This March 11, we commemorate the 45th anniversary of the disappearance of Claude François, tragically deceased in the circumstances that we know. On this occasion, various tributes are dedicated to him. This is the case of an anniversary box Special Arrow discs stuffed with goodies, or biography Claude François Popular intelligence in songs in which Olivier Delavault takes up the defense of an artist whom he considers too often disparaged by the media and the intelligentsia.
Others, on the other hand, have a grudge against the man nicknamed Cloclo and they do not hesitate to say so. This is the case of singer Laroche Valmont, notably performer of the hit “T’as le look, coco” in 1984. Guest of the show At Jordan’s on C8, he literally knocked out Claude François, calling him a “fierce”, d’“odious” and of “little nervous”. Claude François and Laroche Valmont were competitors. Before taking the microphone, the latter was press boss. He published tender age et Hi buddies. Cloclo edited Podium. And when the first throws Privatea magazine for men, the second imitates it with Absolute. “He was always fierce in every way. He had the niaque, he was a little nervous as well at the level of the singers competitors as in his private life ”, declares Laroche Valmont, multiplying the examples.
He explains, for example, how Claude François put pressure on Patrick Juvet to appropriate one of his songs: the future hit “Mondays in the sun”. Claude François had asked Patrick Juvet to sing him this song but he had refused. So Cloclo played with his influences to bend his counterpart. And when Patrick Juvet came to interpret his title for him, Claude François did not even deign to come and see him. He listened to the interpretation from his office upstairs, without moving. “Patrick had a hard time recovering from it”confesses Laroche Valmont.