“A senior officer told us that we were the first French people to parade there since Napoleon. I didn’t go to check. » Jean-Guy Tressera has forgotten nothing – or almost nothing – about that day in June 1976, fifteen years before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, which saw him parade on Red Square, in the heart of the Russian capital. “We were poor soldiers. We only thought about sport,” introduced the former judoka, category – 95 kilos, then called up to the Joinville battalion.
Injured during his classes – damn meniscus – the French vice-champion at the time was recruited on his performances to join the French military team. “In Fontainebleau all sports were grouped together. They sent their best people in different uniforms. » He endorsed that of the Army. Well, only a few times. For his trips to Insep and for consecutive competitions, the tracksuit-kimono duo was more appropriate.
Four souvenir photos
1976, then. Six years before his 5the place of the French championship – damned meniscus (bis) – marking the end of his career as a professional judoka, the current vice-president of the Handball Club Villeneuvois and former rugby player, finds himself embarked on a tour in the USSR with the French team of military rugby and paratrooper officers “whom we did not see during our stay”.
“Some praised the USSR, I lived through it”
For him, it is the second trip in two years to the USSR, after a first in civilian clothes. From Poland to Romania, the tatami mats of the East were essential for training. This time, “the athletes were the appetizers of the general staff”. The tournament, lasting two days, takes on the air of a particularly rough competition. “They had sent everything they had in reserve of champions. The objective was to beat us up to feed their arrogance. »
“A buried terror”
In one of the rare photos brought back from the trip, Jean-Guy Tressera faces a judoka with almost shoulder-length hair. Not a soldier for a penny: “He had made an Olympic podium. » The album includes only three other photos: a blurry one of another fight, a traditional house and the entire team, perched on a Russian tank. “This should have been authorized. We don’t realize it today, but we were constantly monitored. There was no risk of getting lost in the metro,” laughs the debt collector, who holds a CAP in carpentry… The same goes for department stores “where you could only pay in dollars.”
Where is Jean-Guy?
repro “so”
“Some people praised the USSR, I lived through it,” summarizes the kid from Feugarolles, hired to set up the tables at the PCF party which was then held each year next to the family home. As the parade approached, we had to learn to keep pace. “We were laughing,” recalls Jean-Guy Tressera. But, when we saw the military vehicles, the officials in the stands, we entered into a form of stress which means that I have very few memories of it. »
Those at the reception which followed in the immense room flooded with vodka at the Ministry of the Interior, on the other hand, marked him for life: “It remained within me like a buried terror. I remained truly afraid of the Russian military. » The invasion of Ukraine and the dragging out war will not make him change his mind, putting off, undoubtedly forever, the desire he had to return to this incredible place.
