Alain Delon had expressed the wish to be buried just like “anyone else”.
But as a crowd of journalists, television crews and fans gathered outside the wrought iron gates of his country home on Saturday, it was clear this was not the funeral of just anyone.
The family had insisted that the actor, who died last Sunday aged 88, wished for his funeral to be held in “the strictest privacy” with only a select group of family and friends. Hours before the ceremony was due to begin, local police and gendarmes had closed the main road.
At the gates of the estate known as La Brûlerie just outside the village of Douchy in the Loiret, 85 miles south east of Paris, only VIP mourners, most in black luxury SUVs with tinted windows, were allowed through.
“Who was that?” journalists asked as they swept past. “No idea,” others replied.
Culture minister Rachida Dati was among the invited mourners, as well as Paul Belmondo, son of Delon’s great rival Jean-Paul Belmondo, and actor Vincent Lindon, who gave a reading.
A wall of flowers had grown slowly up the tall gates by the gatehouse of Delon’s home throughout the week as locals and fans made the pilgrimage to the property. On Saturday afternoon, defying sunstroke and dehydration, they kept coming. Several people paying tribute were taken ill as temperatures rose to 30C.
While Delon had requested no national ceremony, people wanted to show their respect, and more than 100 walked several hundred yards from the village, many carrying bouquets to place at the entrance of La Brûlerie and signing a book of condolences set up near the gates.
A group of fans organised a minute’s silence before singing Paroles Paroles, the 1973 hit by Dalida and Delon, as the sun disappeared behind clouds and it began pouring with rain.
Mimi Decuypere had travelled almost 250 miles to pay homage to the actor. “It was very important to me to be here,” she said. “Alain Delon has been a figure in my life since I was a young girl. He was an idol. I have seen all his films many times. He was the great love of my life.”
Delon had requested that his “end of life” companion, a Belgian malinois called Loubo, be buried with him, but after protests from animal rights campaigners, the actor’s three children Anthony, 59, Anouchka, 33, and Alain-Fabien, 30, agreed to keep the dog in the family. It is unclear who will keep Loubo or where; the three have been involved in a bitter public squabble over their father in recent months.
Delon, who had planned his funeral to the last detail, had also specifically requested that it be conducted by Catholic priest Jean-Michel Di Falco, 82, the former bishop of Gap in south-east France and a longstanding friend of the actor.
Di Falco oversaw the 2017 funeral of actor Mireille Darc, Delon’s companion for 15 years and the woman he described as “the love of my life”, as well as the musician and singer Charles Trenet and French business tycoon Jean-Luc Lagardère. He also assisted at the funeral of former president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing in 2020.
Mourners were requested to put their mobile phones away during the ceremony so there were no pictures. The local prefecture had banned aircraft and drones from flying over the property.
After obtaining special permission from the local prefect, Delon was interred in the chapel he had built in the grounds of La Brûlerie, which he had owned since the 1970s and where he died. The chapel is in a cemetery on the almost 120 hectare (300 acre) estate where Delon buried at least 35 of his pet dogs.
Prefect Sophie Brocas told journalists outside the property that all precautions had been taken to ensure the funeral passed in the strict privacy the family had requested. “This is what the family wished and this is what we have done,” Brocas said.
Hours before the funeral, Delon’s sons Anthony and Alain-Fabien appeared and thanked those who had come to pay tribute to their father.
Delon was a totemic figure of French cinema’s renaissance in the 1960s. He starred in a string of classic films including Plein Soleil, Le Samouraî and Rocco and His Brothers.
Once a familiar face in Douchy, he had not been seen in the village for several years since he suffered a stroke in 2019 and was diagnosed with a slow-developing lymphoma in 2022.
