The actress Michèle Bernier paid a beautiful tribute to her father, Professor Choron, co-founder of the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, who died 20 years ago this year.
Twenty years ago, on January 10, 2005 to be precise, Michèle Bernier lost her father, the truculent and provocative Professor Choron (real name, Georges Bernier), co-founder of the magazines Hara-Kiri and Charlie Hebdo and media troublemaker in chief. A death which had logically upset the one who has just made a hit on TF1 with the entertaining TV film Panic at 31 and who will be back at the end of the year with a new season of The internespecially since this departure made her an orphan, her mother having committed suicide twenty years earlier, in 1985, when Michèle was only 28 years old.
Michèle Bernier: “I was a bit of a devil’s daughter…” The actress talks about her life with her father, Professor Choron, co-founder of Charlie Hebdo, who died 20 years ago
In an interview given to our colleague Audrey Crespo-Mara in the weekly show Sept à Huit, Michèle Bernier returned with great emotion to this father, “anarchist of the first category” : “He was an uncompromising man, and that’s how he wrote his newspapers. He felt free. He had a lot of trials and it was difficult. The prohibitions of Hara-Kiri and Charlie Hebdo, it was hell every time.” After this introduction to the singular character of Professor Choron, the latter approached life alongside this father like no other, “Outside, yes [j’ai souffert de ce qu’il avait incarné]. I was a bit of a devil’s daughter. Sometimes my friends that I liked would tell me, ‘My parents don’t want me to come to your house.’ (…) Maybe they were thinking that there were naked women on the stairs, swear words written everywhere, I don’t know! I don’t know what they were imagining in their heads. (She laughs)
Michèle Bernier: “I couldn’t speak anymore…”the actress returns to the death of her father, Professor Choron
Then Michèle Bernier returned to the death of this father. A disappearance which had a surprising effect on the actress. She actually momentarily lost her voice: “It seemed to paralyze my vocal cords. I could no longer speak (…) The nurse at the hospital told me that I was experiencing both bereavements at the same time.” This second mourning is obviously that of his mother, who left 20 years earlier. “When my mother left, it was another shock because it was violent. Suicide is always something violent, for those who stay anyway. When you’re 29, you don’t have obviously don’t want that…” A heavy family story punctuated by sadness but despite everything, Michèle Bernier keeps a smile and transmits it to her interlocutors and to viewers. This is also, undoubtedly, what created this very special bond between the public and her.
