Dark notebook in the world of French music: Colette Ferrat died on May 9, we learned from her niece Valérie in recent days. Aged 88, she shared the life of singer Jean Ferrat from the 1970s until his death in 2010. The two were married in 1992 but had no children. Colette Ferrat was buried in the strictest family privacy at his side.
It is via her Facebook account that Colette Ferrat’s niece revealed the disappearance of his beloved aunt, widow of Jean Ferrat : “She left to find her Jean. Colette and Jean is a story of love, sharing, poetry, travel, happiness that lasted 40 years. My Coco, your memory will forever be engraved in our hearts“, she wrote about the woman who lived for so many years alongside the artist in Ardèche, where they had a house.
It was in Ardèche that the couple met in the early 1970s: at the time, both were married, but Jean Ferrat lived a rather free union with the singer Christine Sèvres, whom he married in 1961 and whose little daughter Véronique he is raising. If their relationship fizzled out when he met Colette, there was no question of him letting her down: seriously ill, she could count on him until his death in 1981.
Colette, then a PE teacher, married him in 1992 but above all lived a passionate affair with him: “We have lived for a long time intense physical passion. We were in total osmosis, always the same desires, the same tastes, and that for everything“, she said in 2015 in an interview for our colleagues at Paris Match.
They will not have children despite this close story: “Jean did not want to have children. He raised Christine Sèvres’ daughter but did not adopt her. When my older sister died, Valérie, her daughter, was 6 years old. When she came to our house, Jean showed her a lot of affection, but, as far as he was concerned, he refused any descendants.“, also recounted his widow.
A love until death
Colette Ferrat accompanied the singer until his death: at the end of 2009, when he was 79 years old, Jean Ferrat fell down the stairs. He fractured his back and punctured his only remaining lung, before contracting a nosocomial illness which put him in the hospital numerous times: “There were various complications, a very complex tracheal problem, a nosocomial illness, repeated hospitalizations. I remember nights spent by his side when he was choking, long weeks of respiratory rehabilitation interspersed with moments of improvement“, his widow said.
The lover that she was kept the most beautiful memories of him despite his disappearance: “Having him in my life was a rebirth, I have never known anything more beautiful. Even today, I see him in the garden pruning everything that sticks out, as he did when he was alive. I talk to him and, even if he doesn’t answer me, I know he is there, as handsome as before, with his skin so soft“. Here is the couple now reunited forever.
