France Gall: why she didn’t want to hide her cancer of the breast in the early 90s – Gala

breast cancer

“A female warrior “. It is in this way that liked to call himself France Gall, who died the 7th of January. True that, it will have braved the worst of trials. Her breast cancer, which occurred a year after the death of Michel Berger, was a…

This was supposed to be a reunion with the public. Six months earlier, at the heart of the summer of 1992, the death of Michel Berger, victim of a heart attack, had already been forced to cancel the concerts they planned to ensure that two, driven by the success of their album Double Play. “Resist, and proves that you exist…” After having buried the father of her children Raphael and Pauline, France Gall had dropped at these words. Courageous, she had decided to go up alone on stage. The return into the light and music was provided at Bercy. In the beginning of the year 1993, a few weeks of its commitments, a shadow comes the catch. The diagnosis of the doctors is without call : cancer of the breast.

An operation is set for the month of April, two months before his first concerts in paris. France Gall is again smitten in his flesh, forced to silence and convalescence. How to announce to his fans and those of Michel ?

In 2004, in a great interview with The Express, the singer was remembered : “When I had my cancer, my first reflex was to hide it; there’s always this feeling a little ashamed in front of the disease. It was in 1993, I had to cancel my show at Bercy, and my friends pushed me to get me to plaster a leg to not feed in to the conversations of the counter.I told the truth. Why lie? I have no doubt fueled the conversations, but in a different way, and this attitude has helped me. ”

The performances will finally take place in September 1993. Upon the death of his daughter Pauline, cf, in 1997, France will choose a pension quasi-final and partly african. On the island of Ngor, a few strokes of the paddle, Dakar, France will teach us to look at the sky. “The silence is healing, but it is necessary to tame it. When I bought this shed I was very surrounded. I dreamed of me to find myself alone and at the time it seemed to me the ultimate loneliness. Now, when I am in this house without electricity, to which it accesses only in the dugout, I live in another time, alone with my books, facing the Atlantic. I live in the moment, without fear of the future, ” confided she always to The Express, in 2004. Stating : “If I had to relive my life as an artist, I would do it. My life, while short, it is something else. I am not yet at the point you respond yes, but I’m not very far either. The reward for all our ills, of all our trials is found in the understanding of the existence (…) I went through all the stages: very, very devout, atheist, agnostic… Now, I believe in a creative force at the highest level that we can call God, without for as much to get trapped in a religion. “

In 2015, the crab is income. France kills, leaving the singing to a new generation this refrain to this hymn : “Resist, and proves that you exist. “It will have to withstand, with courage, until 7 January.

Photo credits : Sipa

France GallMichel Berger

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