| Pierre Barret | |
| Birth Date: | 15 July 1936 |
| Birth Place: | Firminy, France |
| Death Date: | 17 October 1988 (aged 52) |
| Death Place: | Boulogne-Billancourt, France |
| Occupation: | French journalist and writer |
| Alma Mater: | HEC Paris |
Pierre Barret, born July 15, 1936, in Firminy and died October 17, 1988 (aged 52) in Boulogne-Billancourt, is a French journalist, writer, historian and author of songs.
Coming from a bourgeois family, Pierre Barret lost his mother at the age of eight. At the age of twenty, he interrupted his studies at HEC Paris to join the naval commandos and go to war in Algeria where he was section leader in the "Commando Jaubert", with the rank of Enseigne de Vaisseau.[1]
After the Algerian war, he resumed his studies at HEC Paris from which he graduated, a school in which a room bear his name.
He was first general manager of Express Union, the publishing company of L'Express, then CEO of the newspaper L'Express, and finally CEO of the radio station Europe 1 until 1986.
Motorcycle enthusiast, he owned a JPS "John Player Special" racing version of the famous Norton Commando, he was co-founder with the Italian journalist Guido Bettiol of the magazine Moto-Journal which brought a new and iconoclastic tone to the world of the press motorcyclist. He is also passionate about microlights with which he crosses the Mediterranean Sea, from Annaba to Monaco.
Passionate about the Middle Ages, he co-wrote several works on the Crusades with Jean-Noël Gurgand.
He is also the author of several historical songs, sung by Michel Sardou: L'An mille, Les Routes de Rome, Un jour la liberté.
Married, father of two daughters, in 1984 he became the companion of Mireille Darc with whom he moved into a house in Boulogne-Billancourt.[2]
Wounded during the Algerian War, he underwent a blood transfusion which gave him hepatitis B, despite a liver transplant carried out in May 1988 by Henri Bismuth, he died of cirrhosis of the liver on October 17, 1988, at the age 52.[3]