How this Francis Huster tirade became an Internet meme 2 years later

UNUSUAL – You may have seen it on your X tracking feed (ex-Twitter) this Friday, October 4. For several days, the diversions of a tirade by Francis Huster have been flooding the social network. In an extract from March 2022, the actor monologues vehemently on the inaction of Joe Biden and Pope Francis in the face of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. And this greatly inspired Internet users, as you can see in our video at the top of the article.

In this tirade, which is taken from a March 2022 episode of the show The paths of philosophypresented by Adèle Van Reeth on France Culture, the French actor accused the President of the United States of “disgrace America”. He added to the fact that “John Fitzgerald Kennedy would never have let this happen “. But Joe Biden was not the only one to be accused, Pope Francis was also guilty according to Francis Huster of “stay in the Vatican instead of going to kyiv and saying “KILL ME!” I represent Christ!” ».

Nearly three years later, an Internet user rediscovered the extract in question and reshared it. The publication (which you can see above) went viral and currently has more than 6 million views. Since then, diversions have been pouring in, first in the video game community, inserting Francis Huster’s monologue into the radioAdibouhaving the non-player characters recite it GTA or replacing the Joker announcements in Batman Arkham Asylum.

The phenomenon has extended to other universes, and we hear the French actor’s lines spoken by Cartman from the animated series South Park, during a manga speech Attack on Titan or at the time of the famous phone call from the horror film Scream.

Internet users are doubling their imagination to place Francis Huster’s speech almost everywhere. We thus hear the tirade pronounced by PSG coach Luis Enrique to Kylian Mbappé, in an RATP announcement or even by Olivier Dussopt, causing a commotion in the National Assembly.

Francis Huster like Molière

However, if Francis Huster’s original diatribe is here deliberately taken out of context (even if a community note X regularly accompanies the publications), it should absolutely not be taken at face value. This is in fact an extract from the paths of philosophy in which the actor is invited to express himself in the manner of Alceste, a character in the play The Misanthrope by Molière, to comment on the news of the time.

The extract was then taken up by the television channel CNews without context, before becoming one of the subjects of the FloodCast, a podcast hosted by Florent Bernard and Adrien Ménielle.

Since then, the tirade has been regularly taken up and discussed, as during the announcement of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential campaign last July.

In addition to winning the 2024 Molière d’Honneur last May, Francis Huster could well win the prize for funniest meme of the year.

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