From the entrance hall of the plush apartment, the shelves cry out for mercy. The books pile up, overflow, colonize all the way to the living room table buried under thousands of pages, reflections of a limitless eclectic curiosity. Flowers of Evil to the memories of Alain Juppé, Historical Dictionary of the Papacy in Giesbert’s last essay, there is enough to light up all the windows of the soul.
“Everything is useful to me, dodeline Alain Duhamel. When I say on the air that Bruno Retailleau embodies in my eyes the clerical, protectionist and conservative Catholic right of the 1890s, I speak with knowledge of the facts!”
The journalist smiles, arms crossed on his empire green sofa. He admits “surprised” by the reactions “numerous and warm” which followed the announcement of his retirement… in June 2025. “I felt like I was looking at my own obituary, he jokes. Well, it was quite pleasant! Especially since, in the past, I have not always been spared – to put it mildly.”
“I made mistakes, of course”
An angel passes. Impossible to occupy the media space for so long without arousing tons of jealousy. “At my age, it’s slippery, he whispers. The only criticisms that concern me are those that I consider justified. I made mistakes, of course. In sixty years of career, how could it be otherwise?
His hand sweeps the space. “My luck is that I have always been more interested in my future than in my past. Even today, when the space for projects tends to shrink…”
We remind him of a sentence dropped during a previous interview, where he talked about his retirement: “If I feel that I am slower, if my memory is playing tricks on me, I will stop immediately.” (1) His smile widens. “For the moment, I am lucky not to have any noticeable intellectual aging. But I cannot escape a certain physical fatigue which is not linked to my work, but to my age.”
He says no more. Man, modest, hides behind the will of “to please” to his companion who “support for so many years” his pace of life. “She finds that at our ages, we don’t enjoy each other enoughhe sighs. She is obviously right. Even if everything goes well today, you never know what might happen tomorrow.”
In the meantime, Alain Duhamel has not changed his habits. He gets up every morning at 6:45 a.m., first tunes into Franceinfo then listens to the editorials from the different radio stations. At 8:15 a.m., he goes “look for your packet of newspapers” : nine dailies and four weeklies that he puts under the scalpel.
“We defended pluralism”
“It takes me a good part of the morning, he explains. Before lunch, often outside, I read a few passages from a book. Then I go to BFM where I stay until 6:15 p.m. – except when an exceptional event requires my presence later.”
He arrives with, in his luggage, the living history of the Fifth Republic. “It’s valuable for gaining height. I measure my luck when I talk with my young colleagues. Realize: I signed my first paper in The World in 1963 and I made my debut in the small window during the ORTF days!”
A time for which he retains no nostalgia. “On the other hand, I have good personal memories. A show like On equal terms [de 1970 à 1973, Ndlr] welcomed personalities from all walks of life. It was an exception, whereas today it has become the norm. With Jean-Pierre Elkabbach, we defended pluralism.”
“Yes, I miss Elkabbach…”
The mention of his old accomplice, who died in October 2023, makes him look grim. “Yes, I miss him. Even when he was very ill, he called me constantly. Our companionship was lively. We often had disagreements, even in the way we prepared our shows. He wanted to see the guests first; me, never. He was interested in managing teams, while I always refused management positions. During his lifetime, he was criticized enormously, often in a very unfair way. He was not always easy-going, sometimes angry, often intrusive! . But he was an exceptional journalist! He understood people as quickly as events. And he was very, very rarely wrong…”
“I’m not afraid of being idle”
The one who was a long time editorialist at Nice-Morning chases away the ghosts that dance before his eyes. And projects itself resolutely into “after”. The day after his last show, what will he do?
“I will take a vacation, he laughs. Then, I will continue to be passionate about the progress of the world. Each new crisis, each innovation interests me as much as when I was twenty. When you have experienced so many things up close, you don’t become indifferent overnight. I will continue to write books as long as I have the taste and the strength. The next one, a gallery of political portraits, will appear in December 2025. I have others in mind.”
Her sparkling eyes widen: “I’m realistic. I know that at my age, everything can stop at any time. But I don’t fear boredom or being idle.”
He smiled, as if probing the twists and turns of her mind. “Maybe I’ll make the most of my free time?” The question hovers for a moment. The octogenarian shakes his head, then decides in a burst of laughter: “I’m not sure…”
1. Nice-Morning from October 15, 2023.
Presidents, heads of government… and Villepin
Since General de Gaulle – the one who “marked him the most” – Alain Duhamel has rubbed shoulders with all the heads of state and government of the Fifth Republic. And even one of the greatest presidents of the council of the 4th: Pierre Mendès France. Memories on the fly.
– Pierre Mendès France: “He would have deserved a more important place, but he never wanted to play the game of the Fifth Republic. His intransigence prevented him from becoming what he could have been. We were very close. I hosted him at my home for his last dinner, after he gave me his final interview. »
– Valéry Giscard d’Estaing: “I shared a lot of ideas with him. He had a certain vision of France’s trajectory, that is not given to everyone. »
– François Mitterrand: “In 1969, we wrote a book together [Ma part de vérité, Ndlr]. It is in this work that he makes his turn towards “socialism” – a term that I always found abusive as far as he was concerned, but whose political usefulness I understood. I was criticized, a posteriori, for the absence of reference to his gray period under the Occupation. I didn’t know he had the Francisque. But I knew that during the war, he had not been initially attacked by Vichy. Towards the end of his life, he found it quite unpleasant to receive lessons from people who had not lived through this period and who believed themselves authorized to tell him what he should have done. »
– Jacques Chirac: “Our relationships have been fluctuating. He sometimes considered me a nuisance, but it was in front of me, in October 1995, that he admitted that the reduction of the social divide, the theme of his campaign, was incompatible with the circumstances. Less than six months after his election, he turned around and placed me in the role of midwife! »
– Nicolas Sarkozy: “What temperament, what energy! He reproached me for not coming to see him when he was in the South: I told him that the holidays were sacred and that we were not going to spend them together. »
– François Hollande: “He has exceptional political intelligence. Then… everyone evaluates their results as they wish! »
– Dominique de Villepin: “Since Jacques Chaban-Delmas, all the heads of government have invited me to Matignon. Except Villepin. We had a mutual, immediate and instinctive antipathy. I was wary of this dual, disturbing, dangerous personality. He probably considered me a boring and conformist reasoner. »
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