"Excessive" or the new Joan of Arc of feminism? By pushing Christophe Girard, the cultural assistant to Anne Hidalgo, to resign, because of his supposed links with Gabriel Matzneff, the writer targeted by an investigation for "rape of minors", the feminist activist Alice Coffin has made a sensational entry into the Council of Paris where she has just been recently elected under the colors of environmentalists.
Unknown to the general public, this lesbian activist accustomed to feminist circles and LBGT offered herself an unexpected publicity by going out of her hinges on Friday in the middle of the Council of Paris. "Shame, shame, shame" she yelled while the Paris advisers stood up to applaud after "the republican salute" addressed by the Paris police prefect, Didier Lallement to Mr. Culture of Paris , forced to resign the day before, under the pressure of thirty feminists gathered on the forecourt of the town hall, to which were joined several elected ecologists.
Paris Council: Prefect Lallement pays tribute to Girard, Hidalgo applauds, the Greens implode
A storm of insults and hatred
This scene widely criticized on social networks even earned Alice Coffin to be propelled to the top of Twitter trends. It was at this time that a video from 2018 emerged in which she had estimated, on the set of RT France, that "not having a husband, that exposes me not to be raped, not to be killed, not to be beaten ”. "What happened is very serious," says the activist to the Parisian. The storm of insults and hatred was so violent that I was offered police protection. "
Before accepting it this Sunday evening, she says she first refused it despite the pressure of her partner Silvia with whom she has been in a civil partnership for 6 years. She previously lived in a relationship with Alix Béranger, organizer of the controversial demonstration against Christophe Girard, last Thursday, and co-founder of the feminist action group La Barbe and the LGBT collective Oui Oui Oui, born during the debates around Marriage for all.
Far from disheveled activism, the life of Alice Coffin, now 42, started out as in a fairy tale. At least this is the very smooth version that the interested party delivers. The eldest of a family of six children, she was raised in the 12th arrondissement of Paris, between the Aligre market and the Gare de Lyon. “I grew up in a close-knit family. My father was in civil aviation, my mother was a school principal. I was playing football. I had short hair. They didn't try to fit me into the mold. Moreover, my mother became an activist at La Barbe which is my matrix and my father has just opened a Twitter account to support me. "
Journalist at 20 Minutes
After preparatory classes at Lycée Condorcet (8th), she obtained a license in philosophy and continued her studies at Sciences-po (Bordeaux) and at the Journalists' Training Center before becoming a journalist specializing in the media, in particular for the daily 20 Minutes. Along with her professional activities, she leads her militant struggle.
In 2013, she co-founded the Association of LGBT Journalists. In 2018, she won the Fulbright scholarship and went to the United States "to study the treatment of LGBT issues in the media". She has completed her book "Le genie lesbien" which will be released in September at Grasset. Today, she teaches journalistic writing at the Catholic Institute in Paris, as well as in Paris I.
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To hear her, nothing predestined her to be in politics. “David Belliard (the former EELV candidate for mayor of Paris, now transport deputy, Editor's note) , with whom I am a friend, wanted me to join his lists. I hesitated for a long time because I did not see how to make visible my fights by being elected, ”she says. She took the plunge… But there is no question of giving up her activism: “I will not give it up, history is riddled with activists and trade unionists who have had a political career. I'm not going to give up my fight because I put on a tricolor scarf. There is no border for me between activism and politics. "
Renowned "volcanic"
Deemed "volcanic", Alice Coffin offers a calm image to her interlocutors, claiming her membership in La Barbe, "a group which is unanimous within the feminist and LGBT movement" and defending itself from having enemies. "It is my principle not to publicly criticize other feminists", assures the one who has as models the media Rokhaya Diallo in France, Denise Ho, lesbian activist in Hong-Kong or Marielle Franco, lesbian municipal councilor of Rio assassinated. She says she has "an absolute admiration for militant Afro-feminists".
"She crossed the line"
Audrey Pulvar, the former journalist who became Anne Hidalgo's assistant and who also claims her "activism", believes that Alice Coffin "has crossed the line" and does not share her reading "of the links between Matzneff and Christophe Girard," who is not accused of anything ”, and even less“ his “hateful vision of society and its rejection of men”. “She reminds me of Christine Angot. It is sincere but excessive and without limit ”, analyzes Audrey Pulvar,“ worried ”for the future of the municipal majority but who condemns the surge of lesbophobic remarks which Alice Coffin has been the subject of on social networks.
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, was more virulent in asking for his exclusion from the Council of Paris. "We are in militant hysteria", say those close to him according to the JDD.
"Come out on top of this business"
Ally of Anne Hidalgo that he is, and while the mayor of Paris considers that Alice Coffin and her sidekick Raphaëlle Rémy-Leleu are no longer part of the majority, her friend David Belliard defends it: “J I wanted her to be on our lists because she embodies a recognized feminist activist movement very involved in issues of gender equality and violence against women. We cannot want renewal and ask the younger generations to conform to the practices of twenty years ago. We will have to learn to work together and build a common doctrine to come out on top of this affair ”.
Alice Coffin explains that she felt the standing ovation at the Council of Paris as “a show of force”. “I wasn't expecting it, I was stunned, revolted, revolted at the same time. It is scandalous that Christophe Girard was appointed deputy and applauded. I have read Médiapart and the New York Times and I believe what the newspapers say ”, she supports in reference to the supposed support of the ex-deputy for Culture, who would have helped Gabriel Matzneff to obtain housing and a scholarship from the National Book Council in the 1980s.