Were it not for the name, Cousteau, and the brand, Cousteau, the feud which has gripped France since Jacques Yves Cousteau died would be an all-too-typical family row between a grieving son and his widowed stepmother. The falling-out between Francine, the second wife, and Jean-Michel, the son from Cousteau's first marriage, was feared. But no one expected it to begin before Cousteau's coffin had been lowered into the ground.
On June 25th, the evening Cousteau died, aged 87, there was the first hint that these still waters ran particularly deep. Francine, aged 51, invited France 2 Television's Journal De 20 Heures (the 8 p.m. news) to film her in the luxurious headquarters of l'Equipe Cousteau, in Paris's chic 16th arrondissement.
"I want to express to you my total dedication to pursuing his projects and my determination to continue his crusade," she said. Virtually simultaneously, over on TF1's 8 p.m. bulletin, Jean-Michel was using practically the same words to proclaim his unending faith in his father's work.
Two years ago, Cousteau himself provided Figaro magazine with a hint of what was to come. "My succession is a perpetual tragedy. The one I had chosen was my son, Philippe, who died in his aquaplane in 1979. It has been said that Jean-Michel will take his place, but I do not believe in dynasties." He added, in the Nouvel Economiste: "My son Jean-Michel is charming but not capable." Last week, the first legal battle began when Jean-Michel, aged 58, claimed that Cousteau's autobiography - published within days of his death - was distorted.
Jean-Michel, who co-produced 59 of Cousteau's films, alleged that whole passages had been excised from L'Homme, La Pieuvre Et L'Orchidee (The Man, The Octopus And The Orchid) and demanded that they be restored in future editions.
The 425 pages of the autobiography paint a picture of the world's most popular Frenchman (as other nations have been known to call him) as all goodness and vision - a crusader opposed to nuclear proliferation, over-population and the exploitation of the oceans. But since his burial on July 3rd, in the village of Saint Andre-de-Cubzac, France has been in an unusually iconoclastic mood.
Born in 1910, JYC (pronounced Jick) as friends called him, was a true son of the petite bourgeoisie. His father was a lawyer near Marseille and his mother was the daughter of a chemist. He and his elder brother, Pierre-Antoine, were sent to college in Paris and JYC then opted for a naval career. In 1937, he married Simone Melchior, whose naval-officer father became a director of Air Liquide - the French oxygen company which was to prove crucial to the development of Cousteau's revolutionary diving equipment.
According to his autobiography, JYC's second World War featured a strong presence in the Resistance and the development of a tiny camera to spy on Italian ships in the Mediterranean. Certainly, in 1946, JYC received the Legion d'Honneur for his Resistance work and by then was already famous for inventing the aqualung. The book does not mention Pierre-Antoine, a writer who was a regular contributor to the collaborationist Je Suis Partout (I Am Everywhere) newspaper and was sentenced to death after the war. Some people claim that it was thanks only to JYC's intervention (and his fame when his documentary film, The World Of Silence, won the Palme d'Or at Cannes), that Pierre-Antoine was released from prison in 1956.
However, there is no doubt that JYC revolutionised the way we look at the oceans. Before The World Of Silence, the general public had never seen the landscapes and life of the ocean floor. Before the aqualung - compressed air carried in tubes - and the trademark black-and-yellow Cousteau wetsuit, divers could not stay under water for any length of time. Neither could they record what they saw with underwater cameras, such as those Cousteau pioneered with Louis Malle's help in The World Of Silence.
Cousteau's expeditions were made possible thanks to the Ca- lypso, a British minesweeperturned-ferry, which an early fan, Loel Guinness, leased to him from 1950 for one franc a year. On board, with his crew of up to 35 men, JYC was "Pacha" and Simone was "La Bergere" (the shepherdess - slang for wife). Simone, who lived aboard even when JYC was on fund-raising trips, oversaw the kitchen and was equally handy in the engine room. She said: "I am the only sailor's girl who waits for her man on board."
Even after the huge success of The World Of Silence Cousteau's world was one of scraping together funds from one expedition to the next. With Malle, he created Requins Associes (Associated Sharks) and began to use his charm, and his media presence, to raise money for new documentaries and books. He created the charitable Cousteau Foundation in the US - which had 300,000 members at one point - and l'Equipe Cousteau in France, with up to 120,000 supporters.
All the world's leaders wanted to be photographed with this intrepid Frenchman who, in his films, was always seen wearing a red woollen hat and who, offscreen, did more than anyone to promote the Lanvin tailored safari suit. John F. Kennedy honoured him, which opened the door to the National Geographic Society; he was equally at ease with George Bush, Fidel Castro, the Dalai Lama and, most recently, with Chinese leaders. By the time of his death, he was an adviser to the United Nations, Unesco and the World Bank.
A true "geopolitician" - his description - he thought nothing of tailoring his environmental crusades to the prevailing wind. The socialist president, the late Francois Mitterrand, endorsed his plan to lobby the UN for a Charter For Future Generations - a kind of planetary rights manifesto. But before proceeding to collect nine million signatures, JYC checked that the leaders of the French right wing were in agreement.
Similarly, when Mitterrand was ordering atmospheric and underground nuclear tests, Cousteau condemned them roundly. But when Jacques Chirac, shortly after becoming president in 1995, ordered more tests, Cousteau was gentler, claiming that underground nuclear explosions would not harm the aquatic life of the South Pacific.
Meanwhile, film production costs were rising and Cousteau put his name to several projects which failed, including a theme park in central Paris.
Francine Triplet, a former Air France chief steward, emerged from the shadows within six months of Simone's death in 1990, complete with two teenage children, Diane and Pierre-Yves. JYC had fathered them during an affair which began in 1976: he married her in 1991. By then, Jean-Michel had dropped his career as a California-based architect to take the deceased Philippe's place as the anointed heir.
"He said to me in 1979: `If you do not come, I'll drop everything'. I did not even know what I was going to be paid," Jean-Michel says. "I discovered the firm had debts of around £5 million. John Denver introduced me to Ted Turner and I negotiated film production contracts to cover our debts."
The partnership appeared to be working until the Cousteau theme park at Les Halles - a tacky affair with papier mache sharks - went bust in 1992. Francine ordered the foundation's California offices - Jean-Michel's base - to be closed.
Broke, but with his father's surname as an asset, Jean-Michel set up an eco-hotel in Fiji. In 1995, Francine and JYC sued him and he was obliged to change the resort's name from the Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort to the Jean-Michel Cousteau Resort. Now, Jean-Michel does not mince his words: "My stepmother was an Air France stewardess. I hardly think that qualifies her to carry on my father's work. My father was getting old and in my opinion was under her influence. After my mother died, Francine took me to one side and said: `I have been in the dark for 13 years, but now I am Madame Cousteau and I am going to make sure that nobody hurts JYC'. My relationship with my father was never the same again."
As if to confirm the decline of Cousteau the man, and Cousteau the registered trademark, the Ca- lypso was accidentally rammed in Singapore harbour last year and sank. Now salvaged, it is berthed in Marseille waiting for a new owner.
Before his death, JYC transferred all his assets to Francine and signed over control of his business and charitable interests. As unfair as Jean-Michel's plight may seem, he does not have a scrap of paper with which to exert influence - only scrappy newspapers and magazines which endorse his view that a father's heritage is safer in the hands of a son than of a second wife.