Portrait. “Mimine” Cassaro, from Rosa Bonheur to the nursing home of the future via Pulp, the meaning of celebration for all

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The Camargue by heart and adoption Michelle Cassaro known as  "Mimine", 60 years old, lesbian muse, made a name as a canteen worker in the cinema, then by co-managing the Pulp, a legendary girls' club in Paris where she then developed the successful taverns Rosa Happiness. The business leader is now tackling the nursing home of the future, which she wants to be united and participatory.

In Saint-Laurent-d’Aigouze, in Petite-Camargue Gardoise, the room of the restaurant A la siete de la tarde, where a purple bull's head on the wall rubs shoulders with homemade tapas, is fully booked .

Nearly a hundred people gathered at the end of the year to listen to the debates on the retirement home of the future, a participatory dream, far from the current nursing home. This is the new challenge of Michelle Cassaro, aka "Mimi" or "Mimine" she prefers, at the heart of discussions with her label Les Potes Agés, but also connected to her computer, to, at the same time, follow a video on her Parisian affairs.

"It’s busy Mimi" smiles a relative, recalling the owner of four Rosa Bonheur, taverns for everyone and which brought the scent of the South to the capital. We find her the next day, with the same sailor's cap screwed on her head, in Carnon, on the front line, in the house where she comes to recharge her batteries during the winter.

"La Mimi is much less Rock' only roll before!"

She swims whenever she can and follows her 60 days and 60 hours without alcohol since her birthday when she, of course, blew out 60 candles. And fueled by ginger juice.

"La Mimi is much less Rock’n’roll than before!" she laughs when talking about the thousand and one lives and nights that she has already spent, cook for the cinema, lesbian icon of the legendary Pulp, queen of the party or businesswoman…hellip;. Without nostalgia: "I’have moved so far… I don't live in the past" attacks this Protestant woman, attacking the jelly eggs.

Let's go there anyway and to better understand the Toulouse woman by birth, Camargue by heart – his house is in Aigues-Mortes – Essentially Parisian – she lives on a boat – we have to go back to her youth in Hérault where her parents settled so that little Michelle, subject to respiratory problems, could benefit from the sea air.

A scout leader, she also attended the same Protestant colony, in the Cévennes, as Philippe Corti – "in terms of jobardism, he is a cut above" – and remembers having broken the nose of a kid who did not accept that a girl played football, in this case her. The rest ?

"Around 19, the discovery of my homosexuality turned my life upside down" continues the one which is then magnetized by "the night, the party, another world, notably Place Jean-Jaurès in Montpellier. She is about to take over the management of a bar and the meeting with a production director pushes her to become a canteen attendant on the sets.

"Well, I just had some leftovers from scouting" smiles the one who then goes off to buy some bowls at the flea market: it will be Mimi cantine, like the name of his traveling truck became famous.

Didier Bourdon comes to probe her at the party for scenes from "Trois Frères"

The filming continues like the years and she keeps beautiful postcards. Mireille Darc, on the series "Cœur Brûlé", who loved her grilled sardines or Brigitte Fossey who came to peel the vegetables, "the canteen is the filming house".

She also mischievously remembers a shoot in Marseille, with Didier Bourdon, who was then working on the script for the phenomenal Three Brothers. He came to see the small team of night owls, joyful and festive, for inspiration. "How does it go at parties ?" he asked them, their story nourishing the hilarious scenes, where the Unknowns, in a nightclub, discover the effects of LSD.

But the job, physical, “broke her back” and made her settle in Paris for a new direction. The night reaches out to her and the encounters she also evokes with shining eyes, around salmon lasagna and romaine salad that she loves.

La bamboche with Rachid Taha, readings with Despentes

Life revolves around two intertwined poles. On the one hand, the rental of the "big house”, a place of possibilities at the crossroads of Rue Liberté, Egalité and Fraternité, in the 19th century, where she will live as a roommate with the singer Rachid Taha, insatiable companion of bamboche – "with Rachid, it’was the non-stop party" –, or even Miss Kittin, the most famous French DJ’s while the writer’ Virginie Despentes also came to do readings there.

On the other hand, she revolutionizes the night for the first time by taking over the Pulp with her sidekick Fanny. Ten years of existence for this now mythical club, with the eternal motto: "the girls' club where the boys like to come too" Her DJ friends’s Tampax or the late Sextoy are on the decks.

"Fanny brought the programming, I gave visibility to lesbians that they didn't have before, they went out in closed places".

Madonna wanted to privatize Pulp, without success

The philosophy of Pulp ? No VIP space and Madonna was turned away when she wanted to privatize the place. "The basis is that everyone mixes, it’s the Churascaïa spirit" says Mimi Cassaro, citing the Camargue nightclub.

While the Parisian hype is slumming at the Pulp, she prefers to get out of this "fantastic life" to see the day again. She plunges into the Rosa adventure despite the wounds of life, with a thousand ideas, encouraged by her partner, the producer Pascal Caucheteux, a figure of independent cinema.

With a change of direction: "I wanted to do something that resembles the village festivals back home that I love" she elaborates.

"At Rosa, you need Bourvil, Moustaki, Bobby Lapointe or Annie Cordy of which I am a fan, in Paris, there is no place to listen to these pieces" .

There is now a choir, pétanque or a brand new curling rink. We eat there, we drink there, we dance there. And the Rosa women’s football team comes to remind us that the fight continues.

"Attal advances the cause, there are countries where homosexuality is the death penalty"

"We were still dyke world champions!" launches the one who played goalkeeper during the victorious Gay games of 2018. The appointment of Gabriel Attal, first Gay Prime Minister is good news. "It advances the cause, there are still countries where homosexuality is prison or the death penalty" she underlines.< /p>

"Mimi likes to undertake things without taking herself seriously. She is a captain of Noah's Ark, she likes people to talk to each other, to forget their worries, their differences in age, social background or gender" greet him Camargue resident Numa Grenan, executive at France Télévision and resident DJ at Rosa Bonheur since the beginning.

"She can arrive at a party dressed head to toe as Kermit the Frog or a pink flamingo… She’s Mimi".

Vincent Moreau, owner of Papy Moïse, Aigues-mortais restaurant, is no less admiring of the contagious energy that his friend gives off: "It’ an activist for all human causes, capable, like 5 years ago and this year, of arriving with her choir of 60 people at the Aigues-Mortes festival!".

The success of the Rosa Bonheur taverns

The overwhelming success of the first tavern launched 15 years ago in Buttes Chaumont, led to three others on the Seine, in Asnières and in the Bois de Vincennes with up to 150 people to manage. Today, Michelle Cassaro refuses to franchise the Rosa brand, despite numerous requests.

"I became a business woman, but I just turned 60, there won’not another Rosa"& ;nbsp;she decides at the time of the chocolate pear tart placed on the table where her readings of the moment sit: “aging in solidarity” or “Life at home” .

"Mimine" Cassaro is in orbit towards his new objective, Ephad outside the walls. With her Rosa gang, she has just launched Les Potes Agés.es., a utopia of participatory housing which will see the light of day in the Camargue, to honor the promise made to her mother: "She was in Ephad … These places no longer hold up. She told me to make sure it never happens to you. I told her, don't worry mom, I'll take care of it.

The retirement home of the future, the Olympic Games on the Seine, the Camargue arrives at Le Rosa

What are Michelle Cassaro's plans for 2024 ? 

One: the participatory retirement home. Warmed by the end of her mother's life in a nursing home which went badly, Mimi Cassaro launches the label les potes agées du Rosa Bonheur, to imagine and support the creation of future living spaces for seniors, participatory, inclusive and supportive. "The Ehpad is soulless, it’s a factory " thune, a prison world for old people, is outdated, there it's the revolution, making old age a moment of sharing, she proudly announces.

A first group of inhabitants will be created in the Camargue where the young help the retirees "and the old guy, even if he doesn’ not move much, he gives you love and empathy&quot ; says the one who imagines shared spaces, daily mutual help and of course a tavern.

Two: the Olympics. How not to ride the wave of the Olympics this summer? while one of the Rosa taverns is on the banks of the Seine ? Either in the heart or in the heart of the city. proximity of the sporting events system on the Seine and the surrounding area (skateboarding, breakdancing, archery, fencing and teakwondo). "A nice surprise will highlight the LGBT communities" announcement for now, before the final adjustments, Michelle Cassaro.

Three: the Camargue au Rosa. À check in the diaries, always at Rosa sur Seine, à Paris, the evening of February 28. Herdsmen and their Camarguais horses, present at the agricultural show, will come, in partnership with the community. of communes Terre de Camargue, in the tavern! To highlight regional products but also to have a wild party with, on the decks, the unsinkable DJ Philippe Corti.

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