What inspires you about the holidays, joy, melancholy, delirium?
It is the memories of my childhood that come to the surface, with joy, its twinkling lights and at the same time a colossal nostalgia. Because it sends us back to all the missing. The more time passes, the more loved ones disappear. At Christmas, therefore, there is joy and sadness, two feelings that are closely intertwined.
When you were a child, was the morning of December 25 a magical time?
It was a very festive moment. With my sisters, we prepared Christmas dishes, especially prunes stuffed with almond paste of all colors. The chocolate truffles, we made them ourselves. And there was this big tree in the dining room of our house next to the Ymonville school. With the little crèche at the foot. There was snow too. I remember the snowmen, the ball games …
Aren’t you talking about toys?
This comes after the idea of sharing specific to the holidays. But, the wait for the toy was there, even if there were not many, Mom did not have much means.
Did a gift mark you as a blanket?
My mother bought me a little pink and white bed, on wheels, topped with a fabric veil, to put my dolls. The largest, I kept it for a long time. When she “got older” I put clear nail polish on her eyes to keep them glowing. But it had become ugly.
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Television: his new life after …
Apart from a recent retrospective of her career and the promotion of her book, Unforgettable Encounters, Private Life, Public Life, Mireille Dumas no longer has a box in the programs of France Televisions, as elsewhere. The journalist is no worse off, having experienced “several program stops”. “I make documentaries, continuing my work as a journalist behind the camera. I come back to my first job as a director. I’m fine, I live quietly outside the cameras. I loved the antenna, I love the interviews. My existence does not depend on the image, but first of all on being able to interact with the other. When I can’t do it anymore, then I’ll be old. “
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As a preface to Unforgettable encounters, private life, public life, you quote Proust: “The only real journey is to see other universes through the eyes of others” A nice nod to an author who, as a child, lived in Illiers-Combray, not far from where you live. ..
It’s a pretty sentence that sums up my approach: I’ve always wanted to see life through my eyes, but also thousands of lives through my own eyes. A life is short and long at the same time, having always wanted to meet people, personalities as well as strangers.
Did your desire to question the human soul arise from the moment you were sitting on the radiator in the Ymonville house, “dreaming of traveling the world”?
It’s exactly that. While writing my book, I saw myself again on the cast iron radiator, looking outside, separated by a window. I already had the feeling that I was looking at life on the outside, but I had to go to meet it, to meet others. This glass separated private life from public life, intimacy and social life. Like a television screen! I felt an urge to get out of a big closed room that was the school and the family home. It was enough to go through a door to go from one to the other. I have of course experienced long walks in the Chartres countryside, but I first have in mind a family closed-door.
premium Nicolas Marié’s César for Adieu les Cons! auctioned at € 8,200 in favor of the Telethon
While your interlocutors have laid bare, you have always remained very discreet about yourself. Is it modesty, shyness?
It is undoubtedly modesty that I also feel towards others. I know the limit not to cross, knowing this shareable intimacy. Facing the other, I am with my guts, even if it does not show. Me, I am only a vector, it is the other which must be brought to light. A good interview is sharing. A listening bubble. I have a real appetite for others, being on the air what I am in “real life”. My ambition has always been to highlight life paths, how childhood builds you… I find shards of truth there, like diamonds.
Are your media confessions a response to your own hurts?Yes and no. I have never done a “mirror television” with people all thinking the same thing, looking more for the difference. I have always discovered universes far from mine. It is also true that these intimate perceptions speak to me, it is something universal. Literature is only human dough.
You briefly mention the absence of the father *. Is that still a big lack?I spoke more about it in a previous book. I have talked so much about the role of the father to my guests. I mention it in the foreword to my last book, insisting on the fact that we never spoke of sorrows. I missed my dad, but I didn’t talk about it. Likewise, we did not say words of love to each other, even though my mother loved us. We talked about everything except feelings. The intimate was the unspeakable.
You have Italian origins. How do you get from Italy to this little corner of Beauce lost in Eure-et-Loir?
My mother arrived in France at the age of 15, studied and was transferred to various establishments. Me, child and adolescent, I have only known Beauce, Eure-et-Loir, its endless wheat fields, Chartres and the Lycée Hélène-Boucher.
Is it in this establishment that you fought your first fight as a fulfilled and militant woman?
I had defended a homosexual college girl who was threatened with dismissal for her sexual orientation. I had started a petition. It is not for nothing that, during my first broadcasts, I brought to light situations of marginality.
Dave, Mireille Dumas and Claude Sérillon at the Brive book fair.
Photo The Mountain, Stéphane Para
Your high school years in Chartres have been a major learning in your future career?
I had a friend who was very gifted in French, we shared the best grades. He wrote plays in which I performed. I went on stage at the Chartres theater, playing the role of Marianne, decked out in a Phrygian cap. I didn’t want to be an actress, I always had a problem learning a text by heart.
Do you often come back to Chartres?
I went there often when Mum was still with us. She lived for a long time in Louillard for 30 years, then lived her last years by my side, very close to me. Mom is resting in the village of Ymonville. Since his departure, 7 years ago, I have returned there, taking a walk in this still beautiful city.
As Charles Aznavour sings: “You can’t get over your childhood years”.
I can now find beauty in the Beauceronne plain, even if it is spoiled by the wind turbines. Younger, I did not perceive this beauty of the wheat fields, it was difficult for me to take root.
Mireille Dumas’ father died of an illness when she was three and a half years old.Mireille Dumas, unforgettable encounters, private life, public life
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. The Lookout Midi. Price: 18 €.
Olivier Bohin
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