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Bernard Tapie

Bernard Tapie
Bernard Tapie 2010 cropped.JPG
Bernard Tapie in 2010
Minister of City Affairs
In office
26 December 1992 – 28 March 1993
President François Mitterrand
Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy
Preceded by François Loncle
Succeeded by Simone Veil
In office
2 April 1992 – 23 May 1992
President François Mitterrand
Prime Minister Pierre Bérégovoy
Preceded by André Laignel
Succeeded by François Loncle
Member of the National Assembly
In office
2 April 1993 – 5 September 1996
Preceded by Yves Vidal
Succeeded by Roger Meï
Constituency Bouches-du-Rhône 10
In office
22 January 1989 – 26 December 1992
Preceded by Guy Teissier
Succeeded by Jean-Claude Chermann
Constituency Bouches-du-Rhône 6
Personal details
Born Bernard Roger Tapie
(1943-01-26) 26 January 1943 (age 74)
Paris, France
Nationality French
Political party Radical Party of the Left
Spouse(s) Dominique Mialet-Damianos (1987-present)
Michèle Layec (divorced)
Children 2 sons, 2 daughters
Occupation Politician
Actor
Singer
Television presenter
Profession Businessman

Bernard Tapie (French pronunciation: ​[bɛʁnaːʁ tapi]; born 26 January 1943) is a French businessman, politician and occasional actor, singer, and TV host. He was Minister of City Affairs in the government of Pierre Bérégovoy.

Tapie was born in Paris. He is a businessman specializing in recovery for bankrupted companies, among which Adidas is the most famous (he owned Adidas from 1990 to 1993); and owner of sports teams: his cycling team La Vie Claire won the Tour de France twice – in 1985 and 1986 – and his football club Olympique de Marseille won the French championship four times in a row, and the Champions League in 1993.

La Vie Claire, one of Tapie's former businesses, is a chain of health product stores. It sponsored one of the strongest cycling teams of all time, La Vie Claire, which was founded after the 1983 European cycling season, when multiple Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault had acrimoniously broken away from the Renault-Elf-Gitane team that featured Hinault's much younger and newly crowned French Tour de France winner, Laurent Fignon. La Vie Claire was formed by Hinault after Hinault had experienced a falling-out with his long-time and highly successful team manager from Renault-Elf, Cyrille Guimard, in respect to which of the two French riders (and previously loyal team-mates) would lead the team in 1984 after Fignon's 1983 victory, a race in which Hinault had been unable to participate, due to tendonitis of his knee that had flared up during the 1983 Vuelta a España (Tour of Spain) that had been raced little over a month earlier and which Hinault had won. Following Hinault from the all-powerful Renault-Elf team to the newly formed La Vie Claire squad was Greg LeMond, who would himself end up winning three Tours de France with three different teams. Hinault and LeMond would soon win successive Tours with the La Vie Claire team after leaving Renault-Elf-Gitane, while both Fignon and Guimard would never win another Tour de France, as a cyclist and directeur sportif respectively, after 1984 (the closest that the two came to winning the Tour de France again was in 1989, when Lemond defeated their enduring alliance by a mere 8 seconds in the time-trial that was held on the final day of that Tour, which is still the closest ever winning margin in over 100 editions of the Tour and which closely followed Fignon's win that year in the Giro d'Italia, or Tour of Italy). Hinault had already formed a strong collective of primarily French riders almost immediately after his breakaway from Renault-Elf and Guimard, and before he had even secured the much-needed financial backing for his team from someone like Bernard Tapie.


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