“I blame him for not sheltering her.” Stéphane, the eldest son of businessman Bernard Tapie, regrets that his father did not do what was necessary to financially “protect” Dominique Tapie, his partner of more than 40 years, before his death. He trusted BFMTV on the occasion of the publication of his book how to say goodbyein which he talks about his relationship with his father.
“I think she felt so invulnerable, ‘indestructible’… And I think she ended up believing that her cancer would beat it too. So towards the end she started trying to organize herself, to protect her, but it was a bit late,” explains Stéphane Tapie .
Dominique Tapie is today “more than ruined”, according to her son-in-law because she was “solidarity with the debts” of her husband. She lives today “what he has lived for years”.
The businessman’s wife had been jointly and severally sentenced to reimburse 403 million euros in the arbitration of the Crédit Lyonnais case. To this sum have also been added 200 million euros in penalties for non-payment. Therefore, Dominique Tapie had to sell all of his assets (real estate, shares in the newspaper Provenceluxury handbags and scarves) and today lives on €800 a month in a rented two-bedroom apartment in the fashionable 7th arrondissement of Paris and whose rent is paid by one of his friends, the former minister Jean-Louis Borloo.
“It’s the least I owed him”
“I think he left with this real regret of not having welcomed her because it was the least he owed her,” laments Stéphane Tapie.
“That’s the only thing I have a real grudge against him for is not protecting her because she was really the woman who made [qu’il] he became Bernard Tapie”, he explains again. She was “his crutch, his guide, his rest, his energy… She is the woman I want for everyone and the mother I want everyone to have”.
Very close to his mother-in-law for whom he says he has “immeasurable admiration”, the former radio host and columnist is even more surprised by his father’s attitude because “his children came after him, his wife did not”. However, he specifies that Dominique Tapie “is in good health.” She “is doing the best she can”, says Stéphane Tapie.
Source: BFM TV
