Philippe Tesson: death of the journalist and writer at the age of 94

Journalist, theater man and polemicist Philippe Tesson died at the age of 94, the Théâtre de Poche-Montparnasse in Paris, which he directed, said on Thursday, February 2. He died at his home in Chatou on Wednesday, said the jury for the Interallié Prize, which he chaired, confirming information from Le Figaro.

At 30, Philippe Tesson was the editor-in-chief of the legendary newspaper Combat from 1960 to 1974, before founding his own newspaper, Le Quotidien de Paris, which he headed for twenty years (1974-1994).

Accustomed to TV shows since the 1990s, Philippe Tesson became known to the general public for his literary chronicles, in the programs Ah ! Quels titres on France 3 from 1994 to 1996, Rive droite/Rive gauche hosted by Thierry Ardisson on Paris Première and Esprits libres on France 2, alongside Guillaume Durand.

“Today, I am resolutely on the right. At 90, we are no longer on the left. Even Mélenchon will change,” laughed this political friend of Pierre Mauroy (his classmate at the college of Cateau-Cambrésis) and declared support of Emmanuel Macron in 2017.

His other passion was acting. He had notably written as a theatrical critic in Le Canard enchaîné or Le Figaro and in 2011 bought the Théâtre de Poche-Montparnasse, which he directed with his daughter, Stéphanie Tesson. Father of two other children, the writer Sylvain Tesson and the journalist Daphné Tesson, Philippe Tesson had founded with his doctor wife, Marie-Claude Millet (1942-2014), Le Quotidien du médecins and Le Quotidien du pharmacien. He continued to preside until the end of the jury for the Interallié Prize, which he had joined in 1993.