The first welcome is a look of steel, piercing the half-open door of a Parisian apartment. Sleeveless midnight blue down jacket from a trendy brand worn over a bottle green sweater, worn around the neck held by a strap, Édith Cresson, 90 years old, lives there surrounded by books. In the white living room, two sofas face each other, installed on the herringbone parquet floor. On the neighboring armchair, the latest Goncourt, “Houris” by Kamel Daoud, is placed near the ashtray where a cigarette has just been extinguished. Next to it, a work by Boris Cyrulnik and a book about her that she highly recommends, as if she wanted to avoid repeating herself, once again. Thirty years after the departure from the Elysée of President François Mitterrand, who appointed her in 1991, an interview with the woman who will be remembered in history as the first female Prime Minister in France.
PARIS MATCH. Have you looked at François Bayrou's general policy declaration on January 14?
Edith CRESSON. Yes. It was good, in any case I found that what he said, his program, was consistent with the needs of the moment. There was nothing shocking in his statements.
Did it remind you of yours, May 22, 1991?
-For me, it was very different, I was the first woman in this position in France and it was therefore very difficult. In England, Margareth Thatcher had already been appointed more than ten years previously, in Portugal there had already been a woman Prime Minister (in 1979, Editor's note)…
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