After the long summer break, returning to Geneva always comes with some apprehension of hearing bad news. This year, it wasn’t bad news, it was a terrible shock. Roger left us brutally, he who was so alive, who did not change over the years, who kept his youthful and spontaneous smile. Roger was an exceptional human being.

We met at the 1987 FICSA Council in Copenhagen, where he was elected General Secretary of the Federation and I was elected President. For two years we were a team and I have an extraordinary memory of that collaboration. Roger wasn’t your typical international civil servant. He didn’t take himself seriously, but he did accomplish his mission with conviction, seriousness, modesty and simplicity. An untiring worker, always available, he invariably found a solution which would defuse a situation. In his presence, we felt the sense of security which made him an intelligent, competent, loyal and scrupulous collaborator. He was a great FICSA General Secretary. It was Roger who computerized the secretariat and modernized the working methods of the Federation. He had no match for ironing out differences.

The secret of Roger was, I think, the richness of his personal life. Always there for his family and his friends, he had a true passion for his music. I was often surprised at his ability to combine harmoniously his family life, his music and all his other activities. In two years of daily and sometimes stressful collaboration, I never saw him in a bad mood. He certainly had worries as we all do but he had the elegance to keep them to himself. After the Paris Council in 1989, we each returned to our ‘normal’ activities. We saw little of each other, but each time we did meet was a reminder of the two years when we worked together with passion in the service of the Federation and the international civil service.

Roger had strong convictions and there were times that he expressed them without reserve, but also without ever hurting anyone. I knew he was respected and even loved not only by the members of FICSA but also by our interlocutors. Even in 1988, when FICSA decided to no longer attend ICSC sessions, he knew how to maintain the esteem of the Commission and the administrations and to support me without fail in the face of intense pressure that was difficult to bear.

Only one time in two years did I regret for several minutes having such a scrupulous General Secretary by my side. He managed FICSA funds so seriously that he reserved train tickets for me to go to a one-day meeting in Bruges. Having missed a connection, I had to take a very long taxi ride and on my return, we had a great laugh about that taxi fare. That was Roger, serious and kind, humourous and simple, with a type of grace that remained youthful perhaps because of his love of the music inside him.

All my thoughts go to his wife, Rosy and their daughters