Happy birthday to Richard Bohringer, who celebrates his 83rd birthday this Thursday, January 16, 2025. The opportunity to take an interest in Lou and Romane’s father, notably to the fact that he obtained Senegalese nationality in 2002. A few years ago, he confided in his attachment to the African continent, to Geo.
“This continent took me in its arms. He has a sense of sharing. Those who gave me had nothing: they went looking in the holes in their hands. It’s very difficult to feel like you belong when you’re a drug addict. [Blanc en wolof et mandinké] because there, life is only African. But I felt accepted.”
If he returned to France, it was because a family was waiting for him: “JI had my children and their mother in France. Africa has already distanced me so much from them… It started in 1985. I made a number of trips there. I was very lost. This continent is powerful and devastating, it makes what we were disappear, makes you become someone else. At that time, Africa tore me from my life. She disturbed her. Today, I miss her terribly. I’m in love.”
Richard Bohringer and Africa, a beautiful love story
In 2009, in Saint Louis, Senegal, he filmed a film with director Henri Henriol entitled THE Baobabs do not grow in winter. For France 3, he confided in his admiration for this country, in particular for this city which he then described as a “flying saucer”. “It’s very, very beautiful,” he added, hair blowing in the wind, facing the ocean.
Africa, the one who fought against cancer of the nervous system discovered it while filming in The Caprices of a River, by Bernard Giraudeau. In 2016, he publishedt Quinze Rounds (ed. Flammarion), a book where he talks about his youth, his profession as an actor, and his love for this continent. A few years earlier, in 2007, he published Notebook from Senegal, where he recounted his passion for this country and its inhabitants.
Note that this love for Africa, he also told in song, notably in Africa, my mother, in 2002. Becoming Senegalese was then obvious to him.
