Repro PP
The book, with 176 richly illustrated pages, is sold for 22 euros at your newsagent and in all good bookstores.
Memory, because it retraces the major dates of Béarn and Soule, from the liberation of Pau in August 1944, to May 1968, passing through the great moments of the Lacq epic, the significant presidential visits or even the shock of May 1968 which was felt here too. Memories, too, because beyond the great story, the book is full of reminders and anecdotes from the past which have remained in the collective memory.
The editorial team advises you
Memory and memories
From the epic of the Magendie Brothers in 1962, a Nayais brotherhood who distinguished themselves in “L'homme du XX siècle”, the first game show, the ancestor of “Questions for a Champion” which thrilled the Béarnaise crowds in the wake of their exploits in general culture, including the very symbolic reopening of the Pau Funicular after years of abandonment in 1978, the events selected draw as much from the major dates as in the collective memory.
This is also why the book gives pride of place to the great sporting exploits of a land that is full of them. We recall, for example, the incredible birth of the “Circuit des Cimes”, which became Rallye des Cimes, one of the very first off-road motorsport events. We of course tell of Fangio's exploits on the Pau auto circuit, such as the last Brennus of the Section in 1964, or the exploit of Elan Béarnais in the Korac Cup in 1984.
The good pages of the “genius of the Olympics”, the event book on Tony Estanguet
Vincent Martinelli, journalist and head of the sports department of the Republic of the Pyrenees and Éclair, looks back on the journey of the triple Olympic champion who became patron of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, through unpublished testimonies from those close to him. The book is released on December 6 by Editions Sud Ouest. Our colleague has already given us large extracts.
Each time, and this is the particularity of this work, it is the period articles, published in the IVe or La Rép as well as in l'Éclair at the time of the events which come to tell us the episode, with the contextualization of the time, the importance also that it could give to this or that story told in the present or past tense.
It is therefore a dive into the last eight decades that the book offers on 176 pages richly illustrated with photos or front pages and articles from the time. Through the selection made by Renée Mourgues, former journalist of La République des Pyrénées, Jean Marziou, former editor-in-chief of La République des Pyrénées and l'Éclair, and Nicolas Rebière, current editor-in-chief of Pyrénées Presse, we he sees how certain events that occurred more than 50 years ago still mark Béarn or Soule today.
Resonances with today
This is the case of the Pont de l'Estanguet accident, which closed the railway line between Oloron and Canfranc for a long time, or even of this first national corn congress in 1950 in Pau, which marked the beginning of an epic agricultural. We also realize how the first air connection between Pau and Paris was celebrated with jubilation or how the A64 which we take so easily today took a long time to come into being….
The editorial team advises you
We of course come across essential characters like André Labarrère, a certain François Bayrou _ he had not yet been appointed Prime Minister when the book was completed… _ or even Jean Lassalle and his famous hunger strike. The book does not forget the great tragedies experienced by our territory, from the Arette earthquake in 1967, through the painful cases of the double murder of the CHP or the murder of Alexandre in Pau.
Through all these selected articles (more than a hundred for these eight decades, the news is so rich here), it is above all necessary to read a tribute to the past, present and future editorial staff who, since 1944, have been telling the news and ultimately also the history of Béarn and Soule, in the most precise way and always at the right height: that is to say as close as possible. A tribute also to all those, rotativists, graphic designers, customer or sales service, IT specialists or press peddlers, who make it possible every day to provide you with this information, in paper version or on the internet.
This weekend at your newsagent or bookstore
After our series on the year 1944 in Béarn, after the first open days of our newspaper last September, after the publications of the first collector's front pages of the Fourth Republic and L'Éclair, the book “80 years of stories in Béarn » comes full circle to a year rich in memories attached to our newspapers which, since 1944, have followed the news in Béarn and Soule. The book “80 years of stories in Béarn” will be available from newsagents and in all good bookstores in Béarn and Soule from this Saturday. The book, made up of 176 richly illustrated pages, is priced at 22 euros.
