Except that Constance isn’t the type to settle for polite indifference. At the first opportunity, here she is walking down the corridors of the editorial staff, entering the control room to greet the host, talking to and questioning each one with the brio of a Chirac in an election campaign. When they want to describe her, her former or current colleagues immediately mention her outstanding interpersonal skills. Only the fact of knowing whether all of this is perfectly spontaneous or somewhat calculated separates them. “She has a real science of relationships, she is very skilled” (Denis Olivennes, her former boss). ” She is intelligent. She knows how to take people ”(Muriel Hees, ex-director of European programs 1). “He is an endearing personality, as comfortable and warm with the powerful as with ordinary people” (Nicolas Sauzay, general manager of Bauer Media who started in his team). They all add that she is funny and handles self-mockery like no other, which makes her a sought-after guest. On her own, she will give you a dinner vibe with her slightly saucy jokes that make men laugh and annoy their wives. Few are those who resist her weapons of mass seduction, and those refused to answer me as the lady has networks – you never know!
Because Constance’s iPhone is full of easy-to-remember numbers, the ones that operators give to their VIP customers. Names ? You would have been quicker to leaf through Who’s Who, but let’s name the closest in this galaxy of people she “adores” and who give her back. The decorator Sarah Lavoine, the writer Caroline de Bodinat, the leaders Nicolas de Tavernost (M6), Jean-Francois Rial (Travelers of the world), Alain weill (Altice and L’Express), the communicator Anne Méaux (Image 7), the chef Yves Camdeborde, a classmate of terminal turned actor (Alain Chabat), his boxing teacher, the former champion of France Jean-Paul Mendy, Rachida Dati who presented him with the previous one. Ah, I was going to forget! The person whose, if we do not have 06 at 50, is that we missed his life: Brigitte Macron. It only took one meeting for the brand new “first lady”, who is not the fierce type either, swears to Constance: “Promise, my first interview will be for you. »Oath held in August 2017, which allowed the magazine She to sell 530,000 copies, its sales record for ten years.
Honesty forces me to admit that I too now appear in Constance’s repertoire, stuck somewhere between Vincent Bolloré and Carla Bruni. It’s not easy to write the portrait of someone who so quickly leads you into the nets of empathy. Skill or sincerity? Stockholm Syndrome helping, I lean for the second hypothesis: without even asking any questions, I learned that she drinks like a hole and eats like an ogre, that some mornings she finds herself old and ugly. I also heard, without a doubt following a brilliant remark from me: “But I must hire you!” In a tone like I almost believed it. And finally, I now know that the subject of my investigation has had plenty of men in her life whose numbers she gave me, without even warning them to watch their language.
In the Benqué family, here is the father, Paul, 90 years old. A force of nature who recovered from covid as quickly as Donald Trump. A Jew from Algeria, he arrived in France in 1937 at the age of 7 to flee anti-Semitism, but the destination was poorly chosen. In 1942, after the big roundups, he was sent to hide in the Creuse. He marries a former PanAm hostess who is a bit bored on the ground. She comes from a family of the good Catholic bourgeoisie, so much so that, among the Benqué, dad, who is not religious but attached to his roots, does Shabbat on Fridays and Mum goes to mass on Sundays. Representative of a manufacturer of paints and then at the head of his own company, he had a good career but bitterly regrets being self-taught. So, when it comes to his future son’s education, he planned to be uncompromising. She is a girl, who will remain unique, but he is all the same. “I have always watched her closely. Even from my window which overlooked Fidès’s courtyard, the bin where I had written it. “The high school student struggles to reach the average of 12 out of 20 and obtains her bac B.” B for Bus Palladium “, specifies this party girl who went to dance there every Tuesday, the day when entry was free for girls.
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