“We never spoke to dad again about the time of the kidnapping. As always, for him the past was something that should be archived or sent to the trash can. His entire performance during those dramatic days was impeccable. He did everything a son could expect from his father and more. His love had no cracks. He was sleepless for fourteen days waiting for each call from the kidnappers. He was a caged lion, rabid and full of helplessness,” he explained. Mauricio Macri in a fragment of “Franc”his recent book, which he uploaded to his Instagram account.
Accompanied by a black and white photograph of a young man Mauricio Macri along with his father, Franco Macri, when he was freed from his captors. The former Head of State expressed: “I apologize to the readers for having dwelled too much on this fact of my own biography. I have a reason. At the moment of my release, I found my father’s enormous love, reciprocated by mine for him, in a way that had never happened to either of us before. What I did not know is that there, first without noticing it and then in an increasingly obvious way, the most difficult stage of my relationship with him began.”
Macri recently published an intimate and revealing book about his father in which he crudely examines a family relationship marked by admiration, reproach and permanent tension. According to the PRO founder, his father was “my most influential teacher and also my greatest antagonist.” In the text, the son praises his father. He describes him as a self-made Italian immigrant, a colossal businessman who built an empire, but also reproaches him for his deep emotional contradictions that put at risk what he had achieved.
Throughout its 224 pages, the figure of Franco Macri in the memories of the former president who would be crossed by an “emotional hole” that is difficult to heal. One of the most dramatic passages in the book is when Mauricio Macri himself reconstructs the kidnapping he suffered in 1991, for 12 days, at the hands of the so-called “Commissars Band”, a network made up of police officers from the Federal Police.
In the story he describes how that episode forever changed his bond with his father. Franco Macri personally led the negotiation and payment of the ransom (about 6 million dollars, according to the former president). According to Mauricio himself, the experience marked an emotional before and after between them, because the relationship oscillated between deep love and suffocation, a fragile balance that was broken with the kidnapping crisis.
On August 24, 1991, businessman Mauricio Macri was intercepted in front of his house in Palermo, beaten, hooded and locked in a coffin by his kidnappers, who moved him to a humid basement where they kept him captive for almost two weeks. The rescue was carried out through highly trusted intermediaries, including Nicolas Caputo, close friend of the family. After their release, several of the kidnappers were convicted: seven former police officers received life sentences for kidnapping for ransom and illicit association.
So far, Mauricio Macri is the author of at least three recent books that have marked his public reappearance. His first title, First time (2021), It is an intimate memory of his years as President of the Nation (2015–2019): in more than 300 pages, he reconstructs his decisions, his achievements and the difficulties of governing, and analyzes “the tough battles” that, according to him, he had to face against populism.
His second book, What for: Learning about leadership and power to win the second half (2022)delves into his personal and political vision beyond the presidential administration. The businessman explains that in this work he reflects on his path, his vocation and the reasons that push him to remain publicly committed: “it is about my personal journey and what I learned in it.” From the trilogy of publications written by Macri“Franco” It is the most personal of the former president.
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