“April 1 was 8 days ago”: Macron’s future award to Sardou causes protest among feminists

The statement made some feminist activists jump. “Emmanuel Macron will award Michel Sardou the National Order of Merit,” executive advisers told AFP on Wednesday, partly confirming the information from Nouvel Obs.

According to the weekly, Michel Sardou will be honored as a Knight of the National Order of Merit at a ceremony in June at the Elysee Palace. A date that was not confirmed by the manager.

“Patriarchy will fall, it is already shaking. But first they will all decorate each other,” MP and feminist Sandrine Rousseau said on her social networks.

Michel Sardou, during his last tour, ironically dedicated his song “I will love you” to Sandrine Rousseau.

“The song that will be released risks deconstructing Sandrine Rousseau! ” he cheerfully told his audience of 5,000 fans at the start of this tour in October 2023 in Normandy, as we noted. “So that all the Marquis de Sade turns pale / So that the whores of the harbor blush (…) I will love you,” we hear in this title, dated 1976.

“And it definitely deserves a decoration!” squealed Socialist Senator Laurence Rossignol, quoting the words of the song “Cities of Solitude” (1973): “I want to rape women/To make them admire me.”

“April 1 was 8 days ago,” Anne-Cécile Mailfer, president of the Women’s Fund, lamented online Tuesday when Nouvel Obs was announced.

As much admired as he is hated, Michel Sardou, 77, has established himself as one of the monuments of French song in a career marked by dozens of hits (“La Maladie d’amour,” “Les Lacs du Connemara,” “Being”) woman”). …) and contradictory positions. In August 2023, Juliette Armandet called the hit “Les Lacs du Connemara” “sectarian” and “right-wing”, causing a wave of hatred on social networks. A controversy that the singer found “ridiculous”.