Laurence Debraythe person responsible for writing the memoirs of Juan Carlos I, visited all of Public mirror comment on how the conversations with the Emeritus King went to write Reconciliationwhere the former monarch recounts his life.
First of all, the biographer explained why Juan Carlos I rejected the idea of presenting his book in Spain, as he did in France: “The king manages everything, he knows that in Spain it is more complicated and He doesn’t want to bother his son.. It’s his obsession (…). The king is very alonethe Royal Household has communications equipment, he has friends who call him, but it’s at his discretion.”
“He has a lot of Spain in him, in Abu Dhabi he lives with Spanish scheduleshe only likes Spanish cuisine, flamenco… Nobody knows how long this exile will last, it doesn’t just depend on him. It is difficult for the French to understand that a single man, at this age, is so isolated. Even the Spanish ambassador to Arabia does not greet him. The French, the Portuguese come impressed by him, it’s difficult to understand from the outsidefrom a human point of view,” Debray said.
Furthermore, the writer highlighted what caught his attention the most about Juan Carlos I: “He is a great worker. Here, we talk a lot about King Campechano, but he is a dedicated person, he does what he says, he says what he does, he keeps his promises, he is very serious. He corrected many chapters, we had five or six versions of each chapter. It was important that it was his version, in his words. He is a very aware person.. On everyone’s birthdays, if you’re sick, you always try to help those around you, I’ve never seen that.”
In the same way, Susanna Griso wanted to know if, at any given moment, the King Emeritus had been moved or if he had cried when talking about a passage in his life: “No, he has his days more difficult than others, but he’s a soldier. “He has this rigor of life and he endures everything.”
Despite his close relationship with Juan Carlos I, Laurence Debray assured that he did not know if the emeritus and Felipe VI spoke to each other after the publication of the memoirs: “I am sorry that we see him like this in Spain. He knows that he is having a bad time, that it is difficult. I do not know why they are here against each other. The kings must be united for the glory of the crown. Distancing is personal, we must differentiate between the function of kings and then the family. He needs to have his family close, so this distance hurts him a lot, but he still reasons: you know there are political reasons more important than your own personal pain.
Along the same lines, Griso asked what “role Letizia would play” in the relationship between Juan Carlos I and Felipe VI: “There is an expression that is ‘you see the glass full or empty’, here I think you see the half empty glass. In the book, he says that she is a good mother, a good wife, that she helped him stand up at the funeral of the Queen of England… He sees things from king to queen“.
About Queen Sofia, Laurence Debray is clear: “They married very young, very in love, they experienced a lot together. For him, She is a fundamental pillar in his life.he always watches over her, her sister, her Greek family. She is a fundamental person, the mother of his children. He loves her very much, she is a great queen, they have traveled a lot together. For him, she is his queen, his “Sofi”, as he says in the book. » The biographer also minimized the importance of the emeriti’s lovers: “It’s just that The queen will go down in history, not the lovers.. These are details that don’t matter. “A Frenchman doesn’t care about these details, Queen Sofia is known everywhere.”
Finally, Debray commented on his opinion regarding the death of Juan Carlos I in Abu Dhabi: “It’s very hard to die far from home.. It makes me sad when I think about it, for him, he’s not going to complain, but I think it’s something very hard for him. Feeling rejected at this age, you know you don’t have many years left. Living in solitude, I understand that many people criticize him, but he dedicated his life to Spain. He wonders if they will give him a state funeral. You are worried. When he came to Paris to see Vargas Llosa, he was received with great admiration, so the gap with Spain was very surprising. “I was also very surprised.”
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