among politicians, the great collective amnesia – Libération

The political class which worked alongside the priest in his fight against poverty claims to have seen or heard nothing of his actions towards women. Among his traveling companions like Bernard Kouchner or Martin Hirsch, the unease is obvious.

In the living room with its spectacular view which opens onto the Luxembourg garden, Abbé Pierre showed up one day at the end of 1996. He and his already legendary silhouette (beret, thick glasses, white beard, cape and cane) were there for a very specific purpose: to reconcile with Bernard Kouchner. The Garaudy affair had badly damaged the then immaculate image of the priest of the poor. The abbot did not skimp on public support for his friend Roger Garaudy, a former communist leader who became a figure of Holocaust denial. “At that time we were a couple, the abbot and me. We were seen everywhere together. This story revolted me. We were angry for six months, then he finally came and explained himself”remembers the founder of Médecins sans frontières twenty-eight years later, in the same living room that he is preparing to leave. Moving in sight, boxes everywhere among works of art, sculptures, paintings. And memories. This October afternoon, Bernard Kouchner agreed to speak for Liberation those who link him to the creator of Emmaus.

Together, the Christian and the humanitarian wrote Gods and men, a collection of their conversations published in 1993. They debate good and evil, charity and humanism, Christianity and the impossible quest for faith. Jam