\makeatletter
\@ifundefined{HCode}
{\documentclass[CRBIOL, Unicode, screen, Thematic, HideArticleType, ,published]{cedram}
\newenvironment{noXML}{}{}
\newenvironment{Table}{\begin{table}}{\end{table}}
\def\tsup#1{$^{{#1}}$}
\def\tsub#1{$_{{#1}}$}
\RequirePackage{etoolbox}
\usepackage{upgreek}
\def\jobid{crbiol20230878}
%\graphicspath{{/tmp/\jobid_figs/web/}}
\graphicspath{{./figures/}}
\newcounter{runlevel}
\let\MakeYrStrItalic\relax
\def\refinput#1{}
\def\back#1{}
\def\0{\phantom{0}}
\DOI{10.5802/crbiol.137}
\datereceived{2023-10-03}
\dateaccepted{2023-10-11}
\ItHasTeXPublished
\let\rmalpha\upalpha
\def\xsection#1{}}
{\documentclass[crbiol]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\def\CDRdoi{10.5802/crbiol.137}
\let\newline\break
\makeatletter
\def\selectlanguage#1{} 
}
\makeatother

\usepackage{upgreek}
\CDRsetmeta{articletype}{history-of-sciences}

\dateposted{2023-12-21}
\datepublished{2024-03-29}
\begin{document}

\begin{noXML}
%
%\makeatletter
%\def\TITREspecial{\relax}
%\def\cdr@specialtitle@english{A tribute to Fran\c{c}ois Gros, a founding father of molecular biology}
%%\def\cdr@specialtitle@french{Un hommage \`a Fran\c{c}ois Gros, un des p\`eres de la biologie mol\'eculaire}
%\makeatother

\title{Sixty years of life with Fran\c{c}ois Gros}

\alttitle{Soixante ans de vie avec Fran\c{c}ois Gros}

\author{\firstname{Klaus} \lastname{Scherrer}}
\address{Jacques Monod Institute, CNRS, Paris, France}
\email{klaus.scherrer31@gmail.com}

\keywords{\kwd{Fran\c{c}ois Gros}
\kwd{60 years collaboration}
\kwd{Personal account}
\kwd{Friendship}}

\altkeywords{\kwd{Fran\c{c}ois Gros}
\kwd{Collaboration de 60 ans}
\kwd{Souvenirs}
\kwd{Amiti\'{e}}}

\begin{abstract} 
This is meant to be a personal account of my relationship with
Fran\c{c}ois Gros who, as the director of the laboratory where I had my
first team became a close and fatherly friend. Over 60 years we had
permanent interactions, whether close or far away. And I wish to revive
here some of our relation at the grassroots, as well as the folklore in
and around his laboratory. He was not only an excellent scientist but
also a Statesman of Science and beyond. Myself a minor figure in his
big endeavors, this aspect of his life I just observed from below but
with much empathy. All along he considered our experimental data and
ideas realistic while they were rejected as iconoclastic by the many
others. Being taken seriously as a researcher, I did not participate in
his professional networks because I never fit the necessary profile in
terms of scientific consensus. But his friendship was a major and basic
element in my scientific and personal life; I hope my report hereafter
does justice to his personality and immense merits.
\end{abstract}

\begin{altabstract} 
Ceci est le souvenir tr\`{e}s personnel de mes relations pendant 60 ans
avec Fran\c{c}ois Gros. Il m'avait accueilli dans son laboratoire ou
j'avais --- pour la premi\`{e}re fois --- une \'{e}quipe de
chercheurs autour de moi. Dans les 60 ann\'{e}es suivantes, il m'est
devenu un ami \guillemotleft{}~paternel~\guillemotright{}~et  nous
avions des interactions de pr\`{e}s ou de loin. Je me propose de
d\'{e}crire notre relation personnelle \`{a} la base et aussi le
folklore dans et autour de son laboratoire. Il n'\'{e}tait pas
seulement un chercheur de premier plan mais aussi un
\guillemotleft{}~statesman of science~\guillemotright{}, et un homme
politique fran\c{c}ais et international. Moi, figure
p\'{e}riph\'{e}rique dans ses entreprises, je pouvais observer cet
aspect de sa vie de fa\c{c}on passive mais avec beaucoup d'empathie. Ce
qui \'{e}tait unique et d\'{e}terminant pour moi et mes collaborateurs
\'{e}tait le fait qu'il suivait avec int\'{e}r\^{e}t et soutenait nos
recherches consid\'{e}r\'{e}es --- \`{a} l'\'{e}poque ---
comme sans base r\'{e}aliste et m\^{e}me
\guillemotleft{}~iconoclastes~\guillemotright{}~par la majorit\'{e} de
nos coll\`{e}gues et comp\'{e}titeurs. Malgr\'{e} ma bonne
r\'{e}putation internationale comme chercheur, je ne pouvais pas faire
partie de ses r\'{e}seaux professionnels, car je n'op\'{e}rais pas dans
le cadre du consensus g\'{e}n\'{e}ral dans les commissions
scientifiques et de prix --- garantes de reconnaissance
\guillemotleft{}~officielle~\guillemotright{}. Mais l'amiti\'{e} de
Fran\c{c}ois \'{e}tait une part majeure et essentielle de ma vie
scientifique et priv\'{e}e~; et j'esp\`{e}re que mes souvenirs
racont\'{e}s ici feront justice \`{a} sa personnalit\'{e} et ses
m\'{e}rites.
\end{altabstract}

\def\thanksname{Note}
\thanks{This article follows a symposium held on 25 April 2023 at the
Institut Pasteur in tribute to Fran\c{c}ois Gros.}

\maketitle

%\vspace*{4pt}

\end{noXML}

\twocolumngrid


\xsection{}

Our collaboration started in 1963 when I came to Paris, after a postdoc
at MIT, invited to start a team working on animal cells in
Fran\c{c}ois' laboratory at the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique
(IBPC), at that time fully devoted to bacterial genetics and the phage
systems of \textit{E. coli}. In the years to come our relationship
evolved slowly, from the ``boss'' and guide in science to a fatherly
friend. Thus, I was also able to follow---indirectly---many of his
social undertakings: at the CNRS---which he had helped to found---then
the 1968 revolution in his laboratory and the streets, furthermore in
1981 his participation in the Mauroy government. Later on, in 2016, we
had organized around him a working team attempting to attract the
interest of the candidates of the 2017 French Presidential Election for
a strong program in fundamental research, a necessary basis for
innovation. When he was in Paris, we met regularly in his cozy office
at the Academy of Sciences followed by a short lunch in a nearby
\textit{bistro}; on special occasions we also met at Dani\`{e}le's or
our home table.


The first time I met Fran\c{c}ois was at a Gordon conference in 1962.
Swimming in a New Hampshire lake I met Ekke Bautz, a German scientist;
we found that both of us spoke ``Shwezerduetsh'' (Swiss), he being from
Konstanz, the historical German city south of the Rhine River close my
Swiss hometown of Schaffhausen. Shortly after, a young French lady
joined us on a solitary rock, mid-lake, closely followed by an MIT
professor, ``Cy'' Levinthal, with whom I collaborated in Jim Darnell's
laboratory. When presented to \textit{Madame Fran\c{c}oise Gros}, I
asked her---shyly---if she might introduce me to her husband
Fran\c{c}ois Gros, the famous scientist from the Institut Pasteur. By
chance he already had read my paper---just published in 1962 in
\textit{BBRC}---about the discovery of ``giant RNA'', longer than any
RNA then known. And right away he offered me a job in his 
laboratory---in Paris! France! Immediately I decided to accept,  giving
up jobs proposed by Alfred Gierer in T\"{u}bingen and Wilhelm Bernhard
in Villejuif. And I introduced to him my spouse Jutta from Berlin,
studying Russian intellectual history with the protopope of the Russian
Orthodox Church of Boston who was also a professor at Harvard; she was
enchanted to return to a big city and not a German ``village''---like
T\"{u}bingen.\looseness=-1

Fran\c{c}ois was about to set up his laboratory at IBPC. Thus my work
started at the Institut Pasteur in his home laboratory directed by
Andr\'{e} Lwoff---a very ``Russian Kniaz''. There, I had the
chance to be with Fran\c{c}ois Jacob at the regular lab meetings, and
also with Jacques Monod, whom I met once in his office in the company
of Agn\`{e}s Ullman, a refugee scientist from Hungary. Hearing that I
was looking for a flat, she proposed that I take over the room where
she had stayed with her husband in the apartment of another
Fran\c{c}oise. Situated at the passage de la Visitation, on one side it
looked over the lush gardens of the Banque de France and on the other
side (ours) into a ventilation shaft.\looseness=-1

Fortunately, we could soon move to a 25m2 former servants' flat on 33
avenue de Breteuil, where the fancy front apartments were occupied by
American postdocs---some from Pasteur. There we received Fran\c{c}ois
for the first time, for a Swiss fondue. On arrival he said : 
``Oh --- comme j'aime cela~!'' It took 30 years before he would admit
that he hated fondue: his memory of people and facts was phenomenal!

{Pasteur turned soon into the IBPC, the Institute still shielding
the spirits of J. Perrin, P. Joliot and} \textit{Madame} {M. Curie,
as well as their former collaborators. Being an architect's son, I
found the red brick building on the rue Pierre (still without}
{Marie) Curie quite curious looking, having lots of small terraces
and gardens shielded visually from each other. In a satellite block,
Fran\c{c}ois' group occupied various floors of a staircase, to which
our labs were attached. The elegant entry salon,} {with fancy green
fauteuils} {and a sofa, soon had to be converted} into the place
for liquid scintillation counters.


{Top and bottom floors were still occupied by the department of
``Physiologie} Animale''. On most sunny afternoons the elderly animal
caretaker used to carry a folding chair into a cozy green patio, on
which an older lady would rest for hours, right next to the (empty) dog
cages. She was the owner of the unused labs I had spotted; Fran\c{c}ois
managed to get those labs along with the dog cages---to be soon
occupied by my ducks. Genetically pure (obligation for phage genetics!)
Pekin ducks imported secretly from Prof. Benoit's huge animal farm in
Orsay. He was on fighting terms with all of Jacques Monod's microbial
genetics clan, having claimed that DNA of brown ducks injected into
eggs of white Pekin produced hybrid phenotypes---considered impossible
at that time! Poor Benoit, he lived too early; a fate that I later
had to appreciate myself---for current science, my iconoclastic ideas
came ever 10 years \unskip\break too early.

Indeed, already in Jim's lab I had come across a particular type of
giant RNA which was AU-rich and not GC-rich as the more abundant
preribosomal RNA. In view of this base composition and its processing
properties, I soon suggested calling it ``messenger-like RNA'' (not
``DNA-like'', as it was asymmetrical {in base composition).} {To
get me started, Fran\c{c}ois handed me over some frozen duck blood
cells brought by Irving London from Boston, suggesting} {that I
prepare its DNA and determine its base composition} {and capacity}
{to sustain transcription by the first purified RNA polymerase,
gotten straight from Jerry Hurwitz' laboratory. I found, fortunately,
that the astounding incapacity of DNA} {from (transcriptionally
silent) erythrocytes, compared to that from active erythroblast, was
due to a contaminant I could eliminate by Bentonite. And I could
convince Fran\c{c}ois to go back to ``my'' giant RNA.


{{Thus we started to study in detail the more than 10~kb-long RNA that
I had observed at MIT. First with Irving London and soon with Lise
Marcaud from the Shapira lab, we did pulse-chase experiments on the
nucleated duck erythroblasts which, because they were not dividing,
produced little pre-rRNA---in contrast to the human HeLa cells. They
allowed us therefore to determine the base composition of giant
non-ribosomal RNA. This was not straightforward to do, but at least it
was possible; thanks to the living ducks surviving the ``united front''
of}} {\textit{E. coli,}} in contrast to the gentle human Hela cells (a
local colleague : ``Cultiver des cellules humaines --- en suspension~?
Impossible, mon cher !''); provided you took a shower after having
chased the huge beasts through their living quarters.}


{And almost every second noon I chewed a juicy ``Jambon de Campagne''
sandwich at} {\textit{Chez P\`{e}re Guimard}}{, in company of another
collaborator of Fran\c{c}ois, the vice-director of the Institut du
Radium}, Fran\c{c}ois Zajdela, who discovered the function of
the nucleoli as the site of ribosomal biosynthesis. He taught basic
cytology to the chemist while getting back some molecular biology.
Coming from austere ETH (the Swiss Institute of Technology), I was
sort of an odd fellow. ``Vous \^{e}tes suisse ? Mon pauvre --- c'est pas
dr\^{o}le la Suisse!''---was the comment from a still
handsome elderly lady who had been ``la compagne'' of some of the
founding princes of IBPC. Having experienced efficient ETH and rich
MIT, what a charming folklore at the Fondation Edmond de Rothschild!
Into which, like a spearhead, Fran\c{c}ois tried to introduce some
modern science and lab technology, as did Marianne Grunberg-Manago in
the IBPC main building.


We were not rich, far from Pasteur and Jacques Monod's USA funding, in
spite of Fran\c{c}ois' immense prestige and capacity to pile up huge
laboratory debts. And the equipment found at IBPC was quite
``historic''. Next to bronze heads of some gentlemen, obviously to be
highly respected, all kinds of curious brass-lined instruments were
around: early-century balances, early microscopes, etc. The quality
definition of our water-distiller was to yield ``not more than 10 mg/L
of residues''! Under the severe looks of Genevi\`{e}ve, Fran\c{c}ois'
ever loyal and eternal technician/secretary and chef de cabinet, I
pushed Fran\c{c}ois' notorious ``aimabilit\'{e}'' to accept buying all
sorts of expensive equipment, for instance a water distiller in quartz.
Indeed, \textit{E. coli}, bacterial and even yeast genetics had
been cheaper.

{{To put a timer on Shiro Naono's exclusively drop-counting fraction
collector, I transformed with some copper wires an old 15 cm high old
brass alarm clock, to collect my 1 meter high Sepharose-200 columns in
a ``heroic'' approach to separate DNA/RNA hybrids. Besides Shiro, with
Josette Rouviere, Donald Hayes and his wife Fran\c{c}oise, Georges
Balassa, Denise Luzatti, Lise with Liselotte Voegelin (soon-to-be Mrs.
John Richardson) and myself, we all had to cope with competition from
US-based colleagues and visiting ``friends'', some from Pasadena (who
sometimes copied our experiments---at higher speed!)}} 


{{All of us profited of Fran\c{c}ois' unending kindness, experience and
critical advice. But making him spend his time on us and the lab
management, we kept him from exploring experimentally his own discovery
of the mRNA, and to publish a book about it. Lots of people had soon
joined, and at some point up to 16 young researchers---female and
male---were in the ``Gros''}} {{Laboratory---impossible to name them
all. But I still see Dick Soffer pipetting acid on his writing desk, on
top of books and papers, royally ignoring desperate Fran\c{c}ois
standing behind him, in the hope to save such a precious and expensive
desk. Michel Revel was there, who had been with Howard Hiatt at Harvard
doing experiments close to those we did in Jim Darnell's lab---with
less success. After a short flirt with ``our'' animal cell RNA, he
rationally turned to the more fashionable bacterial initiation factors
(keeping part of my bench!) And one day Francisco Lara, the father of
Brazilian molecular biology, arrived carrying along from Sao Paulo a
hundred plastic boxes with thousands of crawling worms, which I had to
turn into RNA and DNA.}}


{{With all this, Fran\c{c}ois still succeeded from time to time to do
an experiment by himself. I admired him operating on the basis of a
dynamic infrastructure, while I was totally unsuccessful to keep up my
Swiss-type static lab}} {organization}{{,
which systematically evaporated every night (Lise locked up the
material for the next day's experiments in her
``garderobe}}''). Lots of excellent papers were produced and
the lab's postdocs, enriched by their experiences, returned to their
home labs and homelands, where they more and more got important
positions in research and scientific statesmanship. Of course the
lambda system and \textit{E. coli} RNA polymerase were then all
and everything, whereas our studies of animal cell molecular biology
were still battling on to establish some of its fundamentals.


{{Fran\c{c}ois' genuine interest for this coming field, as well 
as---more distant---that of Fran\c{c}ois Jacob and Jacques Monod, and his
lucidity and trust allowed us to publish work still considered as
iconoclastic. ``Haro---this is against the Operon Model!'' was then a
frequent argument. But in the red-brick tower of the rue Pierre Curie,
every solid experiment and reasoning was acceptable and defended,
helped by the ``Pasteuriens'', the very fathers of the model. Thus, our
experiments in favor of the first concept of pre-messenger RNA were
published with the help of Jacques Monod, more than 12 years before the
discovery of gene fragmentation into introns and \mbox{exons,} which made
splicing and the necessity of RNA processing understandable even to a
10-years-old\break child.}}


By 1966 in a finally liberated part of the animal house, we succeeded
in cultivating---in suspension!---Hela cells (but often recovered
\textit{E.~Coli}\,!). And Fran\c{c}ois asked me---presumably since my
father was an architect---to outline initial plans for the new ``Gros
Laboratoire \`{a} la halle aux vins'', to be established within the
new, giant faculty situated place Jussieu. But then I got the
proposition of Eduard Kellenberger to return to Switzerland and to work
at the Swiss Cancer Institute in Lausanne (ISREC). Fran\c{c}ois
encouraged me to accept this offer, which led to a 7-year round-trip
excursion, before I was invited by Fran\c{c}ois Jacob and Raymond
Dedonder (respectively, President and Director of the Institut de
Biologie Moleculaire (IBM) which, finally, became the Institut Jacques
Monod (IJM), to come back to France. In Lausanne I was joined by Tereza
Imaizumi, an MD from Brazil, whom I first had met in Sao Paulo; later
on Fran\c{c}ois became her thesis adviser for a French PhD. She became
my closest collaborator and later we married and had our daughter
Ayalla-Mariko. Taking over the ``Gros laboratoire'' at Jussieu, we
liberated Fran\c{c}ois to assume the direction of the Institut
Pasteur.

At Lausanne we had pushed forward the pre-rRNA and pre-mRNA stories.
Tereza could give first proof for globin-gene sequences among the
giant RNA, thanks to the newly developed cDNA technology. Having found
its processing to smaller molecules, we proposed by 1973 the term
``pre-mRNA'' in a paper, edited by Fran\c{c}ois and submitted by
Andr\'{e} Lwoff to \textit{PNAS}. Few then supported the model of
pre-mRNA and its processing into mRNA. But among them was Jim Watson:
in the first edition of his textbook he put our electron-microscope
pictures of giant RNA; later he stated: ``\ldots\ it's called ``Hn-RNA'',
but should be called ``pre-mRNA'', because that's what it  is!''
Fran\c{c}ois Gros often visited Lausanne to lecture and discuss. And
Fran\c{c}ois Jacob attending the meetings at CERN around Eduard
Kellenberger, to found EMBO (which was financed initially by the Swiss
government) also came regularly to\break Lausanne.


{{The Swiss excursion prevented me from participating in the May 1968
revolution. I only saw one Monday Liz Hansen, the Danish technician who
had made the Swiss move with me, arriving all black and blue from head
to feet, coming back from Paris. She had sausages instead of fingers on
her hands, the result of a solid beating up along with her boyfriend in
the streets around the IBPC. But I was often enough in Paris to sense
what was going on, visiting}} {my} {{first spouse Jutta}} {staying in
our} {\textit{pied \`{a} terre}} {which I naively} {had} {{acquired.
Most impressive to me in the 1968 revolution was a sudden outspoken
relation and close comradeship between the lab members, whose prior
absence I had often noted and regretted; some liked it and some not---I
never found out Fran\c{c}ois' feelings on that.}}


{{``Soyez r\'{e}alistes --- demandez l'impossible~!'', written on the
walls of Jussieu in Mai 1968,}} {{is also the most valid concept that
leads to real progress in science. The concept of ``science utile'',
currently adopted by the French government, means exploring already
established fields, following international trends in research which
boost data production and supports carriers. Discoveries and innovation
are the result of fundamental, not programmed, research. Such strategy
explains the fact that, in the last 50 years, most Nobel Prizes in
biology have gone to scientists in the USA, the UK, Switzerland and
Germany rather than to France. And most scientific media and
biotechnology became dominated by the Anglo-Saxon world.}}



{{Taking over Fran\c{c}ois' lab at Jussieu in 1973 gave us the means to
explore not only the giant RNA story but also the messenger
ribonucleoproteins (mRNPs), research started already in Lausanne. It
was evident to me that trans-acting factors had to control not only
transcription, but also RNA processing, transport and cytoplasmic
regulation of mRNA. Selective repression seemed to prevail in the
cytoplasmic regulation of the expression of individual mRNAs, which we
found in the ``ribosome-free'' silent mRNPs.}}


{{Among those trans-acting factors attached to mRNA, we observed in
1970 with Nicole Granboulan uniquely structured 20S particles which
later, after extensive biochemical analysis, we termed ``prosomes''. In
an un-academic procedure and narrow interpretation of their function
(but with the mediatic help of}} {\textit{Nature}}{{), they now sail
mostly under the term of ``20S-proteasomes``, a term given several
years later. The power in science of famous but naive intellectuals is
ever overwhelming! The most interesting fact about the
prosome-proteasome system is, indeed, their double function in
regulation of protein synthesis and, as well, in selective proteolysis
via the ubiquitin pathway; the latter involves the 26S proteasome
complex built onto the 20S particle. But the role of the prosomes on
all RNA-levels, from chromatin to cytoplasmic mRNA, is largely ignored
due to the exclusive interest in proteolysis.}}


{{What a chance to have experienced Fran\c{c}ois' lab in the sixties,
and all the excitement in close connection with the Pasteuriens, in
real partnership with our colleagues, and often friends abroad, in
particular from the USA. Fran\c{c}ois also supported and attended
regularly the Arolla workshops, devoted to eukaryotic molecular
biology, that we had}} {organised} {{from our
basis in Lausanne after 1973 (still surviving as an EMBO workshop!).
Situated high in the mountains, it was a melting pot for researchers
from the USA, Eastern and Western Europe and Asia, bringing together
students and Nobel Prize winners. Sadly, much of the investments and
dreams of that time have never been realized. In all these years,
Fran\c{c}ois' advice and support helped us go on, although at reduced
levels of ambition, given the absence of sufficient financial support
in France.}}


{Carried to the highest levels of national responsibilities, spending
time and effort to help his people and others at all levels, accessible
to his friends and dependents, thus paying the price of his full
loyalty, Fran\c{c}ois never lost touch with actual science, remaining
brilliant in intellectual analysis. And we all may be thankful also to
Dani\`{e}le who, in all these years, was the very boat that kept
Fran\c{c}ois afloat, and generously never refused friends to come on
board when necessary.}


{{The only point where I had a recurrent dispute over the years with
Fran\c{c}ois concerned ``Le Syst\`{e}me''. I often said to him: ``why
not suggest changing this and that?'' And inevitably he would say:
``Ils ne vont jamais accepter !'' But if logically, in the beginning
the ``ils'' were above---right up to de Gaulle---curiously, ``they''
were suddenly below him; and still ``ils'' would not admit much change.
And Fran\c{c}ois would shake his head on my arguments,}} {{sometimes in
anger and sometimes in friendly commiseration. Having learned over my
years in France that revolutions are created by conservatives opposing
organic evolution, I never accepted resignation where science is
concerned. I also had to pay the price of my convictions, in particular
the exclusion from the \mbox{inner} ``family'' and the professional networks.
{Indeed,} defending unpopular concepts in science I was excluded from
scientific commissions---but also rewards. Even Fran\c{c}ois Jacob
could not get me the}} {\textit{Prix fin de carri\`{e}re}} {against the
corporate system at Pasteur itself. Observing my frustration,
Fran\c{c}ois Gros suggested proposing me for} {\textit{la L\'{e}gion
d'Honneur}}{; but for me only scientific recognition really\break mattered.}


{One most important change Fran\c{c}ois brought about when in charge in
France concerns the integration of basic science and technology,}
{organizing} {the ``Assises de la Recherche''
in 1982. At the time of the rue Pierre Curie, the French intellectual
dogma was that to work with industry was some sort of betrayal, whereas
at the ETH, we were taught to eventually have to pay back to society
the privilege to carry on fundamental research. Times have changed, but
still in the eighties I heard one of the then ``jeunes loups'' at the
Institut Pasteur saying in the presence of Fran\c{c}ois: ``$\ldots$ mais
c'est d\'{e}geulasse de travailler avec l'industrie~!'' That later this
brilliant fellow became a leader of French biotechnology, and that the
ivory tower complex was defeated, is largely the work of Fran\c{c}ois,
together with Philippe Lazar. But the fundamental change of ``le
syst\`{e}me'' may have to wait until another politician leader, having
the scope of Fran\c{c}ois, may spring up in France, to render it again
able to compete internationally, at the highest levels of fundamental
research---the basis of\break innovation.}


{The 2017 presidential election approaching, we organized around
Fran\c{c}ois a small team meant to alert the candidates to the
necessity of a strong program in fundamental research as the basis of
innovation ensuring economic strength. Indeed, as candidates Lionel
Jospin as well as S\'{e}gol\`{e}ne Royal had made this the first point
of their political program. Our group included Isabelle Ledoux, Joseph
Zyss, Reiner Veitia, Jean-Antoine Lepesant and myself; 2~members from
Pasteur had left, considering our endeavor na\"{i}ve. We wrote several
articles and opinions of various lengths; unfortunately, our attempts
to have them published by the press failed. But it was another
enchanting period of collaboration with Fran\c{c}ois.}

{Fran\c{c}ois was a major personality in French and international
science, as a researcher and statesman of science. I was just a minor
figure in his world; sometimes I designed myself as ``un clown \`{a} la
cour de Fran\c{c}ois le Magnifique''. Thus the story told here is not
of major importance; just an honest tale at the grassroots of our
relation. It may amuse some of those old-timers who still survive, but
also revive old battles, in and about pioneer research at the frontiers
of science. Well, I may have gone too far, talking too much about too
many things; but I still have the feeling of never being able to say
enough. One may just remain in admiration facing such a personality
and, if I may be allowed to say, a friend as Fran\c{c}ois Gros, and be
thankful to fate for having been able to meet him and enjoy his concern
and cordial\break friendship.}

\section*{Declaration of interests}

The authors do not work for, advise, own shares in, or receive funds
from any organization that could benefit from this article,  and have
declared no affiliations other than their research organizations.

\section*{Acknowledgements}

{\vspace*{-2pt}}

My sincere gratitude goes to Roger Karess who not only corrected but
edited this report. I also wish to thank the team at the Institut
Pasteur that organized the homage to
Fran\c{c}ois Gros and invited me to \mbox{participate}.

\back{}

\end{document}
