In his regular contributions to Le Monde's readers' letters, Jean-Paul Descombey never forgets to point out that he is one of the faithful, a "regular, daily reader of Le Monde since the first issue." "It would be hard to find a longer-standing reader," he confirmed. He is undoubtedly one of the few readers who can claim to have held the first issue of the newspaper in his hands, a single page recto-verso (paper being a rarity), fresh from the printing works on the Rue des Italiens in Paris's 9th arrondissement, on the afternoon of Monday, December 18, 1944, and dated the following day, as is still the case today.
Such an attachment is rare. As we approach Le Monde's 80th birthday, it was well worth a visit to Châtenay-Malabry (west of Paris), home to this "lifelong psychiatrist-psychoanalyst, albeit retired and aged 94," as he likes to introduce himself. The venerable reader opened the door himself, on the first floor of his building. We were immediately ushered into a small office, cluttered with books, magazines, sheet music and an upright piano, where the alert nonagenarian gave free rein to his indignation – and it was as vivid as ever.
And there was no stopping him now. His commitments during the Liberation, his career as a hospital psychiatrist, where he ended as head of department at Sainte-Anne hospital in Paris, his critical analysis of the health policies pursued by governments of recent decades, his conception of psychiatry etc. "I haven't given up on medicine and psychiatry," he said with a touch of mischief. We interrupted briefly to remind him that we'd come to hear him talk about his nearly 80-year relationship with Le Monde.
"I had the first issue in my hands," he said. "It was the euphoria of the Liberation, and I wasn't even 15. It may seem odd that I was a reader at such a young age, but there was a political tradition in the family." He was the great-grandson of Pierre Cazals, a radical MP from Ariège from 1919 to 1936, but it was his older sister who helped awaken his political awareness. "She was a member of the Resistance and became a Communist at the time," Descombey said. "She trained our younger sister, who was expelled from the Fénelon High School for distributing leaflets in the playground. As for me, I joined the French Communist Party [PCF] as soon as the war ended."
The pensioner still remembered the "splendid young woman" who registered his PCF membership in a room on Rue Soufflot, in the 5th arrondissement, and was astonished at his young age. This was the journalist and poet Madeleine Riffaud, now 99, who recently spoke to Le Monde, a coincidence that obviously didn't escape the sagacity of her former admirer and young party comrade.
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