“Jean-François Kahn, in the present and forever”

At the beginning of my life as a journalist and forever, there is Jean-François Kahn. I write in the present tense although an imperfect unthinkable brutally replaces it. His words that hammer home reality, his laughter that takes everything away. An injunction to be clear and intelligent, a challenge to fog, to pathos, a snub to bad lyricism. He is – remains – my boss for more than three decades, fromThursday event has Marianne. From the small elaborate building on rue Christine to the premises of the Bastille and then the République, I only want and like to work with him because he doesn't care about concepts, pulverizes them with a joke or a scathing historical reminder . Shrunken, the ideology in which others, however, over the metamorphoses of the newspaper and the distant founding father, will wrap themselves in claiming to be him.

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Whether he sends me on a mission to the end of the street or to the end of the world, he projects me into all kinds of universes by challenging me to tell them, even if I find them frightening or grotesque. Algeria, Islamist killings, Middle East, endless wars. Try to tell the story, at least as little as we can gather, without obeying the formatted reflex or falling into demagoguery.

Jean-François' journalism, the only one that suits me and that is worth it, is living reality, quicksilver thought. It requires distance. But never coldness. The coldness, what horror, what boredom! Without doubt, it is the reader who loses touch, the face or the landscape that is betrayed. The boss shines his magic lantern on the world of the powerful, from his attic office on rue Christine, and it reveals their deformities. Most fear him, many of his colleagues deride him for a long time – they will calm down – because he respects none of their sacred cows and cares nothing for honors.

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He mocks those who pontificate on all subjects, gloating over their importance. Jean-François Kahn's readers clearly feel that all these smooth talkers are liars. And every Thursday they wait for his fierce but fraternal articles. We recognize him everywhere, we approach him in the street without ceremony. He is with the people as with us, his journalists. Like with me. His face seems cold and smooth, his gaze lost in distant reflections then he bursts out laughing, tells ten stories at the same time and we are swept away in the whirlwind. We started to have brilliant ideas, it was he who gave them to us but they became ours in the blink of an eye. Besides, he says, only we can treat them brilliantly. And as quickly as possible. We rush to the phone, the notepad, on the train, on the plane, life is exhilarating and fast, we must seize it, immobilize it, bring it back in a paper cage to surprise it, seduce it .

Patience is not his primary quality. If the newspaper, the one he created, the one he will recreate, the one he produces from dawn to night, the one which, from one decade to the next, tells the story of our country, if this newspaper does not become the oasis of virtue, intelligence and generosity that he wants to build, he throws in the towel.

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And he does it again. Here comes happiness again. Writing, reporting, sharing. Whether he takes us to celebrate at the local bistro or in his Burgundy mill, lost and medieval, we crowd around the table raising our glass to the community of heart and talent, to the master of the place and the pens. As different as we are, we are happy to be together since we are with him. We drink, eat and laugh in a dream country, perhaps the one he seeks to invent with the Event, with Marianneand which will leave in me the nostalgic trace of a homeland.