Farewell the artist!

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Jean Paul Belmondo, one of the biggest stars of French cinema passed away yesterday. Nicknamed "Bebel", this monument of the 7nd French art has died at the age of 88. It was his lawyer who delivered the information to AFP yesterday at the end of the afternoon.

Since then, many tributes have been issued, even from the Élysée:

“He will forever remain the“ Magnificent ”. With Jean-Paul Belmondo is extinguished a national treasure, all in solar gaiety and bursts of laughter. Among our great actors, he was the one who won hands down the palm of the public. (…)

For decades, the French have admired his stunts, but the most beautiful of them was this great perpetual gap between such different registers, the avant-garde and the entertainment, the New Wave and the popular film, between Belmondo and Bébel, the sublime hero and the familiar figure, the indefatigable daredevil who risked his life in fights and chases and the magician of words broken in the language of Marguerite Duras as that of Michel Audiard.

At the end of the 1980s, after a 26-year break, he had resumed the path of the boards, his first love. He played Kean, this role which is an actor's dream, then Cyrano de Bergerac, this character who is a poet's dream, before playing Feydeau and Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.

He seemed unstoppable. But we have known since Achilles that even heroes are vulnerable. In 2001, he was struck by a stroke. He who had the verb so loud and the body so nimble found himself mute, paralyzed. The doctor told him he would never speak again. He gave the lie to this prognosis by a stubborn will: two years later, he was able to speak again. To believe that, even in reality, he was endowed with superhuman powers.

From this beautiful name he had received at birth, Jean-Paul Belmondo had made more than a stage name: a compendium of panache and verve, the expression of an era in love with freedom, joy and of revolt. By his generosity of mind and heart, he had embraced all French cinema, sharp and popular, classic and iconoclastic. In him we all found ourselves.

The President of the Republic and his wife bow before the one whose face was a piece of our heritage, energy a hymn to life, and talent a plea for the seventh art. They send their saddened condolences to his family and loved ones, as well as to all the French people he made laugh and moved for more than 60 years ”.

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