“How did we get this far?” This is asked by Michel Mompontet, a journalist for the French public television service, who addressed that question to viewers in an editorial on France Info, the all news channel. One of his friends, René Robert, 85, died of hypothermia in the night between 18 and 19 January in the streets of Paris. No, he was not a bum, as there are so many in this glittering and indifferent metropolis. But a well-known photographer, an elderly man in good health, who fell to the ground from an illness and no one picked him up, for at least eight long hours, asked him if something was wrong: no one simply helped him. On one of these icy nights, as there have been in recent times, René died of cold, just behind the Place de la République, in a busy neighborhood, even at night. Full of bars, young people and tourists. Of apparent life.
Michel, shaken by this story, talks about it to the Press, and asks himself again: “How is it possible that we have come this far in Paris?”. With a good dose of honesty, as he also did in his editorial, he wonders if “I would have stopped too, because in this city you see so many tramps on the street, often drunk, and I’m not 100% sure I would have gone to help. someone like René. It’s terrible”. Michel is keen to remember his friend. “He was thin and delicate, physically and in his attitude of him. He was very discreet. So he waited for the right moment to capture the emotion with the camera ». He was born in Friborg, Switzerland, in 1936. Passionate about photography since adolescence, he had landed in Paris in 1959. He lived on advertising and fashion photos. But at a certain moment, already in his thirties, he happened to be at Catalan, a tablao, a famous flamenco club in Paris. Those were the days of Francoism and many artists had fled abroad and lived in the French capital or passed by there. They performed on the premises.
René Robert began photographing the dancers Manolo Marin and Nieves la Pimienta in the 1960s. With flamenco he was love at first sight: he gradually became famous also in Spain and all over the world for those black and white portraits, so intense. As he explained a few years ago, for him, who defined himself as “the result of an education for which one did not show one’s feelings in public”, flamenco had been a revelation. “I was overwhelmed by the strength, the boldness, the sense of expressive freedom of these artists, their way of putting the tragic, the pain, the suffering, but also the joyful, rhythmic, sensual vitality on the table”. “My photos – he added – try to show moments of emotion and, nevertheless, block the movements, mute the song and the guitar”.
Michel Mompontet had met him in the eighties, when, still in his twenties, he was going to flamenco concerts in Paris. «Michel did not speak Spanish well – he remembers – but he was able to communicate in a profound way with flamenco artists. He became friends with Paco de Lucia and many others ». He traveled to Spain and the rest of the world, following them. He is still a well-known photographer today. «He was physically well – continues Michel -, also because he had always led a life as an ascetic. He didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke, he was thin ». Every afternoon he took a stroll around the République quarter. He mingled in the crowd, scrutinizing people’s faces. Not far from his apartment she had a small workshop, where she still developed his photos. Sometimes he spent the night there and it is for this reason that his wife, not seeing him come back, was not alarmed. In fact, he had tried to walk to the building where he lived. «He fell to the ground, he fell ill – explains Michel -. We only know that there is a head injury “
. It would have happened around 9 pm on the 19th evening, about fifty meters from the door. Then he spent between eight and nine hours in the cold (this is the estimate of the rescuers), waiting for death. Only the next morning, at half past six, a tramp alerted the firefighters, who arrived and found René unconscious, now in advanced hypothermia. He died shortly thereafter in the hospital. “He was a true humanist, who knew the homeless in his neighborhood – recalls his friend -. He gave him clothes, food ”. The widow found a woman, Fabienne, whom René knew and whom he had helped. She would be her companion (he also lives on the street) to have finally asked for help. She probably recognized him. Until that moment, on that street so busy even at night, had been worried about René, lying on the ground and helpless. So discreet and full of humanity.
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