Jean Dujardin (51 years old) bluntly on current France: “We lost…

By Elsa Girard-Basset | Web journalist

A leading actor in French cinema, Jean Dujardin has never hidden his love of France, even if it sometimes means finding himself in vain or tasteless controversies. And because he loves his country, and because he no longer has anything to prove in the matter, the fifty-year-old sometimes allows himself to point out faults or weaknesses that he has identified. Particularly on a very specific subject.

When he rose to fame with “Un Guy, Une Fille” 25 years ago, Jean Dujardin could not have dreamed of a better career. Firmly established as one of the most bankable actors in French cinema, recognized by the entire profession (including in the United States since “The Artist”), the native of Rueil-Malmaison ultimately has little left to prove – which also allows him to be selective in his films.

But if Dujardin is so appreciated by the French, it is not only for his undeniable talent as an actor, but also for his frankness and, let’s say it, a certain “French” side. Being among the rare actors to loudly proclaim the love of his country, Dujardin can all the more easily point out what bothers him there.

Jean Dujardin’s regret about laughter in today’s France

Guest of Augustin Trapenard at the microphone of “Brut” during the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, the actor took advantage of the evocation of his character of Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath in OSS 117 to regret what, according to him, happened is lost in France:

Trapenard: “The problem with OSS is that he is very French, and that he has this bad conscience about the French.”

Dujardin: “Yes, but it doesn’t matter, eh! We can laugh about it, and it’s better to laugh about it. I think that’s a bit of what we lost. I’m kicking open doors, but we lost that.

It still feels good to flush the toilet, to say to ourselves that yes, we have a kind of very strong cultural xenophobia, which means that we can’t really tolerate anything that isn’t French. It’s a little difficult to say. We have a black son-in-law in a family, we don’t really know how to say it. We don’t even know how to say “black” or “Arab”, so we say “black” or “beur”. We have some little problems with these things.”

This is not the first time that the actor has raised one of the problems he sees in French society. But despite the attacks on his intentions that are sometimes made against him, he never misses an opportunity to express his love for France, in its qualities and its faults, as he had already explained:

I like to love this country and I like to say it, because I think that’s the biggest problem with this country: it doesn’t love itself or not enough. Sometimes I overplayed it a little, finally I was a little chauvinistic, just when people thought I would no longer be so.

I have lived in this country for 50 years, I have been traveling and seeing its regions for 25 years. And every time, I say: “I love France”, either it’s taken over by a political party, or you’re suspect, or you have to have a football jersey to actually say it… When you say : “I love France” and you have a football jersey, there is no problem, the flags are raised. As soon as you leave the stadium, there is no flag and you are suspect. So, you might as well keep your mouth shut… But I love this country, and I feel good there! I like to say it.

Jean Dujardin’s message is clear: at a time when community tensions are particularly high and indignation is frequent, it has become very difficult, if not impossible, to laugh at certain subjects which nevertheless profoundly constitute what the French. A fight that the actor is determined to continue to wage, as the OSS saga attests.