Twenty years! It had been 20 years since he had seen the town of Les Sables d'Olonne. “She’s changed a lot, I don’t recognize anything anymore,” he says. Philippe Jeantot is back in Vendée this weekend. Without the invitation of the city's mayor, Yannick Moreau, this would not have been possible. “I threw a bottle into the sea but I didn’t know where he lived so I didn’t really know where to send the letter. »
“I changed my life”
Philippe Jeantot went into exile in South Asia, he wanders with his family on his cruising catamaran. Since his troubles with the law and his two convictions for tax fraud, the former Comex diver has disappeared from the radar screens. Ruined according to him. “I was far away, I cut ties. I changed my life,” explains Jeantot, who, at the time, was defended by a certain Éric Dupond-Moretti,
To live happily, let's live hidden. Jeantot lives well hidden. At anchor on his boat, 10,000 km from France. He had not at all planned to return to France and even less to Vendée, where it all began. Without the determination of the mayor of Les Sables, he would never have inaugurated, this Saturday, a quay in his name in Port Olona.
“I thought I had been forgotten”
The story between the mayor and the sailor is not new. In 2000, the two men crossed paths in Les Sables: Jeantot was already the organizer of this solo, non-stop world tour. At the time, Yannick Moreau was “just an anonymous person in the crowd”. Having become mayor in 2019, he decided to invite Jeantot, one day at the start of the Vendée Globe. Because, he says, “the town of Sables-d’Olonne believes it is useful to thank the creator of this race. Yes, it is important to say thank you to Philippe Jeantot for the Vendée Globe. Without him, the city of Sands would not be what it is today.”
Via the internet and a few friends there, the mayor's letter finally arrived in Jeantot's hands: “At first, I had the impression that it was 'Wanted Jeantot, $20,000 reward' (laughing). I read the letter and I liked this sincerity. It was very warm. And I thought I had been forgotten…”
“I preferred my time”
Jeantot accepts the mayor's invitation. And found himself, this Saturday morning, wandering around Port Olona. Several elders recognize this:
– “Hi Philippe, do you recognize me? »
– « Heu… »
The mayor invites him to make the visit on a small canoe. “I am proud and amazed to see what the Vendée Globe has become.” Of the 40 solo sailors involved, he admits that he “does not know any of them… Oh yes, Jean Le Cam”. Today's IMOCAs no longer have anything to do with the monohulls of the first edition: “When we did 260 miles in 24 hours, we were happy. With these machines, if they do that today, they'll be upset.”
The foils, the bows, the very professional side of the board, all of this impresses Jeantot. “There is always this element of adventure.” A downside, however: perhaps there is not as much poetry as at the beginning when we liked to take the time to contemplate the albatrosses, to go see the icebergs. “Today, the solo sailors are locked in the cockpits, they go outside less and less: I preferred my time. »
“The race could have started from Lorient or Brest”
Without this slightly crazy idea of launching a solo non-stop world tour, the Vendée Globe would never have seen the light of day: Jeantot likes to recall the story of the birth of her baby: “We were with my two friends, unfortunately now deceased, the South African Bertie Reed and the Frenchman Guy Bernardin, in Sydney. The Vendée Globe is the idea of three slightly drunk guys in a bar. There were three of us at the start, then finally 13 during the first edition in 1989.”
In fact, Jeantot organized this race simply because he wanted to take part in it. “I wanted to do just one: basically, I was a runner, not an organizer.” Its first sponsors were from Vendée. If they had been Breton, “the race could have started from Lorient or Brest”, according to Jeantot who, after a family tour of the world which lasted ten years, landed in Thailand. He doesn’t miss France more than that: “We live on our old catamaran, at anchor, everything is open. I have a very nice life there. I’m not a high roller, we live simply.”
The past is the past
Jeantot has definitely drawn a line under the past. On his convictions, the fact of having been deprived of his rank of knight of the Legion of Honor and knight of the National Order of Merit, he says nothing. “We don’t talk about it: the past is the past,” he said firmly. “I turned the page, I even changed books,” he asserts during a press briefing in the premises of… SNSM. This mini press conference did not take place in the race village even though the organizers were fully aware of his arrival in Les Sables d'Olonne. They did not roll out the red carpet for Jeantot who always claimed that his race was stolen.
“It would make me happy to start this Vendée Globe, but I haven't been asked. » A few hours later, he made the request to the organizers during a lunch but it was nothing: “We are very happy to see him again but he will not give the start. I have so many requests,” explains Alain Leboeuf, president of the Vendée Globe… who will let go of the pack of 40 solo sailors, Sunday November 10, at 1:02 p.m.
France
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