The announcement made some feminist activists jump. “Emmanuel Macron will decorate Michel Sardou with the National Order of Merit,” executive advisors told AFP on Wednesday, partly confirming information from Nouvel Obs.
According to the weekly, Michel Sardou will be awarded his decorations as Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit during a ceremony in June at the Élysée. A date which has not been confirmed by the executive.
“The patriarchy will fall, it is already faltering. But they will all decorate each other first,” said Sandrine Rousseau, MP and feminist figure, on her social networks.
Michel Sardou, during what he presented as his last tour, ironically dedicated his song “I will love you” to Sandrine Rousseau.
“The song that comes risks deconstructing Sandrine Rousseau! », he hilariously said to his audience, in front of 5,000 fans, during the kick-off of this tour in October 2023 in Normandy, we noted. “To make all the Marquis de Sade pale/To make the whores of the harbor blush (…) I'm going to love you” we hear in this title dating from 1976.
“And it sure deserves a decoration!” » squeaked socialist senator Laurence Rossignol, quoting the lyrics of the song “The cities of solitude” (1973): “I want to rape women/To force them to admire me”.
“April 1st was 8 days ago,” Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Women’s Foundation, lamented online Tuesday when the Nouvel Obs was announced.
Admired as much as hated, Michel Sardou, 77, established himself as one of the monuments of French song during a career marked by dozens of hits (“La Maladie d’amour”, “Les Lacs du Connemara”, “Being a woman”…) and discordant positions. In August 2023, Juliette Armanet described the hit “Les Lacs du Connemara” as “sectarian” and “right-wing”, triggering a wave of hatred on social networks. A controversy deemed “ridiculous” by the singer.