In a way, he was the Bruant of the 1970s. Tall and thin, with long hair tied back in a ponytail, a sarcastic voice, Béranger embodied the hopes of a large part of the generation shaped by May ’68. “I know full well that a song / Isn’t quite the revolution / But saying things is already better than nothing,” he would declare in passing in a verse, this new-look committed singer over an electric guitar backdrop, who never minced his words... Militant Singer. The son of a Christian trade union activist who was a Resistance fighter and later a deputy, François Béranger, born in Amily (Loiret) on August 27, 1937, worked for a long time as a technical agent at Renault before entering the strange world of advertising. In 1969, he signed with CBS and released his first 45 rpm record, with a folk-rock sound, featuring a single track on both sides, “Tranche de vie,” which tells, in the rough speech of the working class, the story of people his age, from soulless school to pointless apprenticeship, from the Algerian War to the barricades of May ’68. Although he got very little airplay and was completely ignored by television, Béranger quickly reached a large audience, who bought his records, hailed his songs (“Tango de l'ennui,” “Rachel,” “l'Alternative,” “Participe présent,” “Natacha”) and attended the many benefit concerts he gave free of charge, outside the traditional circuits, for the most varied causes. Early farewell...