This image is taken from Michel Setboun’s third book about agencies. Eighty reporters were chosen to comment on an iconic image from their careers. The image we’re publishing today is Pascal Rostain’s first picture of François Mitterrand.
Every week we’ll be publishing an image from the book along with its accompanying text. Michel Setboun’s book will be presented at Visa Pour l’Image 2014.
“May 5th, 1981. The editor-in-chief of Paris Match called to tell me that Mitterrand would be walking his dog on the Quai de la Tournelle on the same day he is scheduled for a televised debate with Giscard d’Estaing. I arrive on the Rue de Bièvre, a narrow street between the Boulevard Saint-Germain and the Seine. The agency photographers and political journalists are all there, they have been hiding out for at least a month. Pierrot, Mitterrand’s driver, emerges to assure us that he’ll be driving the Socialist candidate to the Maison de la Radio. ‘It’s pointless to wait,” he tells us. Pierrot is known to be a reliable source of information, so everybody leaves. I set up on the quai and said to myself, ‘Dogs have to piss sometime.’ A few minutes later, Pierrot opens a curtain, sticks his head outside and looks around. Mitterrand then gets out of the car, followed by Jacques Attali and Nil, Mitterrand’s dog.”I shoot them from the back feeling the adreline level going up, but quickly the cops see me, surround me and start bothering me.Mitterand smiling get closer I tell him I am a beginner ,that he can give me a break and that I will vote for him, my usual shpeel.The great socialist prince let me shoot even taking the pose. Paris Match picked the first picture, the most explicit .Mitterand is among those few people immediatly recognizable from the back . A very special group of people.
– Pascal Rostain
Interview by Igor Hansen-Love
