# Stéphane Trano

Stéphane Trano (born February 1, 1969, in France) is a French journalist and author based in New York City, United States. He graduated in History from Columbia University, New York. His collaborations include L'Express, Le Point and Marianne.

## Biographer

Trano has authored three biographical essays:
* In 2000, on François Mitterrand, Mitterrand, Les Amis D’abord Trano explored the former French president's personal networks in-depth. The French historian Jean Lacouture prefaced the book: "François Mitterrand, whose public life is arranged traditionally around three or four parties, including one he roughly forged, confided in me that "in politics, everything is a matter of banding together," which could also have been said, of religion, by a general of the Jesuits in their heyday. And when he defined a friend as he in whom nothing, neither Bousquet, nor failure, nor insult, could alter public or private loyalty, he seemed to speak less as a politician or secular moralist than as an adherent of a religious order. Stephan Trano suggests, line by line, that the reason for the State has reasons other than the reason of the heart. And that loyalty, noble virtue that it is, can be, in the public order, incompatible with the general interest." Trano's biography included the first authorized conversation with Mitterrand's daughter Mazarine Pingeot (since then known as Mazarine Pingeot-Mitterrand), where she confesses about her relationship with her father.
* In 2006, with Une Affaire d’Amitie, Trano extended its work to Mitterrand's families. Mazarine Pingeot wrote the preface, and the former French Minister of Culture from 1981 to 1997 under Mitterrand, Jack Lang, signed the postface.
* An essay about John Fitzgerald Kennedy (November 2013, L'Archipel), "a character built by his entourage (...) Appointed by his father to fulfill his own presidential destiny (...), the first politician invented by the new dominant post-war mass media and shaped by marketing." According to the author, the legend of Kennedy was "carefully maintained by censorship and powerfully organized by his family, and then conveyed by historians. However, his diseases (...), his obsession with women, his dangerous relationships, the wandering of his political thought... (...) represent everything America usually hates: concealment, perjury, betrayal, corruption. Fifty years after his death, the best-hidden mystery of the icon of American lies not in his murder, but in a life totally concealed by myth."

## Journalist

At the age of 18, Trano's first news articles appeared in the weekly magazine Le Nouvel Observateur (The New Observer), founded in 1950 by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre in conjunction with former members of the French Resistance. He first began as a celebrity lifestyle reporter but soon became a political journalist.
From 1991 to 1996, Trano served as Chief Political Editor of the weekly Tribune Juive (Jewish Tribune). Recognized by the French intellectual community, he reported on controversial issues of public interest for several major publications.
In 1996, Trano became the first Jewish journalist to work under dual Middle East leadership—Palestinian National Authority and Israeli supervision—after being appointed as Co-Chief Editor of the short-lived Palestinian Economic Newsletter, a monthly publication to promote economic development in the Gaza Strip and West Bank under the Oslo Accords of 1993. With a circulation of 15,000, it was published in English, French and Arabic. Yasser Arafat wrote its first editorial when it was published in June 1996. It was published for seven months.

## Political advisory

Trano has served in prominent political advisory roles, including:
* Special Advisor to Patrick Gaubert, then Head of the French governmental mission against racism and anti-Semitism (1991–1995)
* Special Advisor to the President of the NATO-affiliated organization International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism (1993)
* Special Advisor to Jean Kahn, President of the Conseil Representatif des Institutions juives de France (Council of French Jewish Institutions), (1993–1996), and President of the European Jewish Congress (1993 to 1995)
In 2005–2006, Trano was Director of Online Communications and the author for Jack Lang, President of the Arab World Institute, former NATO-based French anti-piracy expert, and French Minister of Culture and Communications from 1981 to 1995.
Trano has received attention for his contributions to public debate by questioning, in many articles:
* The future of the remembrance of the Shoah
* The issue of ethnocentrism
* The morality of the partners of the peace process in the Middle East
* Discrimination against minorities in Europe
* Anti-Americanism in France
* Endangered populations
Experts often quote his work:
* During a session of the Senate in Belgium, December 14, 2000, in a debate with Prime Minister Michiel Martens about a proposal for a resolution on the right of return for Palestinian Refugees: Proposal for resolution on the right of return for Palestinian refugees
* Regarding Holocaust monuments and national memorial cultures in France and Germany since 1989: the origins and political function of the Vel d'Hiv in Paris and the Holocaust Monument in Berlin ( quoted page 97)
In 1996, Trano was one of the 234 public figures who signed a petition for the legal recognition of same-sex couples: For a legal recognition of homosexual couples

## Other contributions with excerpts from columns

* In Libération:
    Culture de la Mémoire, Culture du Malheur, (Culture of Memory, Culture of Woe), Tribune, April 29, 1995
    Le Bon Juif Selon Le Pen, (The Good Jew According to Le Pen) - Tribune, June 16, 1995
    Commémorer d'autres Génocides, (Commemorating Other Genocides), Tribune, January 26, 1995.
    En finir avec la Paix des dupes, (Ending the Peace Dupes), Tribune, October 1, 1997.
    Israël doit trouver les mots (Israel Must Find the Words), Tribune, November 4, 2000
* In Le Monde:
    Le trouble des Juifs de France, de Jean-Michel Dumay, (The Turmoil of the Jews of France, by Jean-Michel Dumay), September 24, 1993

## Citations and references about the author
### Israel and Palestine

* Negotiating the non-negotiable: the Israeli-Palestinian talks in Norway, 1993 in Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, 1994. 'Humans, Information and Technology,' 1994 IEEE International Conference
* Proposal for resolution on the right of return for Palestinian refugees (Mr. Michiel Maertens et al., Doc. 2-507)

### L'Oreal legal case

* Ugly Beauty: Helena Rubinstein, L'Oréal, and the Blemished History of Looking Good by Ruth Brandon (Feb 1, 2011)
* L'Oreal 1909-2009 (Editions Française) par Jacques Marseille

### Politics of Memory

* Holocaust Monuments and National Memory: France and Germany since 1989 by Peter Carrier (Sep 27, 2006)
* L'Année Céline, Volume 1995, Du Lerot/IMEC (1996)
* Le joker juif: ou du "fait hébreu" comme argument polémique, Ange-Mathieu Mezzadri, Autres Temps (2002)

### François Mitterrand

* Francois Mitterrand: A Political Biography (Polity Political Profiles Series) by David Scott Bell (Oct 28, 2005)
* French XX Bibliography: Critical and Bibliographical References for the Study of French Literature Since 1885, Index to Volume Is (Nos. 41-45) (French XX Bibliography Index) (Feb 1997)
* French XX Bibliography #41: Critical and Biographical References for the Study of French Literature Since 1885 by Douglas W. Alden, Peter C. Hoy and Christine M. Zunz (Sept 1989)

### In English

* in The Jewish Chronicle:
    When Henry Met Francoise, with Valerie Monchi, July 2, 1993.
    Jewish Voters Face Thorny Dilemma, with Valerie Monchi, April 28, 1995.
    The Mitterrand Years: A Decade of "Ambiguous" Middle-East Policy, with Valerie Monchi, March 26, 1993.
    Mitterrand's Vichyst Past: A New Facet in a Complex History with Jews, by Valerie Monchi, September 30, 1994.
    "Stupid Mistake" Leads to "Dachau" Knickers, by Stéphane Trano, October 7, 1994.
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* Washington no longer hiding its relief after Sarkozy's departure
* How everything shifted between Paris and Washington