Born on January 17: Françoise Hardy left to find the stars in 2024

Less than a year after Jane Birkin, another icon of the yé-yé years in France, left us in the spring of 2024. Mom is gone... wrote her son Thomas Dutronc laconically on social media on June 11.

She was born at the Marie-Louise clinic in Cité Malesherbes in Paris on January 17, 1944 during one of the air raids that punctuated the end of the Second World War. Johnny Hallyday, whom she would meet a few years later in the "Salut Les Copains" gang, was also born in the same maternity ward! 

She enjoyed success from her very first recording in "J'suis d'accord" in 1962. But, against Disques Vogue's expectations (her label at the time), it was the B-side of the 45 rpm "Tous les garçons et les filles" that would go down in history. Just like her slender, androgynous and yet so feminine silhouette, which highlighted the first metallic dresses by Paco Rabanne. Almost against her will, Françoise Hardy thus became both an icon of song and fashion.

"Le temps de l'amour" to music by Jacques Dutronc (who would become her husband 20 years later) in 1962, "Mon amie la rose" (1964), "L'amitié" (1965) or "Comment te dire adieu" (1968) were among the greatest successes of the sixties in France. In 1966, in a very rare event, she published "In English" for the English market, including eight adaptations of her own songs.

By 2018, when she was already suffering from lymphatic cancer, with "Personne d'autre", she continued to record choruses flirting with a certain melancholy on perfectly crafted lyrics. Written by La Grande Sophie on a video by François Ozon (director of "Swimming Pool" and "Potiche"), "Le large" resonates today as a moving artistic testament. "And tomorrow everything will be fine, everything will be far away / There in the end when I will set sail / Everything will be far away, give me your hand /
There in the end when I will set sail." She already whispered these words in our ear almost seven years ago...

(Stéphane Soupart - Tr.: MH - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)

Caption: Françoise Hardy on the set of a television show in Brussels (Belgium) in 1983