Frédéric Mitterrand's name alone evokes a multitude of images and episodes intertwined with France's cultural life. Born on August 21, 1947, this man of literary and cinema culture, the nephew of former French President François Mitterrand, died on March 21, at the age of 76. Frédéric Mitterand had been suffering from cancer for over a year, a disease he knew all too well, as his elder brother Gabriel had contracted it in the spring of 2020 and eventually recovered. This painful experience inspired him to write one of his many books, Une drôle de guerre ("A Strange War"), so titled in response to Emmanuel Macron's repeated use of military terms – "We are at war" – during his speech announcing the first Covid-19 lockdown on March 16, 2020.
In his multiple lives, this erudite and popular dandy had been a cinema operator, a television show host and producer, a writer, a director, a scriptwriter and a commentator on the lives of high society. Politically unclassifiable, Mitterrand surprised the art world when, in 2009, he became culture and communication minister under Nicolas Sarkozy, the worst enemy of the left.
Born into a bourgeois family, he grew up along with his two brothers (Gabriel and Olivier), with separated parents and a governess whom he did not remember fondly. His father, Robert Mitterrand – who died in 2002 – was a highly-educated engineer, senior civil servant and the older brother of François Mitterrand. He had joined the Resistance, while his mother, Edith Cahier – who died in 2014 – raised their three sons. In 2002, she published the autobiography Ma famille Mitterrand ("My Mitterrand Family").
Why, at the age of 12, did Frédéric Mitterrand decide to audition for Alex Joffé's film Fortunat (Fortunate, 1960), starring famous actors Bourvil and Michèle Morgan? He went to the audition alone, with a broken arm and a shy air, without revealing his family name. Nevertheless, he was chosen for the role under the name Frédéric Robert. In total, he appeared on screen a dozen times, including in Merry-Go-Round (1981), directed by Jacques Rivette.
After studying at the Janson-de-Sailly high school, and a degree in history and geography at the University of Nanterre, he graduated from the prestigious social sciences university Sciences Po, in the public service section, in 1968. Although he was eligible, he did not take the oral exam for the renowned National School of Administration (ENA). Mitterrand did not stay long as a teacher at the Jeannine-Manuel Active Bilingual School (EABJM) in Paris. In 1971, he chose cinema and bought the Olympic movie theater in Paris' 14th arrondissement. He, who had a passion for Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961), programmed a mixture of Hollywood classics and lesser-known auteur films with an international outlook.
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