The house, located in Villa Montmorency, an enclave of the rich in the 16^th arrondissement in the west of Paris, had been carefully chosen by Dominique Desseigne. He had it equipped with a hospital bed and accessibility for the needs of his wife, Diane, who was horribly injured in a plane crash in 1995. There she spent the last years of her life in a wheelchair, punctuated by dozens of hospitalizations. That is also where her two children, Alexandre and Joy, grew up. It was under this same roof, finally, that the eldest, aged 36, decided to abruptly eject his father from his position as CEO of the Barrière group, which he had held for over 20 years. The group is more like an empire, with its 32 casinos, 19 luxury hotels, some 150 restaurants and nearly 7,000 employees.

What painful events had to take place inside that vast residence for the relationship between father and son to suddenly turn into a nightmare? The corporate world was shocked to learn in April that 78-year-old Desseigne had been abruptly stripped of all his executive functions. When his son Alexandre announced that he had officially removed his father's surname from his civil status and adopted the name Barrière, like his late mother, those same observers understood that this was no ordinary case of succession. How better to express one's hatred of a genitor than by changing one's name?

No one close to the family had considered the measure of the hatred that had lurked in the cozy salons of the Villa Montmorency. Of course, father and son were rarely seen together. When the father was not working, he liked to tour film festivals, his long hair blowing in the wind, sunbathe in warmer climes and play tennis. His son, hair cut short and always frowning, shuns mundanities and seems happiest in colder climates.

Even in the elegant Normandy seaside resort of Deauville, the historic stronghold of the family fortune where they own three palaces, a casino and several restaurants, they only crossed paths occasionally. The father regularly spent his winter weekends at the hotel Normandy, on the seafront, where he brushed up on his tennis backhand, while the son spent a few days in the summer at the Hôtel du Golf, inland, attending the polo tournament and the Trophée Diane-Barrière award ceremony.

In spite of all that, the relationship may have appeared fine from the outside. The two men had been working together in the group since 2014, the son had steadily been rising through the ranks since then, eventually becoming director of strategy and development, and, above all, Alexandre lived with his father in the famous Villa Montmorency until the age of 35. That in itself is unusual at that age, when you can afford to live wherever you wish. He must not have felt too bad there. At least, that's what Desseigne, described by his friends as "the king of denial," wanted to believe. Despite his age and a mild case of Parkinson's disease which he treats and no longer conceals, he still looks good, but he is a deeply saddened man in a state of stupefaction, whom those close to him have constantly tried to comfort.

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