Hidden son, trial… The secrets of comedian Roger Hanin

A case that caused a stir in 2013. That year, actor Roger Hanin, star of the Navarro series, sued Jean-Christophe Mitterrand. Who was he to him? The actor had married Christine Gouze-Rénal, the sister of Danielle Mitterrand, herself the wife of ex-president François Mitterrand. Jean-Christophe is one of the children of the former presidential couple.

In 2000, François Mitterrand’s son was indicted by the French courts in connection with the arms sales to Angola, known as Angolagate. In order to raise the money necessary for his bail and his release (approximately 770,000 euros), Danielle Mitterrand had turned to her sister. The actor Roger Hanin would then have participated in the amount of 300,000 euros to help the family of his wife, thinking of recovering this amount later, as reported by Figaro.

When Danielle Mitterrand died in November 2011, actor Roger Hanin tried to recover the sum. Faced with his request for loan repayment, the artist faces a wall and therefore decides to turn to justice. According to Jean-Christophe Mitterrand’s lawyer, it was not a loan but a donation. Eventually the righteous will decide. As reported by Le Parisien, the son of François Mitterrand was forced to reimburse him the sum of 38,112 euros in damages.

“Roger Hanin waited a very long time before claiming this money because they are friends and he wanted to wait for the outcome of the trial,” the actor’s lawyer, Me Pardo, told Metronews and added: “We would have preferred that the honor of the Mitterrand family was enough to settle this matter. We tried to find an amicable solution for almost a year, but it came to nothing”.

In parallel with the media coverage of his trial against the son of François Mitterrand, Roger Hanin had made people talk about him on an intimate level. In 2013, the Navarro actor was recognized as the father of a young man named David Greenwald, as reported by Le Journal du Dimanche. It was the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris which had recognized, after a search for paternity, the link between the actor and his son.

“Roger has only seen his son, who is studying in the United States, three or four times, their relationship is distant,” a relative told our colleagues. The actor was already the father of a daughter named Isabelle Hanin, born of his relationship with Christine Gouze-Raynal.

The last years of his life, actor Roger Hanin had to slow down his lifestyle, especially following his stroke in 2009 and his operation for a double fracture of the femur, reports Télé Star. A costly operation which, after the fact , would have required “a permanent nurse” as well as a governess. According to our colleagues, the actor would have separated from several properties including his vacation home in the Var as well as his Parisian apartment at the Trocadero.

“Roger has always been an extremely generous person and, as he hasn’t worked for nine years, his lifestyle has obviously been affected a bit,” said a relative to the Journal du Dimanche. On February 11, 2015, Roger Hanin died at the age of 89 following respiratory failure. He was buried in the Jewish square of the Jewish cemetery of Saint-Eugène in Algiers.