Absent from official ceremonies Thursday, Alain Delon, the last old lion of French cinema, long wrongly presented as Bébel’s rival, appeared on Friday morning smiling, crutch in hand, at the funeral of Jean-Paul Belmondo organized on Friday morning in the intimacy in Paris, in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés church. The crowd applauded him and shouted his first name.
Other personalities, including the director Claude Lelouch, the host Michel Drucker, the actors Pierre Richard in crutch, and Jean Dujardin, the actresses Béatrice Dalle, Véronique Jeannot, Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Cannes Film Festival, or even Luis Fernandez , the former coach of PSG, entered the church before the ceremony scheduled for late morning.
To the applause of the crowd, the hearse with the coffin arrived shortly after 10:00 am at the doors of the church, in the center of Paris. Several hundred people were gathered behind security barriers or seated on terraces in famous neighborhood cafes, such as Deux Magots.
“He was magnificent, very kind, very handsome, we always saw him when we went to lunch at the Lipp brewery, his disappearance touches me”, Cynthia Levine, 66, a Californian who regularly visits Paris with her husband Hugh, told AFP. “For me, it was not ‘Pierrot le fou’, it was Jean-Paul le fou (…) it was French charm”, testifies Gérald Schmite, 56-year-old creative director in communication.
Thursday afternoon, Jean-Paul Belmondo had received, in the Cour d’Honneur of the Invalides in Paris, a national tribute during which President Emmanuel Macron had spoken, as well as one of the grandsons of the actor, Victor Belmondo . For those who could not enter, giant screens had been installed on the esplanade where the crowd had gathered.
The actor’s coffin then came out to the sound of Chi mai, music by Ennio Morricone in The professional, performed by the Republican Guard orchestra. The ceremony brought together many personalities, including Richard Anconina, Jean Dujardin, Patrick Bruel, Gilles Lellouche, Guillaume Canet, Marion Cotillard, DJ Bob Sinclar, Thierry Frémaux, general delegate of the Festival de Cannes …
Then the time for the general public came, with the opening of the doors of Les Invalides shortly after 7:30 p.m., to welcome fans of all ages wishing to meditate in front of the coffin. At nightfall, a long queue of well over a thousand people waited to pay their last respects to the actor. A similar device was implemented after the death of Jacques Chirac in 2019, allowing thousands of people to say goodbye to the former President.