She was his “twin”. Television producer Françoise Coquet, Michel Drucker’s professional alter ego for more than 50 years, died this Monday July 20 in Paris at the age of 83, her entourage announced. Born on September 12, 1942, like her inseparable TV friend, she died following a “long illness”, said those close to her.
A woman in the shadows, Françoise Coquet produced all the shows of the French television monument, from “Rendez-vous du Dimanche” in the 1970s to “Vivement Dimanche”, still broadcast on France 3, including “Champs-Élysées”, a flagship program of the 1980s and even “Stars 90”.
“Françoise is the sister I didn’t have,” the host declared to Télérama magazine in 2022. They met in 1964 at ORTF, when she was an editor for “Bonne nuit les petits”. “When I saw Françoise for the first time, I was struck by her elegance and natural distinction. She came from the Vosges and had a sense of beautiful things. She liked to have a laugh. I immediately felt that we would make popular and worthy television. We learned the job together,” explained the PAF boss. “I was an artistic collaborator for his show Sunday meetings in 1975. One day he said to me: What if you became a producer? I was stunned,” she told the weekly.
Her twin, her double, she was one of the few who could replace the most famous host on French television. When he had heart surgery in 2020, she was one of the handful of relatives who was allowed to visit him. In her absence, she was the one who supervised the best-ofs of “Vivement Dimanche” and “Vivement Sunday next”, ordered by France 2 while awaiting her return.