2023-07-29 03:30:11
François Morel, on the beach of Commes, near Port-en-Bessin-Huppain (Calvados), May 10, 2023. FLORENCE BROCHOIRE FOR “THE WORLD”
The smell is that of kelp, fish and fuel oil mixed together, that of the sea on the quays of fishing ports, like here in Port-en-Bessin-Huppain (Calvados), seated as we are at the terrace of the former Café du Port, which has become La Marie du Port since Marcel Carné directed Jean Gabin there in 1949, in the film of the same name. “You’re a comedian, aren’t you?asks the waiter. I recognized you by your voice. » Amused grimace by François Morel. We wash it down with Muscadet. “Since I’ve been doing radio, I’ve been told that I have a special voice. But if I was a postman, I wouldn’t be noticed.is surprised the actor.
The image is that of the “glorious thirty”. The 1960s. Paid holidays. The access of the working classes to the pleasures of sea bathing. In the Morel family, the kids are sent for part of the summer to their grandmother’s, gatekeeper in Saint-Bômer-les-Forges, not very far from Flers (Orne), where young François grew up.
Once, only once, in 1965, the parents rented a house for the holidays, in Crozon, at the tip of Finistère. Otherwise, they were “vacation days”, as he says. The three kids and the picnic crammed into the 4L, heading for Mont-Saint-Michel (Manche), the D-Day landing beaches or Port-en-Bessin, the closest point if you draw a straight line north.
The soundtrack is that of public broadcasting. ORTF. The radio station. popular culture. It is in his company that the actor of Deschiens, the Mélenchon of the Canal+ series dark baronthe Friday columnist on France Inter, a prolific scribbler, never as happy as on the stage of the theatre, has become a familiar face.
Full and loose of the tongue
As a man of letters, François Morel likes the detours of the text, the ups and downs of the language. The film The Mary of the Port was taken from a novel by Simenon. On the walls of the café, he looks for photos to bear witness to this. White cabbage. On the quay, he buys andouilles de Vire, offers one, and hums: “When I see a boat go by/I want to jump into the water/And step over the rail… Tadili dili tala…” Guy Bontempelli, 1972.
Question pedigree, the father was Breton. From Lambézellec, the northern district of Brest (Finistère). The grandfather, a railroad worker, dies when the kid is not yet 13; the widow obtains a level crossing to monitor in the Normandy bocage, and her son joins the SNCF at Flers, a railway station on the Paris-Granville line. “Finally, at the time, there was also Caen-Laval. They removed the line before realizing that trains pollute less than trucks. Too latelaments François Morel. My father rose through the ranks. He started from very low, he didn’t climb very high: in the end, he was “sub-station master 2”. »
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