To you, the retirement reform at 64 must seem completely abstract. Do you want to die on stage like Molière?
Chantal Goya : Oh no! And then it’s not decided like that! I love working, I can’t do nothing. If the artistic stops overnight, no problem, I’ll set up a shop. I was not very considerate, so much so that today, I have 600 euros in retirement after taxes (and excluding artist fees).
Why not record new songs?
When I did it, it cost me a fortune and the songs never got played on the radio. So I stopped.
Little is known, but in the early 1960s, when you met Jean-Jacques Debout, your future husband, you wanted to be a journalist…
Yes. I had gone to study journalism, I was living in London. I wanted to be a war reporter, covering conflicts, meeting people around the world and telling stories. Finally, I told stories, but differently…
In two years, you will celebrate your 60th wedding anniversary. Your first meeting with Jean-Jacques Debout remains a completely improbable moment…
I was invited to a wedding. A man, whom I had never seen, is playing on the piano, he suddenly stops playing, crosses the room to sit next to me and says to me: “I feel like I’ve known you forever. We’ll get married, have two kids, and you’ll be a famous singer!” At that time, I was a student, not a singer at all…
What did your father ask you when you mentioned singing as a professional future?
He told me: “If you sing, you change your name! Otherwise what will we look like?“