An Anne-Sylvestre kiosk
This spring, participants in the consultation to name the bandstand in Stalingrad Park had to choose between five singers or musicians: Betty Davis, Carla Bley, Sinéad O’Connor, Fanny Mendelssohn and Anne Sylvestre. It is the latter, the only French artist in the selection, who was chosen by 315 voters out of 1,047.
A very popular singer-songwriter in the 60s and 70s, Anne Sylvestre began singing at the end of the 50s until her death in 2020, at the age of 86. A committed feminist throughout her career, she brought to the forefront the daily lives of women in the patriarchal society of the time, evoking, in her texts, themes that were still relatively uncommon in French pop culture, such as rape, abortion or homosexuality.
In 2026, 20% feminine names
“The new Anne-Sylvestre kiosk is part of the municipality’s desire to feminize the names of streets and public facilities in the city,explains Hawa Touré, municipal councilor responsible for gender equality and the fight against discrimination. We have in fact noted that only 5% of them bore the name of a female personality. It therefore seemed necessary to us to proceed with a rebalancing with the objective of reaching, before the end of the mandate, at least 20%.”
An acceleration of the process
If the process has already been underway for several years – the new Les Pantinoises real estate complex in Courtillières includes a Gisèle-Halimi square and a Miriam-Makeba street, a Cécile-Brunschvicg square has seen the light of day in the Port district and a school is calls Joséphine-Baker to Quatre-Chemins – the process will accelerate in the fall with an operation to feminize around ten municipal facilities. “It is also about raising awareness of the lives of these women artists, activists or those involved in their field who, in their own way, have all marked the history of France,” adds Hawa Touré. This campaign, which had already been the subject of a first phase of consultation, should give rise to citizen votes.
