Should Bernard Tapie have been buried in Paris? This last minute change that surprised his wife Dominique

On October 3, 2021, Bernard Tapie died of double cancer of the stomach and esophagus, at the age of 78. A year and a half later, his wife Dominique wanted to pay homage to him by releasing a book entitled Bernard, the fury of living and available from March 22. On this occasion, the widow of the former businessman confided in the columns of the magazine Paris Matchwhere she agreed to discuss the rumors that lent an affair to her late husband with Ophélie Winter or even the debts that he left her. “I found myself, overnight, in personal liquidation. I had no money to buy the tombstone. They cut all my credit cards. They even cut my phone”she revealed.

This day when Dominique Tapie learned that her husband wanted to be buried in Marseille

In this same interview, Dominique Tapie also returned to the funeral of her husband. While he had always planned to be buried in Paris, Bernard Tapie finally decided to be buried in Marseille. And this, because of a decisive meeting made shortly before his death. “Three weeks before his disappearance, I had organized a tea party in the garden for the whole family. Stéphane, Bernard’s son, was working at the Provence. He told me that Mgr Mouisse, the archbishop of Notre-Dame de la Garde, was passing through Paris and that he would like to meet his father. So he came. Bernard, who couldn’t really move, was on the first floor. They chatted for a good half hour. When he came out of his room, the Archbishop told me that he had rarely met a believer with such deep faith. He told me that Bernard had asked him to give his homily and that he wanted to be buried in Marseilles“explains Dominique Tapie, who did not expect such an announcement. “I fell from the clouds”she says.

“Bernard made me swear not to leave him alone”

Dominique Tapie was all the more surprised that her husband had always told her that he wanted his remains to rest in the capital, until he fell ill. “He was telling me : ‘As you spend your life in the 16th arrondissement, I’m going to have myself buried at the Trocadero where there are all my friends, so I’ll see you come and go and I can watch you from afar.’ But since his illness, it had become a taboo subject. We never talked about his funeral or the death”, says his wife. However, Dominique Tapie does not regret having respected the last will of her late husband. “I go to Marseille once a month. His grave is always flowered, there are scarves, stuffed animals… When I arrived at the cemetery on his 80th birthday, supporters were already there, which really touched me. For the Marseillais, it will always be ‘with the boss’. I too will find myself there one day. Bernard made me swear not to leave him alone.“