Published on June 17, 2024 at 5:24 p.m.
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On Saturday, two weeks before the first round of the early legislative elections, the Oscar-winning actress published a post on her Instagram account in which she wears a pin with the inscription: “Youth piss off the National Front”.
It’s just a post. But today we know the power of this way of expressing ourselves. Moreover, it is a post without text, without voice-over, without speaking in an advocacy style as Squeezie, one of the most popular YouTubers in France, has just done very intelligently, warning against “a drastic rise of the far right” and calling “young people who [le] follow » to vote in the early legislative elections of June 30 and July 7. This is a post from actress Marion Cotillard, 1.6 million subscribers on Instagram, published Saturday June 15. And, although it consists of a single selfie, it’s a post that contains words, written on a vintage badge from 1992. March 18, 1992, to be precise. It is written : “Youth annoys the National Front”. A reference to the lyrics of the song “Porcherie” by the group Bérurier noir. With a Z which means “Never again”. A Z which also recalls the origins of this party, founded in particular by a former Waffen-SS, even if the far right is trying to regain its philo-Semitic virginity, all of a sudden.
The other badges and pins (there are twelve in total in this image) mix the effigy of Angela Davis, a red mouth, a heart, and hints of Flower Power. An almost student thing. At the top, I mean at the top of the denim jacket on which these badges flourish, there is the mocking face of Marion Cotillard. Who knew how much of a bombshell this post was going to be? Suddenly, in two days, almost 5,000 comments. Not to mention the “regrams” and relays on other social networks – Facebook, Threads, X (formerly Twitter) and TikTok.
As a clothing specialist, I would be tempted to explain to you that clothes are a language. They don’t even need anything written about them to be strong. But when, in addition, they find the words, then they become so powerful that they immediately arouse strong reactions. This is why there is a category of t-shirts called “message t-shirts”. On the same level as the famous “message song”. Often left-wing, as if by chance.
This ability of clothes to formulate (magic formula) things had its heyday at the end of the 1960s but has never completely disappeared. In May, the Cannes Film Festival was rocked by a scandal: Internet users noticed that a media outlet had erased from an image the Palestinian flag pin worn by actor Guy Pearce, who came to present the film “Shrouds” on the Croisette, even though he knew he was going to be photographed extensively – ” a shame “, reacted the actor to CNN. Madness of the person who made the decision to erase this unusual and visual statement. In short, pins and badges speak.
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But the most astonishing thing in the story of Marion Cotillard is the reactions. Terrible violence is unleashed in the comments under his post. By saying what she thinks of the National Front (FN, renamed National Rally in 2018) so effectively, she brings to light a distressing reality: even if haters must have come to her account especially for the occasion, her audience is probably made up of lots of people who can’t stand being mocked about the National Front or everything that followed it. His post will have acted as a disastrous revealer. However, at no time does the actress stigmatize the French who voted for the extreme right. It is the fundamental principles of the party that she is targeting, not the people who no longer know where to turn and voted for Jordan Bardella.
As for the people who basically agree with her, well, they also criticize the actress, accusing her of not having spoken enough at certain times, accusing her of being rich, famous, etc. In short, mud, everywhere. From now on, if celebrities remain silent, they are accused of letting it happen, of only caring about their little notoriety. If they speak out, we pulverize them.
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To close this article, an anecdote comes to mind: in the 1990s, friends of my parents voted National Front. They had gleaned from some meeting a lighter on which was drawn the shadow of a child with a djellaba and slippers. The caption read: “Go home little Arab”. This made my parents’ friends laugh a lot. Marion Cotillard did not use her own weapon, but a universal weapon.
