Tapie, Bernard, 1943-2021

Bernard Roger Tapie (French: [bɛʁnaʁ ʁɔʒe tapi]; 26 January 1943 – 3 October 2021) was a French businessman, politician and occasional actor, singer, and TV host. He was Minister of City Affairs in the government of Pierre Bérégovoy. He was the manager of a group of companies, notably owner of Adidas and Olympique de Marseille, manager of the Bernard Tapie Group and owner of the La Provence Group, which publishes the newspaper of the same name, as well as Corse-Matin. At the beginning of 1984, he presented his cycling team La Vie claire, then bought OM a few years later. In the 1990s, he engaged in politics within the radicals, a centre-left party. He was twice Minister of the City in the Bérégovoy government, deputy for Bouches-du-Rhône twice, European deputy (his list obtained 12% in the 1994 elections) as well as general councilor for Bouches-du-Rhône. His political career ended due to his legal troubles. Involved in several financial scandals, he was convicted in the VA-OM affair (for which he was imprisoned in 1997 for nearly six months), in the Phocéa affair and in the Testut affair. In the 2010s, following an arbitration condemning the State to pay him 403 million euros in compensation in the context of the Crédit Lyonnais affair, he was prosecuted again, his death putting an end to the criminal proceedings.