Mon roi déchu: Juan Carlos d Espagne

Description

"Once upon a time there was a prince. Who was charming and then cursed. His name was Juan Carlos, or Juanito to his friends. He was not exactly a prince, he was the grandson of a king. But of a king without a kingdom, forced to live in exile. His real country, the one over which his Bourbon ancestors had reigned for three centuries, was Spain. In 1969, after 40 years of dictatorial power, Franco appointed Juan Carlos, a docile 30-year-old playboy and diligent soldier, as his successor. Against all odds, our falot prince becomes a political animal, transforms the face of Spain, saves it from a putsch in 1981, and guarantees it democratic stability. With betrayals and complicities, tears and satisfactions. Because behind this political feat and his charisma are hidden personal dramas. Delivered as a child to Franco the enemy, tossed between two ruthless father figures, indirectly responsible for the accidental death of his younger brother, usurper of his father... A heavy price to pay, carefully hidden. Shakespeare could not have done better. The final banishment is even its apotheosis." What can bring together a "daughter of revolutionaries" and a king? Yet, after spending her teenage years in Spain, Laurence Debray became interested in Juan Carlos I as a historian, writing his biography, and then interviewing him on the eve of his abdication in 2014 for a television documentary. Since then, she has not ceased to dialogue with him and follow the twists and turns of his fate. Until visiting him, in 2021, in Abu Dhabi where he is entrenched, having become, due to his affairs, a reprobate figure among Spaniards, and a father too cumbersome for King Felipe VI. Laurence Debray's account of this unusual relationship fascinates by its virtuosity, by its intelligence of the situations, by its lucidity when past and present are confronted. This is the true story of Juan Carlos, King of Spain.