But how did we get here? A nourished and fascinating exchange with Omar Sy on the war, from that told by his film “Tirailleurs” on 1914-1918, in theaters this Wednesday, January 4, to those today. A very lively interview, but without the slightest feeling of attacking anyone or lighting the fuse of a future controversy. And now the actor finds himself attacked by politicians on Monday, the subject of heated debates on news channels for a few sentences on Ukraine taken out of context. Explanations.
This Friday, December 13, Omar Sy comes out of the recording of “Vivement dimanche” with Michel Drucker, and joins us in a box at Studio Gabriel (Paris VIII) to talk about the film “Tirailleurs”. He plays Bakary, a Senegalese man in his forties who decides to accompany his son, barely out of adolescence and forcibly enlisted in the French army to go and fight in 1917 in the trenches of Verdun. Senegal was then a French colony, and the story of the skirmishers is very poorly known, as a sentence from the credits reminds us: 200,000 men from distant colonies to go to the front in the hell of 1914-1918.
“Oh, guys? I’ve seen this since I was little.”
In the room, just the two of us, and Omar Sy’s dog, Tato. And, of course, a telephone in recording mode so as not to lose anything of its words and not to risk misinterpretation. After questions about the film, a project he has been carrying out with director Mathieu Vadepied for ten years, and the story of the skirmishers themselves, we decide to tackle the theme of war in general, still omnipresent a century later. .
Since the actor’s family is also of Mauritanian origin, we tell him about the fighting that has torn regions of this country apart, and ask him if the situation in the world today, with what is happening in Ukraine, does not discourage him. not. It was then that he replied that this war was not “a crazy revelation for him”, accustomed to the violence of other warlike conflicts in Africa, with which he had been confronted since his childhood.
What is controversial on Monday seems to us to have been taken out of context, as Omar Sy exposes his horror at the atrocities committed constantly in the world since the time of the skirmishers, and not only in Ukraine: “A war is humanity sinking, even when it’s on the other side of the world. We remember that man is capable of invading, of attacking civilians, children. We have the impression that we have to wait for Ukraine to realize this. Ah, friends? I’ve seen this since I was little. When it’s far away, we say to ourselves that over there, they are savages, we don’t do that anymore. Like the Covid, at the beginning, we said: it’s only the Chinese. »
A “you” that might as well be in all of us
His “oh, guys? », which is so much his voice, challenges us. The interview becomes almost a discussion. Yes, the rule of proximity probably makes one feel more concerned about a conflict in kyiv than in Yemen or the war in the past in Western Sahara. We were the ones who told him about this conflict, not him.
There is obviously no polemical tone in his response. At no time does the actor suggest that we talk too much about Ukraine. Otherwise, we would have asked him to clarify his thought, but it is fluid and clear. War has touched him since his childhood, wherever it arises.
“When it’s in Africa, are you less affected? This sentence which set fire to the powder does not designate, as those who have fueled this controversy for twenty-four hours suggest, France or the French.
It’s a conversation, and that “you” are those who feel less concerned when children are massacred by bombings on the other side of the world, wherever they are. He says it without any virulence. It’s just a debate, a “you” that might as well be in all of us. A way to decenter, to think differently. The tone is convinced but calm, humanist.
The words of a man sensitive to atrocities
Sunday evening, a few hours after the publication of the interview on our website, MEP Nathalie Loiseau and former minister of Emmanuel Macron’s first five-year term, launched the controversy by mentioning “58 French soldiers who died in the Sahel fighting against the jihadists”, in Mali. And adding that the French feel well “affected” by the situation in Africa.
We didn’t ask Omar Sy any questions about Mali or the French army today. It was not the interview of a political scientist or a historian by a political journalist, but of an actor engaged in the recognition of the Senegalese skirmishers through a powerful film.
At the end of the interview, we even talked about football, very freely, on the eve of the France-Morocco World Cup semi-final, which took place on December 14. Like any discussion that jumps from one subject to another, it deviated on PSG, on Omar Sy’s shouting matches with his friends about certain players.
And we parted, without having the feeling that words could shock. Make you think, yes. Which is not the same thing at all. The interview, particularly in its long version posted on our site, speaks for itself. The words of a man sensitive to atrocities, whether committed “in Ukraine or in Iran”, as he puts it.