Bernard Tapie, lessons from a boomer

Le Regard Libre N° 78 - Daniel Wittmer

Although I know the main contours and reliefs of the fantastic story of Bernard Tapie, who died on Sunday, and although I have a sincere and deep affection for him, I have to admit that... Bernard Tapie. Lessons in life, death and love, Franz-Olivier Giesbert's latest biography (published by Les Presses de la Cité) didn't exactly thrill me, as it was so cluttered with technical and factual details that it blurred my understanding. However, this summer pastime did open the door to some food for thought: the Bernard Tapie case shows just how unfounded the scorn that is sometimes heaped on baby-boomers really is.

A quintessential Frenchman and a self-taught master of courage, Bernard Tapie passed away just as he had lived his life and coped with his illness under the watchful eye of his compatriots: without holding anything back. «Those who fear death fear life because they spend their lives afraid of losing it,» he confided two years earlier to Laurent Delahousse, the anchor of France 2«s weekend 8 p.m. news. On Sunday, October 3, 2021, Didier Barbelivien paid tribute to the late Nanard, his friend, with these words: »Throughout his life, he rejected the precautionary principle.”

His signed biography Franz-Olivier Giesbert

«Survival expert,» «pioneer,» «trailblazer»: these are the words used by columnist and writer Franz-Olivier Giesbert—FOG to his friends—to describe Bernard Tapie in his biography. While these terms clearly point to Tapie’s most fitting persona, FOG acknowledges that, until 2015, the two men maintained only a cautious respect for one another. This narrative, built around superlatives, thus reveals an effort to delve deeper into the foundational pillars of this «man-monument» who built himself up single-handedly.

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When FOG began working on this text six years ago, Bernard Tapie was not yet ill, although he was already noticing a fatigue that was out of character for him. He subsequently suffered from two cancers—of the esophagus and the stomach—which were diagnosed in the summer of 2017 and which he knew would be fatal. These cancers were what Bernard Tapie fought hardest against, with the intense and tempestuous temperament that had always been an expression of his boundless energy.

An iconic jack-of-all-trades

This versatility has allowed him to take on countless roles throughout his career (singer, actor, television host, «corporate turnaround specialist,» soccer club president, Socialist minister under President François Mitterrand, ex-convict, comedian, etc.), sometimes all at once, and it amuses me to think of the period spanning from the Humanist era to the Enlightenment, when thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau were simultaneously philosophers, botanists, composers, essayists, and naturalists.

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«Tapie was at once the profiteer, the caricature, the victim, and the symptom of the French malaise,» writes Franz-Olivier Giesbert. While to some he is merely a figure of arrogant success, media hype, the «money years» (the 1980s), and the rise of globalization, it became clear to me throughout this biography that Bernard Tapie, born in 1943, was also naturally a symbol of the generation to which he belonged—a generation now vilified in some quarters: that of the baby boomers.

«OK Boomer,» a term of defiance

It goes without saying that «baby boomer» is the term used to describe people born between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. It thus refers to the children born during the global «baby boom» that occurred over the twenty years following the end of World War II, at the heart of the famous “Trente Glorieuses” (1945 to 1975).

In late 2019, during a parliamentary session, Chlöe Swarbrick, a 25-year-old New Zealand MP, put one of her 49-year-old colleagues in his place by rebuking him with an «OK Boomer.» He had heckled her while she was speaking about global warming.

But it is important to recall now the negative connotation this term subsequently took on. The New Zealand incident, which received worldwide media coverage, helped popularize the phrase «Ok Boomer»—a catchphrase among today’s youth—to denounce «the condescending criticism from their elders» directed at them «and their tendency to treat them like children, particularly when it comes to environmental issues.» (Madame Figaro (November 8, 2019) Denial of the climate emergency and the «Things were better back then» mentality are two of the criticisms frequently leveled at the youth of yesteryear. Thus, it’s not uncommon today to see or hear young people expressing their rebellion and their sense of bewilderment toward people their grandparents’ age by shutting them up with an expression that’s thrown out as sharply as a door slamming.

The Famous Past Tense Mistake

Dating back to antiquity, it was during the 19th century^th It was in the 20th century that the word «adolescence» truly became widespread in Western society. And it was a century later that the word took on a definition more reflective of its time: I’m talking about the 1960s. The cultural revolutions that this decade brought about did not happen by chance or on their own, contrary to what some «millennials» (the generation born between 1980 and 2000)—and especially those in their twenties—tend to forget.

Bernard Tapie, like many of his contemporaries, lived through the era of the pioneers of this new youth culture; he even became one of its leading figures. Aside from his well-known escapades, he made clear his weariness with the old world and is counted among those who gave rise to youth culture as we know it today—minus the digital technology. In a way, he helped make it possible for young people to collectively criticize the previous generation. An invention of the baby boomers which is now backfiring on them.

At the age of 78, referring to «the breakdown of society» in his biography, Tapie takes up the topic of school, for example: «Back in the day, when you were a kid and you were misbehaving in class, you’d get a slap from the teacher, and that evening, when you got home, bam—your mom would give you another one. These days, everyone’s a victim. Even the bastards!»

«OK, Boomer»—should we retort? Certainly not. It’s illogical to view the world of the past through the lens of the third millennium. The fact that there were things worth criticizing back then in no way prevents us from seeing things worth criticizing in today’s society, nor does it mean we should dismiss the past in its entirety. Perhaps this is the same mistake made by Tapie’s generation—one they realized a little too late, a little too late.

A Lasting Legacy

While «Nanard» was criticized for his excessive determination and the pride he took in it, he will remain, like others, a model of a boomer who brought his innovative ideas to life—for example, quite concretely, new pedal attachments for cyclists—wherever he went, and a certain kind of inspiration and empathy for those who sought to understand him on his extraordinary journey.

In his June Editorial, Jonas Follonier, editor-in-chief of this magazine, addressed the topic of progressivism by boiling it down to a simple point—one that is worth reiterating: «In reality, we are all progressives: no one would want tomorrow to be worse than today.»

Is it really reasonable, then, to blame the baby boomers—a generation that managed to bounce back from the first half of the century, which saw both World War I and World War II—for climate inaction and societal conservatism? Not so sure, because we’re dealing with a philosophy defined precisely by change—and one that in no way excludes a commitment to tradition—namely, liberalism.

Photo credit: YouTube screenshot / Yves Thréard’s “Les Grands Entretiens”