Ian Hamel: “How could Tapie, a simple straw man, shine? »

The disappearance of Bernard Tapie, which occurred on October 3 in his 79th year, unsurprisingly made the headlines of the day. Many tributes have been paid to this character with a certain charisma who will have had a thousand lives, or not far: he was a business manager, deputy, "Boss" of OM, minister, press boss, and even singer. The last years of his life were marked by illness, and his courageous (like all patients) and publicized fight against cancer brought him powerful outpourings of popular sympathy.

But who really was Bernard Tapie, beyond the one who was sold to us, for forty years, by one of the greatest communicators of our time, namely himself? Ian Hamel, journalist at Le Point, answers this question in It was Bernard Tapie (L'Archipel, 2021), a detailed and uncompromising bio. As much to say it straight: Tapie fans may not like what they read, perhaps also not quite recognize the one they saw almost as a familiar. During his lifetime, Bernard Tapie liked to control what concerned him: he is no longer and now belongs, if not to historians, in any case to those who will want to write and investigate him. There is no definitive truth here but an additional piece brought to the Tapie file, to better understand the man, fascinating as much as he was controversial, the excesses of money king and of a power having lost its compass. , and sometimes his soul. Excluded, Words from News, by Nicolas Roche.

EXCLUDED - WORDS OF NEWS

Ian Hamel: “How Tapie,

simple straw man,

Was he able to shine like this? »

It was Bernard Tapie by Ian Hamel (L’Archipel, 2021)

Ian Hamel hello. What was your reaction to the announcement of the death of Bernard Tapie, about which you will have blackened many pages including this book, It was Bernard Tapie (L'Archipel, 2021)?

When the death of Bernard Tapie was announced, I had almost the same thoughts as Tintin in Le Lotus bleu, concerning the death of Mitsuhirato: “God rest his soul! But he was a tough rascal! One couldn't completely hate Tapie, despite the harm he did throughout his life.

Let's start with a big chunk: what should we remember about the scandals of OM's accounts? Can we speak of a forest hidden by the VA-OM tree?

The trial of OM's accounts has fascinated the French much less than the VA-OM affair, which is anecdotal. However, we learn that, as soon as he arrived at OM, Tapie did everything possible to win, in particular by buying the referees. In total, more than 100 million francs were embezzled from OM's accounts.

How to explain the incredible benevolence of Mitterrandie - and a Crédit Lyonnais under orders - towards Bernard Tapie?

From 1983, the socialists realized that they were heading for disaster. If France did not want to become Albania, the capitalist system had to be rediscovered. But for that, they dressed it up by trying to make people believe that leftists, like Bernard Tapie, could also be good capitalists. Mitterrand therefore put Crédit Lyonnais at the service of Bernard Tapie. Thanks to this bank, he was able to buy Adidas, which represented fifteen times his turnover at the time. All financial analysts will confirm it to you: from the start, we knew that Tapie could not reimburse the purchase of Adidas.

You explain well, with regard to the age-old Adidas affair, that the arbitration wanted by the Sarkozy regime (2008), favorable to Tapie and unfavorable to the State, and therefore to the taxpayers, was carried out in defiance of justice ordinary that went in the opposite direction. Can we clearly speak here of an act of the Prince, for reasons that remain unclear?

How to explain that Tapie, who did not put a franc in Adidas, could have been cheated by Crédit Lyonnais? Even if I recognize that Crédit Lyonnais was not very honest in the takeover of Adidas either... However, no one is able to say why Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to save 405 million euros for Tapie? In 2007, the latter did not have the means to bring him hundreds of thousands of votes. But we know that Tapie bought the daily La Provence at the request of Sarkozy who wanted to be a candidate in 2017.

There is a lot of talk in your book about Tapie as a straw man. What forces would he have been the straw man? To what extent will he have been, in your opinion, at the helm, and to what extent will he have been instrumentalized by someone stronger than him?

Tapie was never a businessman. I met his relatives: he never set foot in his businesses (except for reporting). He was never able to read a balance sheet. In 1981, the Socialists, coming to power, looked for straw men to take over companies, pump them out and embezzle money. But unlike the usual straw men, without stature, Tapie is very intelligent. He was not content with this obscure role. He wanted to shine.

Bernard Tapie was an emblematic figure of the 1980s, of those contradictory times when France twice elected François Mitterrand but when, sensitive to the Anglo-Saxon winds, many were ecstatic at the successes - or the apparent successes - of great captains of industry, and even sharks of finance ("Greed is good"). What does the starification of Tapie in those years tell us about the changes made in the 1980s?

From the 1980s, the important thing was no longer to “do” but to “let it be known”. Tapie notably declared that his Terraillon weighing company, in Haute-Savoie, was going to make 1 billion in turnover and 150 million in profits, while its turnover was around 2-300 million and that it accused 35 million of losses. Economic journalists only copied the figures given by Tapie, who invited them, all expenses paid, to large hotels.

What abuses has Bernard Tapie been a symptom of, a symbol of over the past 50 years?

Tapie is the symbol of appearance. The media does not focus on what is, but on what it says. And as everything is going very quickly, practically no one is investigating.

You write it yourself: in many circles, Tapie will always have been seen as a Robin Hood rather than a Stavisky. He enjoyed genuine movements of sympathy (I leave aside the last period, with his cancer). What does Tapie popularity tell us about ourselves, and what moves us?

Tapie invited the most famous journalists, especially those working on TV, in his private jet, on his yacht. The latter drew portraits of him that absolutely did not correspond to reality: a left-wing man, close to the people, while in private, he hated people, and defended far-right ideas. I would add that Tapie has always been very clever, presenting himself as a child of the people, a victim of the rich, of the banks...

What differentiates Tapie from a Silvio Berlusconi, or a Donald Trump, two other very charismatic ambitious greats? Unlike them, did he really want power for him, apart from that which money confers?

It’s hard to say: did he really want power? Minister of the City, he did absolutely nothing. MP in Marseille, he never went to see his constituents. Certain of being beaten in 1993, he then presented himself to Gardanne. He never really wanted to be mayor of Marseille. It should have worked. However, Tapie, he only lived with his phone. He never read any files.

What shadows remain about Bernard Tapie? What mysteries are still unsolved, and what secrets did he likely take to the grave?

Little is known about his ties to the mafia. His former right-hand man, Marc Fratani, with whom I wrote Le Mystifiant (L'Archipel, 2019), never wanted to tell me much more about the very real links between Tapie and the Middle. I know that there were contacts with the mafia before the European Cup won by OM in 1993. But as I did not have the promised proof, I could not write about the event most important in the life of Bernard Tapie.

If you could have interviewed him, what questions would you have asked him, eye to eye?

I spoke to Tapie several times, notably in 1992 when he was a candidate to be president of the PACA region. And in 2008, when he knew he was going to win 405 million euros and was looking for a villa on the shores of Lake Geneva in Geneva. I sent him an interview request in 2015 when my book Notre ami Bernard Tapie (L’Archipel) was published. he sued me, attacking me on fifteen points. He lost at first instance and on appeal on all counts.

If he had received me, I would have questioned him about his links with organized crime and with Presidents Mitterrand, Sarkozy and Macron. On the other hand, neither Chirac and Hollande wanted to maintain relations with him.

How was the news of Tapie's death received in Switzerland, and how do the press and business circles speak of him?

Bernard Tapie is a well-known figure in Switzerland, where he visited frequently. It is in particular a Geneva financial company which lent him money for his yacht Le Phocéa. It is also on the shores of Lake Geneva that he thought, for a time, to settle with the 405 million euros of arbitration. Bernard Tapie even thought of buying Servette, the Geneva football club.

The very day of his disappearance, I was interviewed by Swiss TV. It was mainly the French-speaking press that spoke of his disappearance. I would say that it is traditionally more reserved than the French press. She therefore did not make headlines on the disappearance of the former boss of OM. As for the business community, they never took Bernard Tapie very seriously.

Who was he after all, this Bernard Tapie that you now think you have a good idea of?

Bernard Tapie remains a fascinating character. How could a simple straw man shine like this? This shows both the mediocrity and the lack of honesty of the French political class, of the media. Why did Madame Macron bow to the coffin of a guy who owed more than 400 million to French taxpayers since 2015, and whom he will never reimburse? A guy who fired tens of thousands of employees... A few years ago, I wrote a book with François Rouge, a Swiss banker killed for money laundering. It tells the role of thugs in our society. The greats of this world, politicians, businessmen, use thugs for their dirty work: threatening, spying on a competitor, etc. Then the thugs hold them. Tapie held a lot of people.

At the end of your book, you mention the Thomas Thévenoud case, which caused a lot of noise for much less than the Tapie cases. You hasten to add then that this does not necessarily presage greater virtue in politics. Despite everything, can we say that with the new rules that have come into force in recent years, we are moving away at least a little from corruption and profiteering in politics?

I think it is actually a little more complicated than before to scam. This does not, however, keep politicians away from corruption. They just have to be smarter. Your plans for the future?

I have had a book project for several years on the pension scam. In some departments, there are up to 21% errors, always to the detriment of retirees. My agenda has been jostled by other projects, on Tariq Ramadan, on Xavier Bertrand, finally, on Bernard Tapie.

Any last words?

The tributes paid to Bernard Tapie flabbergasted me. I already did not have much esteem for the political class and journalists. Did they know that Bernard Tapie despised them? No sooner had one of those he met had walked through his door than Tapie called him "shit", "asshole", "dull", "poor guy".

A comment? A reaction ?

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