Several years ago, reading Tayac,[1] I had also believed it was a political ruse. But no.
Atlas[2] becomes a mad man who is even more embarrassing than Voyer.[3] Can the public even believe in a (slightly moderate) partisan who reproaches [Bernard] Tapie? Of course, it is very unjust to reproach Tapie for being inspired by me (Atlas makes this reproach with the double malevolence of the amalgam, against me and against Tapie), while one says nothing about Attali[4] or especially Baudrillard.[5] All of these envious people bark about the most mediatic,[6] but not about the most unfortunate (here they fuck themselves book). All of these lice need to cling to the most mediatic, in the hope of drawing a reflection from them.
Tapie's slip,[7] which you cited, seems to mean that he vaguely confuses me with Gerard [Lebovici], and thus he is not too embarrassed by having plagiarized a dead man. He declares that the dead no longer have "body guards."[8] Assassinated "live" [on TV]: I will willingly accord to him this last wish, if it is his [and not someone else's].
This Delcour[9] has still not been found, but the grid begins to tighten around his obscene person. He has not ended up being seen. We congratulate Bourtsjeff (as Alice says).
See you soon.[1] France & France, Conservative and Honest France, Republican and Criminal France, by A. de Tayac. [Translator's note: in his letter to Jean-Francois Martos dated 13 October 1986, Debord says: "I send you a short book, more than a century old, that shows that extreme fuckery existed before the anti-SI fashion. It is the same methodical spirit."]
[2] Translator's note: Anatole Atlas, author of Autopsy of the 20th Century, interrupted Bernard Tapie on live TV to accuse him of plagiarizing Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle without citing its author.
[3] Translator's note: Jean-Pierre Voyer, a former acquaintance of Debord who, after having one of his manuscripts rejected by Editions Champ Libre, turned against him.
[4] Translator's note: Jacques Attali, an advisor to Francois Mitterrand and a recuperator of situationist ideas.
[5] Translator's note: Jean Baudrillard, a sociologist and "critical theorist" who both plagiarized situationist ideas and dismissed their relevance.
[6] Translator's note: the French here is mediatique, for which there is no equivalent in English. Using genetique ("genetic") as our model, we have rendered it as "mediatic."
[7] Taking Guy Debord as the victim of the assassination [that took place on 5 March 1984].
[8] Interrogated about the altercation with Atlas by the correspondent sent by Liberation, Bernard Tapie responded: "The only thing that I have done as a precaution is to keep my right hand. A gesture to my body guards and he will find himself at the bottom of the stairs."
[9] Translator's note: Bernard Delcour, who tried several times to telephone Guy Debord in Champot. In 1995, he wrote Blocus Solus (Editions Gallimard), a detective story in which "Guy Bordeux" did not commit suicide, but was murdered to prevent the publication of Instructions for an International Blockage.
(Published in Guy Debord Correspondance, Vol 6: Janvier 1979-Decembre 1987 by Librairie Artheme Fayard, 2006. Translated from the French by NOT BORED! June 2007. Footnotes by Alice Debord, except where noted.)