2024-07-06 15:47:22
Marjane Satrapi wants to take his share for “cleansing French society of right-wing ideas”. Franco-Iranian artist, author Persepolisone of the greatest achievements of a comic book to be adapted for the big screen, calls for filmmakers of foreign origin to come together to produce a joint film that could be titled. “France for Foreigners” or “we are at home”.
Whoever made the drawing of it the Olympic tapestry she also warns in an interview with Mediapart that she will boycott the Paris 2024 Olympics if the National Rally comes to power, and that she hopes “not to be alone” to do it. She recalls that too “Culture is one of the first sectors that the right will attack, because it is the glue of society”.
Mediapart: What can the cinema, what can a collective film produced by foreign filmmakers, do to oppose the arrival of the farthest in power to France?
Marjane Satrapi: We are not going to change the world with this collective film that will be seen mainly by people who think with us. But we cannot stand idly by. We have to fill the cultural space, take our place.
Marjane Satrapi, French-Iranian director and comic book author in Paris in 2022.
Enlarge image: Figure 1
Culture is the first sector that the far right will attack. Books, music and, in general, art scare them. They want to control the culture of society. See what the Nazis did with the Bauhaus For example. Besides, why go so far? All you have to do is look at the cultural policy of the cities that have been led by the RN in recent years. It is sad.
Perhaps I can take this opportunity to make another appeal: what if all of us, of foreign origin, went on strike, stopped working, even if we only came for two weeks? Maybe people will finally understand what we bring to France also from an economic point of view. Immigrant workers have irrigated all levels of society, which is necessary to keep France going: laborers, delivery people but also doctors, lawyers, civil servants, artists, etc.
How do you understand this historical period?
I am less worried about the result of the second round than the ideas of the far right which have already found their niche in French society. This dark period did not begin last Sunday. Of course, the phenomenon is global. In the United States, Hungary, Italy, Poland, etc. They are everywhere. Do you imagine that Trump could be re-elected? It is also absurd that a small, uneducated populist should be prime minister in France.
The far right has been established in France for many years, it is trivial for politicians, the media to receive racists of all sizes and genders, as if they were a political force like any other, by allowing them to spread their lies spread: “We are not anti-Semitic”, “we are not racist”, “We no longer have anything to do with the GUD”, “Poutine? Russia? Don’t know”. Soon they will claim that they were resistant. However, they have already taken the liberty of citing Jean Jaurès and Guy Môquet. They have no shame.
I was not born French. I wanted it, I picked it and I got it. It took effort. We are all French.
I came to France thirty years ago, and we were already mobilizing against the danger of Le Pen. In 1995, I was a student at Arts Deco in Strasbourg, Jean-Marie Le Pen wanted to come there. 180,000 people demonstrated against his arrival in a city of only 250,000 inhabitants.
It has become very normal to be racist and not hide it. Now to be cool, you have to be stupid and have no nuance and defend yourself “I say out loud what people are thinking”. But there are reasons why we don’t say what we think out loud: we don’t say it because these thoughts reflect our basic instincts. They are often abject. Not to express your hatred, your jealousy, your perverse thoughts, not to tell someone that you are ugly and stupid, is called being civil.
How can you be racist in 2024? This is an ancient idea.
The law of the land, the binational French… With the “national choice” as one of its foundations, the National Rally promises unprecedented attacks. How do you cope with this rise, as a French-Iranian woman?
The RN makes people believe in the uniqueness of the law of the land, but this is false. When a child of foreign parents is born in France, he must apply for naturalization from the age of 16 by providing proof that he has lived in France for at least five years.
Then, in the name of Jean-Michel, Chantal and everyone who will vote RN would be more French than me? What did they do to become French other than being born in France to French parents? Nothing!
I chose to be French. I could be Swedish, my husband’s nationality. But I wanted to have the nationality of the country I loved as my country of birth: France. I learned her language from a young age, I love her literature, her history, her gastronomy. I was not born French. I wanted it, I picked it and I got it. It took effort. We are all French. If Jean-Michel and Chantal are at home, so am I. France is my home. We are all at home.
When we are born into democracy, we believe that it is eternal even though it is very fragile.
Being French is an obstacle course. Already, in order to get a visa to study in France, I had to undergo many medical examinations including an HIV test. I had to prove that I had the money to live on for a year. Thirty years ago, immigration was already chosen.
When my book Persepolis in 2000, and I was one of the best-selling French books of the 21st century in the world, I was not yet a naturalized French citizen. I was a best-selling French author but that wasn’t enough to be French. I had to wait five years, and without the intervention of Jack Lang [ancien ministre de la culture – ndlr]I’m not sure it would work.
I’m not even really bi-national anymore. I am Franco-Iranian, but indeed I’m only French. I have not had an Iranian passport for almost twenty years. When the Iranian regime started to anger me, I said to myself: I can go into this embassy and I will never come out.
You who have been fighting the Islamic dictatorship of Iran, under which you were born, for forty years, what do you want to say to your French colleagues the night before the second round?
When we are born into democracy, we believe that it is eternal even though it is very fragile. As someone who grew up under a dictatorship, I can tell you that it is not guaranteed. How can we vote for those who believe least in democracy?
We must stand up, not remain silent, because to accept silence is to give approval and agreement. It is a civic duty. Whether you are an artist, a baker, a doctor, a civil servant, etc., we all have to stand up against the great right.
We can not be depressed. We must fight. And you can’t do it with fear. Fear makes us cowards. And we don’t win by giving up and being flawless. Now, the most important thing: there are 12 million who voted for the majority, that’s huge, but there are 55 million of us who didn’t choose it.
Among the 12 million, some justify their vote by saying that France has not yet tried the extreme right. But of course we did, we tried: it’s called the Vichy regime.
You have been selected to create a design for the commemorative tapestry of the Olympic Games. If these are held in France led by a government from the National Rally, will you participate?
Mobilier national chose me to represent France and design the Olympic tapestry, not because I was exotic or because they liked my beautiful eyes, but because of my work. I am very proud to achieve it, because it means that Marjane Satrapi is a good French artist. Of course, if the far right is in power, I won’t be involved in any events around the Olympics and I hope I’m not the only one boycotting.
I worked with ease under the presidencies of Chirac, Hollande, Macron – he is no longer the same man as in 2017, who blessed Angela Merkel for welcoming a million Syrians to Germany and who was the first president of Colonization was invented by France, a crime against humanity. . The only person I have never collaborated with is Nicolas Sarkozy. Because he opened Pandora’s box by asking the question: “What does it mean to be French? » Well, being French means not asking yourself this question.
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