A Child of Nurture

If the late french President François Mitterrand was criticized for the regal manner in which he occupied his office, the activities of his eldest son also seem characteristic of a royal family — of the dysfunctional kind. Just nine months after his release from provisional detention for suspected involvement in illegal arms trafficking, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, in a new book, exonerates himself not only of those charges but also of his life in general. In Mémoire Meurtrie (Battered Memory), Mitterrand fils, 54, casts himself as — what else? — a victim, first of a hard, cynical family, and then of outsiders hoping to taint the powerful fathers reputation through attacks on the sensitive son.

In the autobiography (Plon; 216 pages), Jean-Christophe Mitterrand argues that his fathers political ambitions determined his own fate. Despite the leftist credentials of his progressive parents — the socialist Mitterrand had married Danielle Gouze, who founded the human-rights group France Libertés — its difficult to imagine a familial environment more rigidly bourgeois than the one Jean-Christophe describes. The two Mitterrand boys werent encouraged to take part in any significant conversations and rarely dined with their parents, who were “not the sort to embrace or touch,” as Jean-Christophe puts it. Communication was so formal that the family often exchanged information via written notes, and parents ensured that offspring never heard their domestic arguments.

Jean-Christophe found such aristocratic behavior stifling and complains that he “never wanted to be the prince of a king but rather a child of a father.” Yet by the time he was born, Mitterrand senior was already a deputy in the French National Assembly, and his family was often in the spotlight. The social pressures, along with lonely periods in boarding schools, turned Jean-Christophe from a sociable teenager into a hermit. “I wasnt born solitary,” he writes, “but, separated from my family, I became that as a consequence of my successive absences.” Rather than rebelling against his parents, Jean-Christophe left them. He traveled first to New York, then at the age of 23 to Israel, where he lived on a kibbutz for six months. Later he worked as a correspondent for Agence France-Presse in Africa. The relative anonymity and bohemian lifestyle appealed to the young Mitterrand. But after his father was elected President in 1981, Jean-Christophes journalistic career came to an end, he says, since AFP presumably wanted to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

If his fathers election closed one door, it opened another. Despite his meager qualifications — he only finished a few years of university and had worked as a journalist for about nine years — Jean-Christophe in 1986 was named chief presidential adviser on African affairs. He soon gained a reputation for currying favor with African leaders on behalf of the Elysée, delivering messages dictated by the President — thus earning him the nickname Papa-ma-dit (Daddy told me). His undistinguished diplomatic career, constantly shadowed by rumors and unfavorable press coverage, concluded in 1992 as he left the halls of the Elysée for a job as a consultant at the Compagnie Générale des Eaux, the French water monopoly. That job ended the day his father, the longest-serving President of the Republic, was buried.

Last Christmas, as a result of an inquiry into illegal arms trading to Angola, Jean-Christophe was jailed for three weeks. After being officially placed under investigation for influence peddling, he was freed from custody on a $700,000 bail — a sum paid by his mother, with whom he has lived since his release. In his book Mitterrand denies the charges, which were dismissed last summer on a technicality, claiming the $1.8 million that ended up in his Swiss bank account came from consulting, not illegal arms trading. And again he says that he is a victim — this time of judges, the French press and former Socialist Party allies looking to settle scores.

That defense ignores the “everyone is doing it” environment of the Mitterrand years. But it is true that Frances power establishment — and public — has never been kind to the Mitterrand boy. In the preface to the book, journalist Pierre Péan backs Jean-Christophes claim that he provides a handy target for all the accumulated hatred and frustration generated by his father. Péan admits to having been among those who “adopted, without verifying, the numerous rumors about him.”

As for the battered soul himself, he claims to be responsible for one crime only, the original sin determining his miserable fate: that of being his fathers son. But six weeks after the books publication, a new investigation was opened into Jean-Christophes business dealings in Africa. Maybe the judge hasnt read this book yet.