ABSTRACT
Tapie was the archetypal ‘Socialist’ millionaire, at least until his fall from grace in 1994. The owner (among other things) of France’s biggest manufacturer of sporting footwear, his support for Mitterrand (who appointed him minister with special responsibility for cities) and demolition of Jean-Marie Le Pen in a televised debate made him one of the Left’s leading standard-bearers in Marseille, one of whose constituencies he represented in parliament and whose football team he owned. Disgraced successively by his involvement in match-rigging and by a spectacular bankruptcy, he began serving a prison sentence in 1997. He embarked upon a screen acting career in Claude Lelouch’s Hommes, femmes: mode d’emploi (1996), for which he agreed to accept a percentage of the takings by way of payment.
