“You have the right to ask me any questions you have. Not just those that you have prepared with your teachers…” The actress and director Julie Gayet, on tour in schools to talk about Olympe de Gouges, a historical figure that she plays in a TV film soon to be broadcast on France 2, has stopped in Libourne. This Monday, January 13, she met the students of the Jean-Monnet high school, following a preview screening of the film that she co-directed with Mathieu Busson. An interview in which she spoke about her journey to encourage young people to follow their aspirations and to work tirelessly to achieve them. And try to wake them up to the battles that still need to be fought for gender equality.
“Anyone know MeeToo? The Weinstein affair? » The answers are timid. Julie Gayet takes up its history: the liberation of speech, the emergence of the Time’s Up group in the United States, or of HeForShe in Great Britain, and in France of the 50-50 collective. The latter notably collects data highlighting the inequalities of treatment but also of representation in the different audiovisual professions: “25% female directors, only 5% musicians…” And explains that actresses, before the appearance of intimacy coordinators, could then fall prey to the fantasies and whims of directors.
The cinema lesson
“What do you say to people who say that there is no longer any need to fight for women’s equality? » “That nothing is won, gender stereotypes die hard, women themselves tend to self-censor or to maintain sometimes destructive competition. There has been enormous progress,” she emphasizes, referring to sexual violence or equality at work. But vigilance remains essential. She herself is an ambassador for the Women’s Foundation.
And Olympe de Gouges in all this? The playwright (1748-1793), humanist even before feminism, native of Montauban, resurfaces at each stage of the speech, a pioneer on women’s rights, but also on hygiene or the elderly, invested and passionate. The cinema lesson takes over, between casting, filming locations, anecdotes, costumes, budget constraints… And the narrative choices, between ellipses and flashbacks, the impasse on the National Assembly to better set up the Jacobins club . The corset experience, traumatic “which says a lot about men’s control over women’s bodies”. And this scene of the guillotine, at the end of a trial that this revolutionary, daughter of a bourgeoisie, nevertheless thought she would win.
“Children of the Fatherland”
In front of a room with little talk, Julie Gayet challenges, questions, encourages people to speak out. “You’re a little shy. In middle school, students ask more questions, they dare to do anything. Like wondering if it was really me on the scooter with François Hollande. I never escape it! », Teases the one who married the former head of state in 2022, now deputy for Corrèze. And to conclude with the last words attributed to Olympe de Gouges. “Children of the Fatherland, you will avenge my death. » “I’m not for revenge. But I like to think we did something…”
