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Bernard Tapie, the story of an Atlantic record on the luxury yacht Phocéa

Suffering from cancer for several years, Bernard Tapie died at his home this Sunday morning, October 3, 2021. Businessman, politician, actor, he was also a lover of the sea. Here is a look back at a record-breaking transatlantic voyage aboard his luxury yacht Phocéa, with a crew.

A refit to be more efficient

Bernard Tapie was a real jack-of-all-trades, mixing several careers and hobbies at once. One of which is of particular interest to us, sailing.

In 1982, Bernard Tapie bought the former Club Méditerranée to the widow of Alain Colas . Repatriated from Tahiti to Marseille , the 4-masted sailing boat was completely refitted. The businessman transformed it into a luxurious sailing yacht, but did not omit the sporting side of the boat , favoring the use of light materials. With a length of 74.37 m, the Phocéa is at the time, the largest yacht in the world, dethroned in 2004 by the Athena.

Breaking the Atlantic record under sail in a monohull

After 4 years of work and 10 million euros committed (68 million francs), Phocéa (its new name) is ready to break records. This is the objective set by its owner. After a first failed attempt, Bernard Tapie tried in June 1988, to beat the Atlantic record from west to east in a monohull. This record was held at the time by Atlantic Charlie Barr's schooner in 12 days, 4 hours, 1 minute and 19 seconds.

On departure from New York, he entrusted the helm of the Phocéa to Captain Jean-Luc Pinon, assisted by Pierre Gaillet. Also present were two helmsmen, Frank Dambrin and François Prévost. In total, 20 people were on board, including a TF1 journalist who was supposed to report on the epic every day during the television news, and of course, Bernard Tapie himself.

A dangerous record

According to witnesses, after two days, the boat sank into the sea, which made its owner lose patience. A storm was then announced and, against the captain's advice, Bernard Tapie decided to stay on course and continue his crossing, putting his crew in danger. He realized this at the end of the crossing.

In total, the four-masted ship went down and got up four times, battered by the huge waves . For the anecdote, the journalist on board even went into a tetanic coma, unable to move, paralyzed by fear.

Phocéa, equipped with 2 spinnakers, 4 genoas and 2 mainsails - 3,000 m2 of canvas in total - swallows up the miles - more than 400 miles some days - at speeds approaching 20 knots. Managing to overcome the storm , the crew reached Saint-Malo after 8 days, 3 hours and 29 minutes, with an average speed of 14.96 knots over a course of 2925 miles. This beat Charlie Barr's record by 4 days.

Record breaking

If he beats the Atlantic record of Charlie Barr, and several racing multihulls of the time, his record is only homologated by the WSSR - homologation of sailing records - in the 5c category (sailboats equipped with auxiliary power, in this case winches with hydraulic assistance).

Seized in 1996 by Bernard Tapie, the Phocéa was bought several times, before being sold to the catch fire in February 2021 in Malaysia .

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Bernard Tapie's Phocéa, exceptional sailboat 1976-2021

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The Phocéa at Port Vauban in Antibes in 2009.

In 1976, navigator Alain Colas (record holder of the 1973 solo round-the-world sailing trip in 169 days on his Pen Duick IV "Manureva") had this exceptional vessel built, designed by naval architect Michel Bigouin (creator of Pen Duick IV and Pen Duick V) at the Toulon arsenal. He finances everything through his company Alain-Colas-Tahiti SA with an exceptional ability to solicit sponsors. The ship is built within the confines of the Mourillon arsenal in Toulon. Unique and revolutionary boat 72 meters long, it was initially baptized Club Méditerranée, and has 1 m000 of sail area, 2 masts 4 meters high. It is equipped with very advanced technological equipment for the time. This boat having to perform the English Transat (solo transatlantic) and the solo round the world, it must be able to be maneuvered by a single person: the maneuver of the boat is entirely assisted by a hydraulic pilot system. This then state-of-the-art boat is one of the largest and fastest racing sailboats in the world, capable of theoretically reaching a top speed of 30 knots (or 30 km/h).

On June 5, 1976, Alain Colas took the start of the fifth English Transat solo, in Plymouth. The following days, five storms follow one another in the North Atlantic, several boats sink. On Club Méditerranée, they caused the halyards, cables holding the sails, to break. Alain Colas decides on a technical stopover in Newfoundland, which lasts thirty-six hours. On June 29, he arrived in Newport in fifth place after a fixed penalty of 58 hours, but only 7 hours and 28 minutes in real time behind Éric Tabarly.

In 1978, Alain Colas was reported missing at sea on November 16 while taking part in the Route du Rhum on his Pen Duick IV “Manureva”. His wife Teura Colas then inherited his company and its boats, which had been abandoned for many years in Tahiti.

The Phocea off Pampelonne in Saint-Tropez.

In 1982, businessman Bernard Tapie bought Club Méditerranée and Alain-Colas-Tahiti SA from Teura Colas, which he made a subsidiary of his group. He repatriates the wreckage of the boat to Marseilles from Tahiti where he has it completely restored and transformed into a luxury yacht, while retaining its sporting spirit. Thus, only light materials are used to fit out the Phocéa, which remains very efficient under sail. Bernard Tapie wants to make the Phocéa the most beautiful and the most efficient sailboat in the world. The renovation will last four years, at a cost of 68 million francs (10 million euros). On May 23, 1987, by way of inauguration, he married Dominique Mialet-Damianos, of Greek origin, on board in Greece during a private ceremony with some friends, celebrated by a Greek Orthodox priest and made his first cruise in the Mediterranean at on board for her honeymoon.

In 1988, on his second attempt, Bernard Tapie broke the record for crossing the Atlantic in a monohull with this boat in June. Bernard Tapie is personally on board for the crossing as owner.

The fire on February 18, 2021

Ex-wife of billionaire Nasser Al-Rashid, businessman Saudi real estate developer and personal friend of the King of Saudi Arabia Fahd ben Abdelaziz Al Saud, Mouna Ayoub buys Phocéa with the idea of ​​transforming it in depth. Little sensitive to the sporting spirit that animated Bernard Tapie, Mouna Ayoub replaced the light materials used for decoration by the latter with heavier materials, in the tradition of luxury yachting. It also reduces the size of the masts and the sails, hampered by the significant angle of heel of the boat under sail. Finally, she adds a floor to have more space. Mouna Ayoub thus spends a total of 17 million dollars in modifications, development and decoration work. In the opinion of all observers of the yachting world, these changes are not very flattering for the Phocéa: the formerly slender line is weighed down by the shortening of the masts and the addition of a floor, as well as by the use of the color white for the superstructure which “stands out” visually much more. In addition, the ship has become 60% heavier and has lost 35% of sail area, making its performance under sail, once exceptional, much more common. Mouna Ayoub makes Phocéa her personal address and rents it out from €196 per week. The new owners of the Phocéa continue to offer it on charter.

In 2010, Mouna Ayoub resold the yacht for approximately 10 million euros to Xavier Niel, associated with brothers Steve and Jean-Émile Rosenblum, the founders of the Pixmania site. The yacht is registered in Luxembourg. It is owned by a Maltese company, Phocea Limited. This in turn is 50% owned by the NJJ Capital holding company (French company owned by Xavier Niel) and the Dotcorp Finance holding company (Luxembourg company owned by the Rosenblum brothers). On the occasion of the disclosure of the "Malta Files", the financial arrangement used for the management of Phocéa is highlighted.

The Phocéa sank after being partially destroyed by fire on February 18, 2021 while anchored in the Langkawi archipelago in Malaysia.

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Bernard Tapie, French magnate trailed by scandal in business and soccer, dies at 78

Bernard Tapie, the flamboyant French business tycoon who raced cars, starred on television, served in parliament and owned one of the country’s premier soccer clubs, becoming an object of national fascination even as he faced repeated scandals and went to prison for a bribery scheme, died on Oct. 3 at 78. The cause was cancer, according to his family who told La Provence, a Marseille newspaper that he had owned since 2012.

Raised in the Paris suburbs, where his father worked at a refrigerator factory, Mr. Tapie became a multimillionaire before he was 40, buying ailing companies, stripping them of their assets and selling them for a profit. His holdings once included the health store chain La Vie Claire, tennis racket manufacturer Donnay and sportswear giant Adidas. “If there is one thing I know how to do,” he once declared, “it is making dough.”

Mr. Tapie used the proceeds to buy one of the world’s largest sailing yachts called the Phocea, finance a cycling team that won two consecutive Tour de France titles, and acquire a lackluster soccer club, Olympique de Marseille, that he grew into a national and European champion.

Tanned and jowly, with bushy eyebrows and dark wavy hair, he was sometimes described as the French Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media mogul who ran the A.C. Milan soccer club and served four times as prime minister. He maintained a similar populist appeal, emerging as a blunt spokesperson for the Socialist Party after he called far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen “a big mouth who should be kicked in the butt” in 1989.

Mr. Tapie was elected to the French parliament that year as a deputy from Marseille, and he was soon ranked in polls as one of the country’s most popular politicians, behind only the president, prime minister and head of the National Assembly. He briefly served as urban affairs minister in President François Mitterrand’s cabinet and was cited as a potential successor, with rumored ambitions to move into the Élysée Palace.

But the “Zorro of business,” as French newspapers called him, saw his fortunes evaporate in the 1990s, when he was declared bankrupt, convicted of tax evasion and found guilty of offering bribes to three soccer players in a match-rigging scheme. Mr. Tapie spent six months in prison in 1997 for the bribery conviction and was banned from French soccer for life.

To some, his fall was just deserts for a flashy outspoken millionaire and gleeful self-promoter. “The collapse of Bernard Tapie has become a sort of symbol, the symbol of a triple failure: that of a tabloid society ... that of an era of easy money and hysterical financing which was the 1980s, and that of the power of an ambition to change life,” journalist Philippe Labarde wrote about the French mogul in a column for Le Monde.

Yet Mr. Tapie remained a beloved figure among admirers who said he took on the Paris elite, and among Marseille fans who credited him with the club’s glory years. After he bought the team in 1986, he bankrolled the acquisition of stars including Fabien Barthez, Didier Deschamps and Jean-Pierre Papin, helping Marseille win five straight French league titles. The club won the 1993 Champions League final, becoming the first and only French team to win Europe’s most prestigious soccer tournament, but was forced to vacate its French title that year after the match-fixing scandal.

“I was rich, I am no longer,” a seemingly unshaken Mr. Tapie told Le Figaro in 1995. “I was fashionable, I am no longer. I was president of a European championship team, I am no longer. I ran businesses, I no longer do so. Many French people have more to complain about than do I.”

Rather than fade from public life, he appeared in a 1996 film by director Claude Lelouch, “Men, Women: A User’s Manual,” starred as a rebellious psychiatric hospital patient in a Paris production of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” hosted radio and television shows, and recorded a duet with the French hip-hop artist Doc Gynéco released in 1998.

For more than two decades, he was also embroiled in lawsuits related to the sale of Adidas. He had used nearly $400 million worth of loans to acquire a controlling interest in the company in 1990, calling it “the deal of my life.” But he sold the business less than three years later in a transaction involving the state-owned bank Crédit Lyonnais, reportedly while in dire financial straits and trying to focus on his political career.

Alleging that the deal was mismanaged, he sued Crédit Lyonnais, accusing the company of undervaluing Adidas and bilking him in the sale. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, who eventually led the International Monetary Fund, referred the case to arbitration and approved a settlement in 2008, with Mr. Tapie receiving 404 million euros, or $421 million.

Critics said the case should have gone through the normal court system instead of arbitration and alleged that Mr. Tapie had received favorable treatment because he had backed Lagarde’s boss, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the 2007 presidential election. Mr. Tapie denied the allegations and continued to fight for compensation after a French court ruled in 2015 that he was not entitled to payment after all.

Authorities were still investigating the settlement in recent years. Lagarde was found guilty of negligence — she denied wrongdoing and was not fined or imprisoned — and Mr. Tapie was acquitted of defrauding the state in 2019. Prosecutors appealed that decision, leading to a new trial that began in May, with Mr. Tapie already seriously ill. A verdict had not yet been handed down when he died.

Mr. Tapie previously said he remained haunted by his decision to sell Adidas in the first place. “I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but that was the biggest one,” he told his biographer, according to the Financial Times. “Selling one of the best known sports brands in the world for a short-lived stint as minister,” he said.

The older of two sons, Mr. Tapie was born in Paris on Jan. 26, 1943, and grew up in the northeastern suburb of Le Bourget. His father was pressed into working for the occupying German forces, and his mother worked as a nurse’s aide and homemaker.

Mr. Tapie studied engineering and, after completing his military service, won a singing competition at age 21, prompting him to pursue a career as a pop star under the name Bernard Tapy. In 1966, RCA released his version of “The Ballad of the Green Berets,” describing him in the liner notes as “a sporty good-looking enfant du peuple with a smile that has all the cheeky charm of a kid from the back streets of Paris.”

But he sold relatively few albums and also found little success in racing, driving a Formula Three until he was hospitalized in an accident, according to Le Monde. Switching his focus to business, he sold television sets in Paris and worked as a consultant, making his first major acquisition in the 1970s, when he used a single franc to buy the debt of a printing company that had been occupied by its workers.

Mr. Tapie developed a repayment schedule with the bank and arranged for part-ownership with the workers, rejuvenating the company’s finances before buying 40 companies between 1977 and 1989, according to the British newspaper the Independent. For much of that decade, he also appeared on television, including as the host of “Ambitions,” in which he helped people launch their own businesses.

He had two children from his first marriage, to Michèle Layec, which ended in divorce. Mr. Tapie also had two children from his second marriage, to Dominique Mialet-Damianos. He and his wife were attacked in April this year during a burglary at their home in Combs-la-Ville near Paris, where authorities said that four men beat them, tied them up with electrical cords and stole watches and jewelry.

Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

Mr. Tapie liked to say that “strange things happen in soccer,” a maxim that received further proof after the match-fixing scandal was exposed in 1993. After one of his alibis collapsed at the trial, he declared that he had “lied in good faith,” prompting the judge to say, “You could have that phrase studied in a philosophy textbook.”

The court case left him with a reputation as a fabulist, although Mr. Tapie insisted that he told the truth, or something like it. “I don’t lie,” he told the French daily Libération. “When I speak, I believe it to be true. One week later, it may no longer be.”

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Bernard Tapie, l'histoire d'un record de l'Atlantique sur le yacht de luxe Phocéa

Atteint d'un cancer depuis plusieurs années, Bernard Tapie s'est éteint à son domicile ce dimanche 3 octobre 2021 au matin. Homme d'affaires, homme politique, acteur, il était aussi un amoureux de la mer. Retour sur un record de transatlantique effectuée à bord de son yacht de luxe Phocéa, en équipage.

Un refit pour être plus performant

Bernard Tapie était un véritable touche-à-tout, mêlant de front plusieurs carrières et hobbies. Dont un qui nous intéresse plus particulièrement, la voile.

En 1982, Bernard Tapie rachète l'ancien Club Méditerranée à la veuve d' Alain Colas . Rapatrié de Tahiti à Marseille , le voilier doté de 4 mâts est entièrement refité. L'homme d'affaires le transforme en luxueux yacht à voile, mais n'omet pas le côté sportif du bateau, privilégiant l'utilisation de matériaux légers. Avec une longueur de 74,37 m, le Phocéa est à l'époque, le plus grand yacht du monde, détrôné en 2004 par l'Athena.

Battre le record de l'Atlantique à la voile en monocoque

Après 4 années de travaux et 10 millions d'euros engagés (68 millions de francs), Phocéa (son nouveau nom) est prêt à battre des records. C'est d'ailleurs l'objectif que s'est fixé son armateur. Après une première tentative échouée, Bernard Tapie tente en juin 1988, de battre le record de l'Atlantique d'ouest en est en monocoque. Ce record est à l'époque détenu par Atlantic , goélette de Charlie Barr en 12 jours, 4 heures, 1 minute et 19 secondes.

Au départ de New-York, il confie la barre du Phocéa au capitaine Jean-Luc Pinon, secondé par Pierre Gaillet. Sont également présents deux barreurs chefs de quart Frank Dambrin et François Prévost. Au total, 20 personnes sont présentes à bord, dont un journaliste de TF1 censé raconter chaque jour l'épopée durant le journal télévisé, et bien sûr, Bernard Tapie lui-même.

Un record dangereux

Selon les témoins, au bout de deux jours, le bateau s'englue dans la molle, ce qui fait perdre patience à son propriétaire. Une tempête est alors annoncée et, contre l'avis du capitaine, Bernard Tapie décide de maintenir le cap et de continuer sa traversée, mettant en danger son équipage. Il s'en rendra d'ailleurs compte à la fin de la traversée.

Au total, le quatre-mâts se couchera et se relèvera à 4 reprises, rossé par les vagues , immenses. Pour l'anecdote, le journaliste du bord avait même fait un coma tétanique, incapable de bouger, paralysé par la peur.

Phocéa, pourvu de 2 spis, 4 génois et 2 grand-voiles – 3 000 m2 de toile au total – avale les milles – plus de 400 milles certains jours – à des vitesses avoisinant les 20 nœuds. Parvenant à surmonter la tempête , l'équipage rallie Saint-Malo au bout de 8 jours, 3 h et 29 minutes, avec une vitesse moyenne de 14,96 nœuds sur un parcours de 2925 milles. Il bat ainsi le record de Charlie Barr de 4 jours.

Record battu

S'il bat le record de l'Atlantique de Charlie Barr, et de plusieurs multicoques de course de l'époque, son record n'est homologué par le WSSR – homologation des records à la voile – que dans la catégorie 5c (des voiliers dotés d'assistance par des énergies auxiliaires, ici des winches à assistance hydraulique).

Saisi en 1996 aux mains de Bernard Tapie, le Phocéa est racheté à plusieurs reprises, avant de prendre feu en février 2021 en Malaisie .

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Frédéric Mitterrand : dernier dîner, derniers adieux

Caroline de monaco et ses enfants, charlotte, pierre et alexandra, au bal de la rose, à 51 ans, cameron diaz est maman pour la deuxième fois, splendeur et misères du "phocéa", le bateau mythique de bernard tapie.

Le voilier, qui a fait rêver tant de marins, a sombré au large de la Malaisie le 19 février dernier. Construit en 1976 pour le navigateur Alain Colas, son histoire, romanesque, en a fait un mythe. Devenu yacht de luxe, il a séduit les grosses fortunes, Mouna Ayoub, Xavier Niel ou Bernard Tapie, son propriétaire le plus emblématique. Rebaptisé "Enigma", il naviguait ces dernières années dans les eaux troubles des paradis fiscaux.

« Grand bateau », c’est ainsi qu’Alain Colas surnommait son monocoque géant alors en construction dans l’arsenal du Mourillon, à Toulon. L’ex-élève de Tabarly, devenu son rival, s’est lancé dans un projet fou : concevoir et bâtir le plus grand voilier du monde pour prendre le départ de la Transat anglaise en solitaire de 1976. Un demi-siècle qu’on n’avait pas mis en chantier un tel navire : 72 mètres de longueur, 4 mâts, 250 tonnes, des innovations et des instruments à la pointe de la technologie.

Michel Bigoin, architecte naval marseillais, sera le maître d’œuvre ; Gaston Defferre, le parrain ; Gilbert Trigano, le sponsor de cette F1 des mers qui va s’appeler « Club-Méditerranée ». Dans cette aventure, tout est démesuré – y compris le budget de 10 millions de francs – et surtout périlleux. Car Alain Colas s’engage dans cette compétition avec un handicap : malgré une vingtaine d’opérations pour réparer sa cheville et son pied, broyés par une chaîne de grappin, il marche toujours difficilement. Il finira cinquième de cette course, remportée par Eric Tabarly.

Surendetté mais terriblement obstiné, le navigateur réarme « Club-Méditerranée » en bateau de croisière pour touristes américains et cabote sans grand succès dans l’archipel polynésien. Jusqu’à ce drame, survenu le 16 novembre 1978, lors de la première édition de la Route du rhum. Parti à bord de « Manureva », Alain Colas est officiellement porté disparu. Le bateau ne sera jamais retrouvé, ouvrant la voie aux spéculations les plus hasardeuses. Le marin laisse derrière lui sa veuve tahitienne Teura et leurs trois enfants : une fille, Vaimiti, 4 ans, et des jumeaux de 8 mois, Torea et Tereva. Reste « Club-Méditerranée », désormais sans capitaine. A l’abandon dans le port de Papeete, le fier voilier n’est plus qu’une épave rongée par la rouille.

Bernard Tapie , qui connaît les dettes abyssales de la famille, y voit une affaire à saisir. Il le rachète pour une somme dérisoire, tout en garantissant une rente destinée à financer les études des enfants d’Alain Colas jusqu’à leurs 18 ans. Pour lui, ce quatre-mâts n’est pas seulement synonyme de business, de montage financier ou de défiscalisation. Tapie tombe fou amoureux de cette carcasse légendaire pour laquelle il a de grandes ambitions. Rafistolé, le « grand bateau » rejoint Marseille pour quatre ans de travaux pharaoniques qui coûteront 68 millions de francs. Michel Bigoin, le concepteur du navire, va le réaménager pour en livrer une version 5 étoiles, sans l’alourdir. Il doit rester compétitif. Désormais yacht de luxe, rebaptisé « Phocéa » en hommage à Marseille, le bateau va battre en 1988 le record du monde de la traversée de l’Atlantique en monocoque d’ouest en Est. Record jamais tombé depuis 1905. Tapie est « à la barre », frôlant la mort, tout comme l’équipage, qui pousse le quatre-mâts jusqu’à ses limites. Tout lui sourit. On est en pleine Tapie-mania.

Dans ce bureau flottant, Bernard Tapie conclut le rachat d'Adidas et de Toshiba

Le « Phocéa » devient vite l’épicentre de sa galaxie professionnelle et personnelle. A son bord, au large de Corfou, il épouse Dominique. Dans ce bureau flottant, il conclut le rachat d’Adidas et de Toshiba, règle les transferts des joueurs et y fêtera en 1993 la victoire de l’OM en Coupe d’Europe. Le bateau lui permet de cultiver ses réseaux, d’organiser « séminaires » et réunions secrètes, comme ce fut le cas lors du scandale de corruption du match OM-Valenciennes. Le yacht sera aussi son talon d’Achille via l’affaire « Phocéa » qui le conduira devant les tribunaux pour abus de biens sociaux et fraude fiscale.

Tapie est à la prison de la Santé quand, en 1997, une annonce paraît dans le « Herald Tribune » : le « Phocéa » est à vendre. Mouna Ayoub, milliardaire jet-setteuse, le rachète pour 36,5 millions de francs et transforme son pont en salon VIP. Elle y organisera des séances photo tout à sa gloire, posant telle une sirène sculpturale en Bikini. Décoration tapageuse, fêtes démesurées, location à la semaine pour 180 000 euros… Mouna Ayoub exploite le yacht pendant treize ans. Puis, en 2010, il passe aux mains de l’homme d’affaires Xavier Niel, fondateur de Free, associé avec les frères Rosenblum (Pixmania). La gestion du bateau est confiée à un « homme d’affaires et investisseur du Vanuatu ». Endommagé dans une tempête en 2013, le voilier est convoyé vers la Thaïlande pour réparations. Il ne quittera plus l’Asie du Sud-Est, où il finira par couler mystérieusement après un incendie. L’épave repose aujourd’hui sur les fonds de l’île paradisiaque de Langkawi.

Lire aussi. Le Phocéa, l'ancien yacht de Bernard Tapie, a coulé au large de la Malaisie

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Bernard Tapie: Businessman and sports tycoon dogged by scandal

The larger-than-life frenchman owned adidas, olympique marseille and the world’s biggest luxury yacht, and held ambitions of becoming president before financial and match-fixing crimes led to his downfall, article bookmarked.

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Tapie during his trial in Paris, April 2019. He was acquitted of defrauding the state but prosecutors appealed that decision, leading to a new trial that began in May, with Tapie already seriously ill. A verdict had not yet been handed down when he died

Bernard Tapie, a flamboyant French business tycoon who raced cars, starred on television, served in parliament and owned one of the country’s premier football clubs, becoming an object of national fascination even as he faced repeated scandals and went to prison for a bribery scheme, has died aged 78.

Raised in the Paris suburbs, where his father worked at a refrigerator factory, Tapie became a multimillionaire before he was 40, buying ailing companies, stripping them of their assets and selling them for a profit. His holdings once included the health store chain La Vie Claire, tennis racket manufacturer Donnay and sportswear giant Adidas. “If there is one thing I know how to do,” he once declared, “it is making dough.”

Tapie used the proceeds to buy what was at the time the world’s largest sailing yachts, a roughly 240ft luxury schooner called the Phocea ; finance a cycling team that won two consecutive Tour de France titles; and acquire a lacklustre football club, Olympique de Marseille, that he grew into a national and European champion.

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Tanned and jowly, with bushy eyebrows and dark wavy hair, he was sometimes described as the French Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian media mogul who ran the AC Milan football club and served four times as prime minister. He maintained a similar populist appeal, emerging as a blunt spokesperson for the Socialist Party after he called far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen “a big mouth who should be kicked in the butt” during a televised debate in 1989.

Tapie was elected to the French parliament that year as a deputy from Marseille, and was soon ranked in polls as one of the country’s most popular politicians, behind only the president, prime minister and head of the National Assembly. He briefly served as urban affairs minister in president Francois Mitterrand’s cabinet and was cited as a potential successor, with rumoured ambitions to move into the Elysee Palace.

But the “Zorro of business”, as French newspapers called him, saw his fortunes evaporate in the mid-1990s, when he was declared bankrupt by a French court, convicted of tax evasion and found guilty of offering bribes to three football players in a match-rigging scheme. Tapie spent six months in prison in 1997 for the bribery conviction and was banned from French football for life.

To some, his fall was just deserts for a flashy, outspoken millionaire and gleeful self-promoter. “The collapse of Bernard Tapie has become a sort of symbol, the symbol of a triple failure: that of a tabloid society ... that of an era of easy money and hysterical financing which was the 1980s, and that of the power of an ambition to ‘change life’,” journalist Philippe Labarde wrote in a column for Le Monde .

Tapie in 1980

Yet Tapie remained a beloved figure among admirers who said he took on the Paris elite, and among Marseille fans who credited him with ushering in the club’s glory years. After he bought the team in 1986, he bankrolled the acquisition of stars including Fabien Barthez, Didier Deschamps and Jean-Pierre Papin, helping Marseille win five straight French league titles. The club won the 1993 Champions League final, becoming the first and only French team to win Europe’s most prestigious football tournament, but was forced to vacate its French title that year because of the match-fixing scandal.

“I was rich, I am no longer,” a seemingly unshaken Tapie told Le Figaro in 1995. “I was fashionable, I am no longer. I was president of a European championship team, I am no longer. I ran businesses, I no longer do so. Many French people have more to complain about than do I.”

Rather than fade away from public life, he appeared in a movie by director Claude Lelouch, Men, Women: A User's Manual (1996); starred as a rebellious psychiatric hospital patient in a Paris production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest ; hosted radio and television shows; and recorded a duet with hip-hop artist Doc Gyneco.

For more than two decades, he was also embroiled in lawsuits related to the sale of Adidas. He had used nearly $400m worth of loans to acquire a controlling interest in the company in 1990, calling it “the deal of my life”. But he sold the business less than three years later in a transaction involving the state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais, reportedly while in dire financial straits and trying to focus on his political career.

Alleging that the deal was mismanaged, he sued Credit Lyonnais, accusing the company of undervaluing Adidas and bilking him in the sale. French finance minister Christine Lagarde, who later led the International Monetary Fund, referred the case to arbitration and approved a settlement in 2008, with Tapie receiving €404m.

Critics said the case should have gone through the normal court system instead of arbitration, and alleged that Tapie received favourable treatment because he had backed Lagarde’s boss, Nicolas Sarkozy, in the 2007 presidential election. Tapie denied the allegations and continued to fight for compensation after a French court ruled in 2015 that he was not entitled to payment after all.

Tapie (third left) at the 1990 European Cup semi-final second leg in Lisbon, where his Marseille side were knocked out by Benfica

Authorities were still investigating the settlement in recent years. Lagarde was found guilty of negligence – she denied wrongdoing and was not fined or imprisoned – and Tapie was acquitted of defrauding the state in 2019. Prosecutors appealed that decision, leading to a new trial that began in May, with Tapie already seriously ill. A verdict had not yet been handed down when he died.

Tapie previously said he remained haunted by his decision to sell Adidas in the first place. “I’ve made many mistakes in my life, but that was the biggest one,” he told his biographer, according to the Financial Times . “Selling one of the best-known sports brands in the world for a short-lived stint as minister.”

The older of two sons, he was born in Paris on 26 January 1943, and grew up in the northeastern suburb of Le Bourget. His father was pressed into working for the occupying German forces, and his mother was a nurse’s aide and homemaker.

Tapie studied engineering and, after completing his military service, won a singing competition at 21, prompting him to pursue a career as a pop star under the name Bernard Tapy. In 1966, RCA released his version of The Ballad of the Green Berets , describing him in the liner notes as “a sporty, good-looking enfant du peuple with a smile that has all the cheeky charm of a kid from the back streets of Paris”.

But he sold relatively few albums and also found little success in racing, driving a Formula 3 until he was hospitalised in an accident, according to Le Monde . Switching his focus to business, he sold TVs in Paris and worked as a consultant, making his first major acquisition in the mid-1970s, when he used a single franc to buy the debt of a printing company that had been occupied by its workers.

Tapie developed a repayment schedule with the bank and arranged for part-ownership with the workers, rejuvenating the company’s finances before buying 40 companies between 1977 and 1989, according to The Independent . For much of that decade, he also appeared on TV, including as the host of Ambitions , in which he helped people launch their own businesses.

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He had two children from his first marriage, to Michele Layec, which ended in divorce. He also had two children from his second marriage, to Dominique Mialet-Damianos. He and his wife were attacked in April during a burglary at their home in Combs-la-Ville near Paris, where authorities said that four men beat them, tied them up with electrical cords and stole watches and jewellery.

Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.

Tapie liked to say that “strange things happen in football” – a maxim that received further proof after the match-fixing scandal was exposed in 1993. After one of his alibis collapsed at the trial, he declared that he had “lied in good faith”, prompting the judge to say, “You could have that phrase studied in a philosophy textbook.”

The court case left him with a reputation as a fabulist, although Tapie insisted that he told the truth, or something like it. “I don’t lie,” he told the French daily Libération . “When I speak, I believe it to be true. One week later, it may no longer be.”

Bernard Tapie, businessman, born 26 January 1943, died 3 October 2021

© The Washington Post

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Fire hits yacht that belonged to French tycoon Bernard Tapie off Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - A multi-million-dollar sailing yacht that once belonged to French tycoon Bernard Tapie went up in flames off Malaysia on Thursday (Feb 18), with firefighters battling for hours to put out the blaze.

Coastguards said they were alerted to the fire on the 75 metre (246 foot) Phocea just after 8pm when it was off the resort island of Langkawi.

Seven crew members were rescued from the vessel without suffering injuries, said coastguard official Mohamad Zawawi Abdullah, but firefighters were still battling to extinguish the blaze in the evening.

The four-masted yacht was built for renowned French sailor Alain Colas in 1976 and was owned by Tapie in the 1980s and 90s.

It was later sold to a wealthy Lebanese woman for 36.5 million francs (7.5 million euros/S$12 million at current values), according to media reports.

Tapie is a former Socialist minister who rose from humble beginnings to build up a sporting and media empire but later faced a string of legal problems.

He had made a fortune in the early part of his career by taking over failing companies, and flaunted his wealth. As well as the yacht, he bought a football team.

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Bernard Tapie, frenetic investor

Bernard Tapie passed away on Sunday, October 3 at the age of 78. A life filled with many careers: politician, boss of OM, but also of cycling and sailing teams, television host, film and theater actor, writer and singer. A CV as long as the arm for the one who will remain for many an unavoidable businessman.

The businessman with mixed success

A flamboyant businessman since the 1980s, Bernard Tapie has, over the course of his life, multiplied his investments. His favorite targets: companies on the verge of bankruptcy. If he struggles to save jobs lost in advance, the path of Tapie in business has been strewn with pitfalls. Debts, liquidations and legal cases will take over the success of the businessman. Few are the companies that he managed to make prosper as he wished.

One example is the case of Manufrance , which Bernard Tapie obtained the operation in 1980. The company, an icon of the French mail order business, was on the verge of collapse. The operation made the businessman famous in the media, but the situation quickly got out of hand. The restructuring plan he proposed was refused by local elected officials and unions, and the company had to be liquidated in 1986.

La Vie Claire, Terraillon and Testut are other names synonymous with disappointment for the French business magnate. In the case of Testut , the failure goes even further, as Bernard Tapie is condemned in 1996 for misuse of social assets for his management of the company.

However, the Look company, bought in 1983 by Bernard Tapie for a symbolic franc, remains a real entrepreneurial success. Under his leadership, the manufacturer of ski bindings and bicycle accessories prospered by launching the safety pedal, with which Bernard Hinault won the Tour de France in 1985.

The sports lover

If Bernard Tapie likes business, he also appreciates sports, of which he is a true enthusiast. Over the years, and especially during the 1980s, he invested in several sports fields. In particular, he set up a cycling team around Bernard Hinault , and also entered the field of sailing by buying the sailboat Phocéa from the sailor Alain Colas , who beat the record for the North Atlantic crossing in a monohull with a crew in 1988.

But Bernard Tapie will remain mostly associated with the world of soccer. He bought Olympique de Marseille in the mid-1980s, a club on the verge of collapse. Thanks to his management, the club recovered and even won the Champions League in 1993 against AC Milan , which remains the only edition won by a French club.

Adidas, the synthesis

At the beginning of the 1990s, Bernard Tapie decided to take over the German sports equipment manufacturer Adidas , which was in great financial difficulty, for 1.6 billion francs, or 362 million euros. Bernard Tapie , who considers Adidas to be “the business of his life”, implements a restructuring plan including the relocation of part of the production to Asia, the redefinition of commercial policies and the relationship with distributors, as well as the implementation of a new, more modern visual identity. The company gradually reveals itself thanks to the Tapie strategy and becomes profitable again from 1993.

#BernardTapie s'en est allé. Hommage en publicité. #Archive pic.twitter.com/KSkonH0cOX See Also Focus , Inspirations , Lifestyle Oppenheimer scoops five awards at the Golden Globes — culturepub (@culturepub) October 5, 2021

After becoming Minister of the City, Bernard Tapie instructs the Credit Lyonnais to sell Adidas for 2.1 billion francs, or 441 million euros, to a group of investors. This sale will lead to the famous affair of Credit Lyonnais , after which an arbitration will award 285 million to Tapie in 2008 (403 million with interest), arbitration canceled for fraud in 2015.

Bernard Tapie leaves behind the image of a frenetic and adventurous businessman , even though he was not always successful. But despite this, whether you love him or hate him, it is undeniable that his fiery temperament and his legendary outbursts have left their mark on the French, marking the business world like no one before him.

Read Also > PORTRAIT : DAVY TISSOT, STARRED CHEF WHO LED THE FRENCH TEAM TO THE BOCUSE D’OR

Featured Photo : © Getty Images

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Bernard Tapie: French tycoon, 78, died peacefully, his family said

• Published 3 October 2021

One of France's most recognisable figures, the businessman, sports club owner and politician Bernard Tapie, has died at the age of 78.

Tapie, who had battled stomach cancer for the past four years, died peacefully, surrounded by his family, they said in a statement.

At one time he owned Adidas, Olympique Marseille and was a minister under President Francois Mitterrand.

He also had a string of legal problems and served time in jail.

Tapie's wife Dominique and his family announced his death with "immense sadness". They said he wished to be buried in Marseille, "the city of his heart".

President Emmanuel Macron was among the many to pay tribute to him, saying his "ambition, energy and enthusiasm... were a source of inspiration for generations of French people".

Bernard Tapie grew up in the working class suburbs of Paris.

He began his career as a singer, then a race car driver - before discovering a talent for buying up failing businesses and selling them on, the BBC's Hugh Schofield reports from Paris.

He demonstrated his wealth by buying the Olympique de Marseille football club, which won the French championship while he was their owner. However, he was accused of match-fixing and the club was stripped of its league championship title and later relegated to a lower division.

He also bought a cycling team that twice won the Tour de France, was the majority shareholder of the sportswear brand Adidas and owned a number of newspapers.

In the 1990s, he dabbled in politics, briefly became urban affairs minister and later elected as a leftist French and European parliament MP in Marseille.

He also had a lifelong interest in entertainment. In 1966, aged 23, he recorded songs under the name Bernard Tapy, but failed to make much of impact.

He returned to singing in the 1980s, after making his name as a corporate raider, and collaborated with acclaimed songwriter Didier Barbelivien.

In the 1990s, he appeared in major films including Claude Lelouch's Men, Women: A User's Manual, as well as plays. Over the past 20 years he has starred as a police inspector in a TV drama and hosted a number of chat shows.

Tapie's late career as a showman took off as his empire crumbled amid a string of legal problems from the late 1990s.

He served time in jail for match fixing and other charges concerning corruption, tax fraud and misuse of corporate assets.

Earlier this year, he and his wife were attacked in a violent burglary at their home .

Bernard Tapie faced the ups and downs of his life always with panache, our correspondent notes, and he was an admired and fascinating figure until the end.

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• Published 5 April 2021

Tapie affair: Background to case

• Published 22 July 2016

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• Published 18 May 2017

Bernard Tapie, businessman who brought success to the Olympique Marseille football team but whose career was dogged by scandal – obituary

He was a singer, yachtsman, tycoon, actor and government minister, but his careers in football and business both ended up in court

Bernard Tapie, who has died 78, was a charismatic French financier and scandal-ridden business tycoon who at various times had been a pop singer, television star, actor, racing driver, yachtsman, football executive, writer, populist politician, government minister – and jailbird.

Outside his native France, Tapie is best remembered as the football boss who bribed opposition players to take it easy against his club, Olympique Marseille, in the last French league match before the European Cup final in 1993. His club was stripped of its 1992-93 title, kicked out of the 1993-94 Champions League and relegated. Tapie served eight months in prison.

Bernard Tapie, the elder of two sons, was born in Le Bourget, to the north of Paris, on January 26 1943 to Jean and Raymonde Tapie. His father was working as a forced labourer for the Germans in Paris. After the war, he became a finisher in a refrigerator factory in the neighbouring suburb of La Courneuve. Bernard, who often claimed to have been born circa 1946, also liked to claim that he had grown up in La Courneuve, a slum area – rather than respectable lower middle-class Le Bourget

After an undistinguished spell at the local lycee, Bernard claimed to have qualified as an engineer – a prestigious achievement in France – though in reality he only attended a technical college offering a preparatory course in engineering. What is certain is that as a schoolboy he was a gifted footballer and gymnast with a physical courage that served him well in the playground and in his later career.

After completing his military service, the 21-year-old Tapie won a singing competition which gave him the idea of becoming a pop star. Styling himself Bernard Pascal, then Bernard Tapy, in 1965 he was signed up by RCA and launched his quest for stardom with a French version of The Ballad of the Green Berets, which had been a hit in the US. The sleeve notes described him as “A sporty, good-looking enfant du peuple with a smile that has all the cheeky charm of a kid from the back streets of Paris”.

Following his brief stint as a pop singer Tapie travelled to the US. Inspired by American business energy, he returned to France a couple of years later as a business consultant.

In 1976 he embarked on his first venture, paying one franc for the debts of a printing company that had been occupied by the workers. He offered the bank a repayment schedule and the workers part-ownership. His printing empire grew fast. Thereafter Tapie progressed from coup to coup, acquiring 40 mostly bankrupt companies between 1977 and 1989 and turning them round.

In parallel Tapie, described by the press in the 1980s as the man Frenchwomen would most like to spend the weekend with, launched his career as an owner of sports teams. His cycling team La Vie Claire won the Tour de France twice, with Bernard Hinault also taking individual honours in 1985 and Greg LeMond in 1986.

He also launched himself as a television presenter with Ambitions, a show in which he was seen advising young would-be entrepreneurs on how to succeed, which was pulled after a year when the French regulatory body concluded that it “serves above all Tapie’s ambitions”. Unperturbed, he published an autobiography, Gagner [“To Win”] and set his sights on politics.

In 1985 Tapie began to fund “Tapie schools” for young, unemployed immigrants in the Marseille area, an initiative which caught the attention of France’s Socialist president François Mitterrand. The same year at a dinner in Paris Tapie found himself sitting next to the wife of Gaston Defferre, the socialist mayor of Marseille, who confided her concern at the declining fortunes of its debt-ridden football team Olympique Marseille, whose performance was having a negative impact on the city’s self-esteem.

In 1986 Tapie bought the club and duly set about turning it into the most glamorous and successful in France. Matches became family events with music, fireworks and lasers; unpromising players were shown the door; stars such as Chris Waddle and Jean-Pierre Papin were recruited, and by 1990 the team had gone from the second division to triumph in the European Cup and Tapie to national hero.

In 1990 he pulled off the biggest coup of his business career when his holding company, Bernard Tapie Finances, acquired an 80 per cent stake in the German sportswear manufacturer Adidas for a rumoured £250 million. His nine months of secret negotiations had also reportedly secured Adidas’s influence over which nation would host the World Cup, and Tapie lost no time in promising that the honours for the 1998 tournament would go to France.

Meanwhile, in 1988, when legislative elections were called in the wake of Mitterrand’s re-election, the far Right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen announced his candidature for a seat in the Marseille area. Tapie decided to stand in a neighbouring constituency as a candidate for the Left. His technique of flinging Le Pen’s invective back in his face was a big factor in Le Pen’s defeat and Tapie achieved the status of Left-wing hero when he became the first politician to scuttle the National Front leader in a televised debate.

Le Pen was beaten, but so – narrowly – was Tapie, 300 votes having somehow “vanished” between the first and final count. A re-run in January 1989 gave Tapie his seat in the assembly as a Socialist deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône, and in 1992 he accepted a position as a cabinet minister for urban affairs in Mitterrand’s government.

It was a risky appointment, as Tapie’s integrity was already in question. But the governing Socialists were doing badly in the polls, and as the polls also suggested that half the country would vote for Tapie as president, he seemed to offer the injection of energy and glamour they needed.

But his appointment lasted just seven weeks, ending when he was summoned to the Palais de Justice to answer allegations by a former business partner (and neo-Gaullist deputy) that he had pocketed more than his fair share of proceeds when their jointly owned company was sold some years earlier.

Soon it was reversals on all fronts: at a stormy meeting, the shareholders of Bernard Tapie Finances wanted to know why the company’s profits had dwindled from almost £5 million in 1990 to a net loss of £30.7 million the following year. And the Adidas operation was clouded with rumours of bids, counter-bids, redundancies and resignations.

When he had bought his controlling stake in the company, which was about 10 times the size of his main holding company, he had financed the deal with loans and equity participation by banks and insurance companies, including the state-owned Crédit Lyonnais. In 1993, unable to meet debt repayment deadlines, Tapie asked Crédit Lyonnais to sell the company.

In 1994 a court ruled that Tapie’s holding company was unable to meet its other loans. The government – now run by the Right – demanded back taxes, and as creditors gathered, bailiffs seized Tapie’s antique furniture, artworks and his luxury 74-metre yacht, Phocea.

Amazingly, despite facing prosecution for fraud, bribery and tax evasion, he scored 12 per cent on a multi-candidate ballot in the June 1994 European elections, making him a potential presidential candidate in 1995 for France’s beleaguered Left. A few days after the elections, however, a posse of 10 policemen demanded entry to his home and ordered him to come with them to face a Parisian judge. After shouting “fascists!”, he was bundled into a car to be formally questioned on charges of tax fraud.

Tapie’s bankruptcy early in 1995 put paid to his political career, and later that year he was sentenced to eight months in jail over the match-rigging scandal.

For many French people, and particularly those in the traditional political echelons Tapie’s fall was a proper come-uppance for a flashy, uncultured upstart. For others, especially those from Marseille, it was punishment of a straight-talking man from the wrong side of the tracks who had dared to take on the Paris establishment.

Upon completing his jail sentence, Tapie reinvented himself as an actor and television personality and became involved in a long-running series of legal battles surrounding the sale of Adidas.

These had begun in 1994, when he challenged the previous year’s sale, alleging that Credit Lyonnais had sold the company at a depressed price. The bank had declared it had achieved his minimum price of the equivalent of €470 million but concealed the fact that it had sold Adidas to itself through offshore companies. It had then resold the company for a €400 million profit.

Tapie accused the bank of fraud, and of undervaluing Adidas. But during the court proceedings that followed, the bank ceased to exist, and Tapie’s opponent became the French state itself, in the form of Consortium de Réalisation.

In 2005 a court awarded Tapie €135 million in compensation but the following year the ruling was quashed by France’s highest court.

In October 2007, Christine Lagarde, then French minister of finance, asked the Consortium de Réalisation to settle the Tapie case through the use of a private arbitration tribunal, which in 2008 awarded him a massive out-of-court settlement of €403 million. It was thought to be no coincidence that in the presidential elections of 2007, Tapie had publicly backed Lagarde’s boss, the centre-Right Nicolas Sarkozy.

Before the election the government had intended to fight a legal battle with Tapie over the Adidas sale. Witnesses later described Tapie’s joy when Sarkozy was elected in May 2007. “I’ve got my dosh,” he was reported to have said.

In 2013, the Consortium de Réalisation challenged the settlement in the Paris Court of Appeal, on the basis of fraudulent arbitration proceedings, and in 2014 Christine Lagarde, now head of the IMF, was placed under formal investigation on suspicion of negligence in connection with the settlement.

At the end of 2016 a Paris appeal court ruled that Tapie had not been defrauded by Crédit Lyonnais and should pay back the €403 million he received from the French state, a judgment upheld by France’s Court of Cassation the following year. Christine Lagarde, meanwhile was found guilty of negligence, though the court chose not to punish her or give her a criminal record.

In July 2019 a Paris court acquitted Tapie of defrauding the state in relation to the arbitration award, a ruling appealed by the French authorities, though he still faced a demand to repay the €403 million. A decision on the appeal is due this week.

In April 2021 Tapie and his wife Dominique were beaten up and tied up with electrical cords in a violent burglary of their house in Combs-la-Ville near Paris. The gang of four men escaped with valuables.

Dominique was his second wife and former secretary. In 1970, he had left his first wife, Michele, when their second child was a few months old. It was not until 1987, some 17 years after he first introduced Dominique as his wife, that he finally married her.

She survives him with their son and daughter, and a son and daughter from his first marriage.

Bernard Tapie, born January 26 1943, died October 3 2021

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The True Story Behind Netflix's 'Class Act'

The miniseries fuses fiction and reality to create a cautionary tale about careerism and unhinged ambition.

The Big Picture

• Class Act on Netflix tells the captivating story of Bernard Tapie, a French businessman whose genius and ambition propelled him to great success.
• Tapie's rise from humble beginnings to owning major companies like Adidas and winning championships is awe-inspiring, but his involvement in a match-fixing scandal tarnished his reputation.
• The series overlooks some details of Tapie's life, such as his sponsorship of a successful cycling team and his legal battles with Crédit Lyonnais bank, but it still highlights his incredible achievements and the controversies that surrounded him.

Following the larger-than-life adventures of French businessman Bernard Tapie ( Larent Lafitte ), Class Act on Netflix fuses fiction and reality to create a cautionary tale about careerism and unhinged ambition. The seven-episode series captures everything from the man's initial entrepreneurial ventures to his rise to political office, extending a quick glance over the events that defined the life of the French businessman.

Although his involvement in a match-fixing scandal tarnished his glorious rise, Bernard Tapie’s genius and relentless pursuit of success made him a man who faced many failures as he climbed French society's hierarchy, purely fueled by ambition. Class Act highlights Tapie’s meteoric rise while also outlining the mistakes that eventually led to his downfall. If the events portrayed in Class Act seem unbelievable, the true story behind it deserves all the credit.

Class Act (2023)

A relentlessly ambitious working-class man becomes one of France's most controversial public figures in this fictionalized biopic about Bernard Tapie.

Who Is Bernard Tapie?

Created by Olivier Demangel and Tristan Séguéla , Class Act focuses on the eventful life of Bernard Tapie from 1967 to 1997. During his life, Tapie wore many hats as he continued to seek greater milestones to achieve albeit his beginnings were humble. In 1943, Tapie was born as the son of a plumber. His early life involved selling TV sets and performing as a singer. Tapie married Michèle Layec ( Ophélia Kolb ) in 1964. From the marriage, Tapie had two children — Nathalie and Stéphane. He would later marry Dominique Mialet-Damianos ( Joséphine Japy ).

Remarkable success followed when he decided to buy debt-ridden companies and turn them into money-making machines through his genius and charisma. As reflected through Laurent Lafitte ’s character, Tapie was always proud of his achievements and openly flaunted his wealth . The now-sporting giant Adidas became the crowning glory in the portfolio of companies Tapie owned. His ownership of a Tour de France-winning cycling team and the Champions League-winning club Olympique de Marseilles further cemented the legend of his Midas touch.

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Bernard tapie's popularity propelled his political rise.

Tapie’s entry into politics became another turning point in his career. After having achieved everything as a businessman, Bernard Tapie forayed into politics to bring social change. Much like French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned in his tribute to Tapie, he did become a source of inspiration for generations of French citizens. After being elected as an independent Member of Parliament in 1989, he served as urban affairs minister under the presidency of François Mitterrand. In 1994, as a member of the Mouvement des Radicaux de Gauche, Tapie became a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). While his role in Parliament wouldn't last, this didn't mean that he'd stay away from politics. His extensive support for later President Nicolas Sarkozy also led to some controversies later in his life.

Tapie's political career was cut short when his name came up in a match-fixing scandal, covered in detail in Class Act. The allegation and conviction of bribing the minor club Valenciennes affected Tapie badly. His club, Olympique de Marseilles, was stripped of the French League championship and relegated to the second division. The court case between Éric de Montgolfier and Tapie resulted in a two-year prison sentence for Tapie. Along with match-fixing charges, Tapie was convicted of tax fraud twice, in 1997 and 2005.

Class Act also focuses on Tapie's love for the media. He released several pop songs starting in the 1960s and his stint as a television show host for the monthly economics television program Ambitions (or ‘Success’ in Class Act ) further established his image as a visionary and inspirational personality . After his prison sentence, Tapie decided to explore his other interests, including acting. in the theater realm, he re-enacted Jack Nicholson's role of Randle McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , gathering positive reviews. He also appeared in the role of a police chief in the French television series Commissaire Valence .

'Class Act' Leaves Out Some Details of Tapie's Life

Class Act doesn't cover all the achievements and controversies of Bernard Tapie's life. One achievement that doesn't get much attention is that his company, La Vie Claire, sponsored Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault 's cycling team of the same name. The team won the Tour de France twice, in 1985 and 1986. A possible reason why Tapie’s involvement with the team wasn't mentioned could be due to the fact that Hinault did much of the leg work to form the team before Tapie decided to invest.

Tapie’s legal battle with Crédit Lyonnais bank, which continued long after the series' events and until his death in 2021, was also not discussed . However, Class Act does mention the event it originated from . In fact, the sale of Adidas was shown as a subject of rising tension between Tapie and Dominique. In Class Act, Tapie felt strongly against selling the sporting giant, which he called a family company. The bank was sued by Tapie for undervaluing the company at the time Tapie decided to sell it . The bank also used its offshore companies to buy Adidas on its behalf, breaching the agreement.

After a long-standing struggle, Tapie was awarded compensation to the tune of 404 million Euros, which came from France’s Ministry of Finance. Later, in 2015, another court ruled that Tapie should return the public’s money with interest. Multiple court cases and decisions later, the case was still an ongoing one at the time of Tapie’s death. Possibly, in another season of Class Act, the entire controversy surrounding the sale can be fully explored, considering some big names, such as that of the current President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde , popped up during the course of the events. In 2017, Tapie was diagnosed with stomach cancer. In April 2021, Tapie and Dominique became victims of a burglary at their Paris house, during which they were tied up and beaten. In October of that year, Tapie passed away at the age of 78.

As Tapie was against the idea of a biographical series on his life , it cannot be conclusively said how true the Netflix series is. This is particularly when it comes to the details pertaining to his personal life, although the major events covered in the series are not fictitious. His family has come out in strong opposition to the series that portrays Tapie with certain strong flaws. In Class Act, Tapie is a man who, despite his internal struggle to do the right thing, often adopts the “all is fair in love and war” approach at a great cost. To be fair, Laurent Lafitte’s Bernard Tapie stands tall as an inspiring figure in Class Act despite the potentially contentious nature of his transgressions. This allows a new generation of viewers to the French legend who were otherwise unaware of his accomplishments.

All episodes of Class Act are currently available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.

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Luxury rules at the moscow yacht show.

by Maria Sapozhnikova

The windy Russian autumn weather might be a little bit tricky for sailing, but it doesn’t stop brave yachtsmen from all over the world from flocking to Russian capital in the beginning of September when the Moscow Yacht Show commences. The main Russian Yacht exhibition gathers professional and amateur yacht lovers together under the wing of The Royal Yacht Club.

This year it took place for a fourth time already. The exhibition is considered the principal event on the sporting and social calendar. The Moscow Yacht Show 2010 united in one area three of the largest Russian yachts distributors: Ultramarine, Nordmarine and Premium Yachts.

A wide range of yachts were on display for a week. An exhibition showcased yachts both from Russian manufacturers and world famous brands: Azimut, Princess, Ferretti, Pershing, Riviera, Doral, Linssen, etc.

It was a real feast for seafarers as visitors of the show had a unique chance not only to take a look at the newest superyachts before they hit the market, but also to evaluate their driving advantages during the test drive. The show provided an excellent opportunity for yacht enthusiasts to choose and buy a new boat for the next season.

The event started with the grandiose gala evening. It included grand dinner, the concert and professional awards ceremony for achievements in Russian yachting industry. The guests also enjoyed the annual regatta.

Special guest Paolo Vitelli, Azimut Benetti Group president, opened the evening.

Next year organizers assured guests they would bring more yachts, the scale of which will even make oligarch Roman Abramovich envious. Sounds very promising indeed.

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Sunrise Yachts Sponsor 2011 Moscow International Boat Show (MIBS)

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Written by Mike Smith

Sunrise Yachts, a luxury yacht building company which is based in Turkey, has been made a main sponsor of next year’s 2011 Moscow International Boat Show (MIBS). The four-day Russian yacht show event is currently scheduled to run from April 14-17 at the Moscow’s Crocus exhibition centre.

moscow boat show

MIBS is organised by the ITE Group and it is one of Russia’s leading boat shows and is an internationally recognised superyacht event. The show covering everything from small parts and accessories to large superyacht with over 9,000 people and 178 exhibitors attended the last year show.

The Paolo Scanu-designed Sunrise 45 yacht is an ocean-going cruising yacht that was released in 2009 to much acclaim at this was the group’s first-ever model.

Sunrise Yachts was founded in 2007 by the German entrepreneur Herbert P Baum along with the French-British yacht builder Guillaume Roché. The luxury yacht group is based in Antalya, Turkey and utilises a 10,000sq m shipyard facility. Sunrise has two sheds measuring 100m (328ft) x 16m (53ft), as well as a 70m (230ft) x 16m (53ft) fully acclimatized paint shed that can accommodate new-build and refit projects up to 65m (213ft) in length and 1,200 tonnes displacement.

The sunrise 45m superyacht by Sunrise Yachts

Along each side of the yacht-building facility, space is available for long-term sub-contractors with the latest equipment and logistics capabilities, along with air-conditioned storage, ventilation and extraction plants. The shipyard is organized as an “assembler,” based loosely on the car industry’s model, with a small, yet powerful project management team charged with running all the in-house long-term sub-contractors.

Please contact CharterWorld - the luxury yacht charter specialist - for more on superyacht news item "Sunrise Yachts Sponsor 2011 Moscow International Boat Show (MIBS)".

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