French songwriter Georges Moustaki wrote Milord, the most popular song for Edith Piaf. Milord is a polite way to address traveling Englishmen in France, especially in Brittany and Normandy.
Edith piaf is considered as the greatest French singer. Her tragic life added to her legend as she started singing in the streets of Paris in the 30s and got discovered in 1935 by Louis Leplee, the owner of a Parisian nightclub.
Nicknamed “môme Piaf” (little sparrow) as she was a very small woman, Edith Piaf became very popular not only in France, but also in the world. Her tragic car accident in the 50s resulted in a lifelong addiction to morphine, one year after her true love boxer Marcel Cerdan had died in a tragic accident.
She died of cancer in 1963 and was buried in Père Lachaise Cemeteray in Paris.
« La Vie en Rose, » « Hymne à L’Amour, » « Les Trois Cloches, » and « Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien » are her most famous songs.
After the Second World War (la deuxième guerre mondiale) the Japanese were very fond of the French writers and the French culture that was considered as very elitist. The Japanese were really interested in French existentialism, structuralism and post-modernism (existentialisme, structuralisme et post-modernisme) and the golden age of their love for the French lasted until the 70s. Their favorite writers were Albert Camus who wrote L’étranger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Saint-Exupéry (Le petit prince) and their favorite singers were Piaf, Montand, Aznavour, Brel, M.Mathieu…. Their interest in the French culture and the Press was also the result of the anti-Americanism of the Japanese society and the French community.
By the 80s, France remained the symbol of luxury products (produits de luxe) and the best cuisine in the world, but the lack of patience of its governments was an obstacle to the investments in Japan by the French companies, even if the opening of the French high-speed train (TGV) was a blow to the Japanese Shinkansen high speed train.