman admits to being touched by their claims. “I was a yellow vest before the hour! This helping hand to help them get organized for the Europeans will last a long time. "We have long been merchants of happiness, but this country has become embittered", notes this eternal optimist. In December, at the height of the crisis and on the eve of Emmanuel Macron's appearance on television, Bernard Tapie sent him a long and precise message. He knows the Head of State relatively little, but he wants to make him aware of two of the problems raised by the yellow vests he has encountered: that of single women and that of unpaid alimony.

He also compares himself to Johnny Hallyday who held on, according to him, thanks to his show Les Vieilles Canailles

If he is concentrating today on the trial he hopes to win, this bulimic for life is already thinking about what's next. To hear it, the projects are not lacking. A book about hospitals. He annoys his editor, who is not very excited. Bernard Tapie wants to rant against pharmaceutical companies, 90% of whose production is made in China, including generics. Madness, he says. He would like to convince wealthy French entrepreneurs to build “low-margin laboratories” in their country.

Showman Bernard Tapie also hopes to make a comeback in front of the camera. Didn't Claude Lelouch just offer him to be in his next film, which is scheduled to shoot this summer in Paris? "It will give me the strength to last a few months," he says. He also compares himself to Johnny Hallyday who, according to him, held on thanks to his show Les Vieilles Canailles. His cancer? Undoubtedly, he suffers from the consequences of the operation. And it shows. He puts it into perspective: “Psychologically, the prosecutor pisses me off more than my cancer. When you combine the two, it's a lot. I figure that with a bit of luck I'll get through this. »