Charles Aznavour would have liked to live a century. He had promised himself. He had promised us, as an ultimate challenge to life, Emmanuel Macron said at the ceremony of national tribute to Charles Aznavour.
“Age had never deprived him of this foolish appetite for living, creating, singing, loving, laughing – but not far from the threshold, death came to pick him noiselessly. And we were surprised. And we were sad, because we were not used to the fact that his legendary will is not fulfilled,” Macron said.
“This sudden emptiness reveals a hitherto obscure evidence: for nearly a century, it was he who made us live. To our secret fragilities, to our fleeting emotions, to our melancholy and to our hopes, he will have extended this consoling mirror which, for so many decades, has made our life more gentle, our tears less bitter, our joys lighter,” the President said.
“His songs were never those songs of a summer that amused and forgotten; for millions of people they were a balm, a remedy, a comfort. It is this companion who leaves us, this fraternal storyteller who sang the truth of our lives to the height of man, taking his share of ordinary sorrows, the mourning of everyday life and the passage of time. This passing time, he spoke of it with a particular intensity of which we felt that it came from far away, not simply sadness but the experience of exile,” Macron added.
“This son of Armenian immigrants who did not study, instinctively understood that in France, he is a state in the state, a homeland in the homeland, a sanctuary more sacred than anything, it is the French language. Some heroes here become French by bloodshed but we also become French by the spoken language, by the language loved, worked, crafted, celebrated, as French as KESSEL and GARY, APOLLINARY and IONESCO, also French as AZNAVOUR,” he continued.
“Armenians of all countries, today I think of you. He had to be in Yerevan with us next week for a symbolic moment of the Summit of the Francophonie, hosted by Armenia. His absence will make an immense void. May the friendship between Armenia and France be worthy of what he has taught us!” Macron said.
