THE ROYAL PRETENDERS
IN LIFE CLAUDE-PHILIPPE BERGER styled himself the “traditional king of Tanna”, an island of 30,000 people in Vanuatu. Berger, who was born in 1953 in Casablanca and claimed to have once been a diplomat, first visited the islands in 2011, in hope of veneration. What he found was a South Pacific of the imagination: champagne-coloured beaches, rose sunsets, the rumble of volcanoes. Yet Vanuatu is also threatened by a rising tide, and cyclones regularly hit its scarce infrastructure and fragile agrarian economy.
Later, living in Nice as a supposed king in exile, Berger adopted the studied lifestyle of an obscure European royal: swathed in a blue sash and medals, he could be found cutting ribbons at provincial art exhibitions, or hosting boozy soirees in San Remo, where he and his “royal house” would engage in energetic lobbying of Ni-Vanuatu politicians to have his island throne restored.
When Berger died in July, there was little pomp for him in France. But, according to one “royal” insider, 300 people in Vanuatu walked across the bush “in heavy rain” to pay their respects. As with so much about the late “king”, reports of his memorial may be an exaggeration.
Men like
