Honored, but no thanks. Director Joël Pommerat announced on Monday January 20 that he was refusing the Legion of Honor. “I was surprised to learn that I had been promoted to the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honor. I am sincerely touched that someone thought of me and I am sorry to have to decline.reacted the artist in a press release. He was elevated to the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honor alongside actresses Camille Cottin and Mélanie Thierry, impersonator and comedian Laurent Gerra, and former Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak, according to a decree from January 15, 2025.
“I believe in the need for perspective for those whose job it is to write about today’s society and world. This form of honor is symbolically posed as an individual reward from the State and is not compatible, in my opinion, with this search for independence.argued the director. An ardent defender of public theater, Joël Pommerat is, at 61, a figure recognized by critics and the public alike, whose plays like Cinderella or the Reunification of the two Koreas toured for several years around the world. His piece Mariusbased on the novel by Marcel Pagnol, developed with inmates during prison workshops, is currently on tour in France.
This refusal is not unusual. Last Monday, comic book author and director Marjane Satrapi also announced that she was refusing the rank of knight of the Legion of Honor, to which she had been elevated in July 2024. The author of Persepolis wanted to denounce “a hypocritical attitude of France towards Iran”Paris refusing to grant visas to “young freedom-loving Iranians, dissidents, artists”. Before them, many artists and scientists refused the charm, from Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir to Marie Curie, including Louis Aragon, Albert Camus and Claude Monet.
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