2023-06-22 17:19:37
She entered into his old-fashioned life, sending him a letter in which she told him of her admiration for his cinema. Valérie Perrin dissected her relationship to love, feelings, the importance that her feature films had had for her in her personal life, sometimes forced to cling to art to overcome her own torments. It was through her friend Katia that she had been able to approach the man of cinema.
So obviously, this Saturday, June 17, Katia is one of his two witnesses at the town hall of the 18th arrondissement of Paris. “When I met Claude, confides the bride, he had been an absent father, like all passionate men. I put a lot of energy into trying to fix the loose links. And then time did its work…”
17 years old before applying
Seventeen years passed before Claude made his official request. It was last month. “We were both in Normandy, we were walking on the cliffs, says Valérie. And suddenly he knelt down asking me if I wanted to marry him. Claude Lelouch insisted on doing things right.
“It’s a happy man that you have in front of you, launches the filmmaker, this Saturday to the 200 people gathered for the wedding. Take a good look at me because it’s an endangered species! I’m happy because I’ve always been able to tell the difference between people who cry and those who whine. Between those who laugh and those who sneer. Today, I am overjoyed and happy to marry a woman who makes us dream with her books. And I too have tried with my films to make you dream. So Valérie and I are going to continue to make you dream, ”brags the 85-year-old man, smiling, dressed entirely in black.
They wanted to get married in Deauville, they finally united in Paris
Valerie had reserved a surprise for him. Just after they entered the wedding hall, she had asked the violinist Anne Gravoin to play a medley of the most beautiful themes from Claude’s films. Accompanied by Lionel Suarez on the accordion, the musician notably allowed the audience to launch into a “chabadabada” taken up in chorus and applauded for a long time.
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This marriage, Claude and Valérie had imagined it, in Deauville, in Normandy last October. “What was important for me, for us, says Valérie, was to bring together our children and our dearest friends. We quickly realized that it was easier for everyone to organize this in Paris. So we went to visit this wedding hall of the 18th century town hall and we saw this painting which represents the Moulin de la Galette where we live. The obvious prevailed. »
I belatedly started looking for an outfit
Valerie Perrin
All seated behind them, the couple’s nine children are delighted to finally be part of one and the same family: Simon, Christine Lelouch’s son, Sarah, Gunilla Friden’s daughter, Salomé born from the relationship between Claude and Évelyne Bouix , presents this day, Sabaya, Sachka, Shaya, the three children he had with Marie-Sophie L., Stella, his last daughter, born of his union with Alessandra Martines, then Tess and Valentin, the children of Valérie. Plus, of course, their eight grandchildren. “That’s a lot of people, smiles Valérie, but that’s also Claude, the destinies we embrace, the family we create. »
Valérie Perrin and Claude Lelouch, married in Paris on June 17, 2023. GC Images/GETTY / © Pierre Suu
For her, no haute couture dress: “I belatedly started looking for an outfit and I pushed the door of Cymbeline, rue Saint-Jacques, one of the few Parisian shops that makes custom wedding dresses. . I swooned over a jacket and a skirt that Viviane, the milliner, had arranged into a dress. »
On the announcement, the couple had expressly requested that the guests come without gifts. “Saucepans, floor lamps, sweaters, gold bars, many of you will ask us about gifts. We don’t want it. Your presence will be the most precious gift. If it is important to you to make a symbolic gesture, we have chosen two associations and a foundation that are dear to us: Les Restos du Coeur, the Brigitte Bardot Foundation and the Puits du désert*. Do what you wish. Freedom to you. Above all, we don’t want to know anything. »
Many guests at the wedding
Among the guests, a minister, the Keeper of the Seals, Éric Dupond-Moretti, musicians, Julien Clerc, Didier Barbelivien, Ibrahim Maalouf, Barbara Pravi, Chloé Mons and the world of cinema: Jean Dujardin, who came with his wife, Nathalie Péchalat, to Anouk Aimée – Claude’s witness –, via Elsa Zylberstein, Richard Anconina, Kad Merad, Michel Leeb, Gérard Darmon, Sandrine Bonnaire, Nadia Farès, Mathilde Seigner, Christophe Lambert or even Thierry Frémaux and Laurent Gerra.
Joy Hallyday, Laetitia Hallyday, Jade Hallyday and Jalil Lespert came from Los Angeles for the wedding of their friend Claude Lelouch. GC Images/Getty / © Pierre Suu
Laeticia Hallyday, accompanied by Jalil Lespert and her daughters, Jade and Joy, had made the trip from Los Angeles. Paul and Luana Belmondo, novelists Bernard Werber, Line Papin and David Foenkinos, journalists Sophie Davant and William Leymergie were also present at the ceremony celebrated in stifling heat by Éric Lejoindre, mayor of the borough.
Claude Lelouch greeted “all those who are not there, Johnny, Bebel, Trintignant, Girardot, Francis Lai, Pierre Barouh, Charles Gérard, the list is impressive. I couldn’t do this party without thinking of them because I owe them a lot”.
She answers him with a “yes” full of happiness
It is 4:10 p.m. when the city councilor finally asks the question: “Valérie Perrin, do you want to marry Claude Lelouch here? » She answers him with a « yes » full of happiness. Then the mayor turns to the filmmaker: “Claude Lelouch, do you want to take Valérie Perrin as your wife? “His” yes, of course “shakes the walls of the room which applauds the couple united before the law.
Julia Vignali and Kad Merad, Sandrine Bonnaire, Jean Dujardin and Nathalie Péchalat at the wedding of Claude Lelouch on June 17, 2023. GC Images/Getty / © Pierre Suu
“I have prepared a surprise for you, laughs the filmmaker. Tonight we’re going to party and, when you’re all a little drunk, around 10 p.m., I’ll shoot a sequence that I’ll put in my next film. »
At 6:30 p.m., everyone meets at the Arc, an exclusive club behind the Champs-Élysées, belonging to Benjamin Patou, another close friend of the couple. “I saw people happy to be there for us,” recalls Valérie, happy to also see her friends from Marseille and Burgundy. “The dance floor was never empty. I think it was a nice party. It is 1 a.m. when the last guests leave the ball, in front of a scintillating Arc de Triomphe. Because, there is no question of celebrating until the end of the night: Claude Lelouch is a man in a hurry. He is in full filming in Béziers of “Finally”, his “ultimate film”.
For seventeen years, we learned to love each other
Valerie Perrin
As of Sunday afternoon, he took a train for the South in order to be behind the camera Monday morning at 9 am. “I know he can’t live without his plans,” Valérie said the day after the wedding. “And I am also convinced that it will not be his last feature film. There will be an “Eventually 2”, then an “Eventually 3” and then another idea. If Claude stops shooting, he dies. »
Had she imagined, seventeen years ago, that her declaration to the director would change her life? ” Absolutely not. But if I look back on the past, I also see what I owe it. I was first his set photographer, then screenwriter on his films. I understood by working with him the importance that should be attached to the lives of the characters. That’s what prompted me to write “The Forgotten Sundays”, my first book. And who offered him his first success.
With only three novels published, Valérie Perrin squats the ranking of best sellers in France, in particular due to the triumph of “Changer l’eau des fleurs”, a magnificent variation around love and simple things, centered on the character of Violette Toussaint, the “patroness” of the cemetery of a small village in Burgundy. “For seventeen years, we have learned to love each other, Claude and I, with our blended family. And our love is growing stronger. However, when we both entered the town hall, we were nervous, a bit like a young couple who has just met. »
Valérie Perrin will not say that she is the one with whom Claude Lelouch found stability. Nor will she say that with her he learned to think more of others, of his own, and to stop putting his career first. She didn’t tell him either what they were going to do in a month: “As soon as he’s finished filming, we’re going on our honeymoon. He knows it’s in the Mediterranean, that’s all. We’re going to treat ourselves to nine days in paradise, just him and me. ” A man and a woman. For all time.
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