Eight years he fought to see her enter the Pantheon. Régis Debray is one of the most fervent promoters of the idea and it comes true on November 30, 2021. Well helped by the nearly 40,000 signatures at the bottom of a petition launched by the essayist Laurent Kupferman and entitled "Osez Joséphine », Joséphine Baker enters the Pantheon this Tuesday. In June, Régis Debray said again at the microphone of France Culture that
"Joséphine Baker deserves the honors of the Pantheon, she is at the height of a heroine
"
.
“
I believe that France would be honored to pantheonize it. (...) I am thinking of the activist of humanity, but also of the activist of French heroism,
”he continued.
Read also Josephine Baker, from the Roaring Twenties to the Glorious Thirties, a life in the form of a rodeo
The writer was also enthusiastic about the unprecedented aspect of such an appointment.
That of the first black woman in the Pantheon, and of an artist of a new genre.
“
We must salute an irregular who has gone down in legend.
It is to bring dance, rhythm, jazz, into the Pantheon.
We will honor what is most unique and most dynamic,
”explained Régis Debray.
From the Folies-Bergère to the supreme sanctuary?
From the banana belt to the laurel wreath?
Profanation!
The National Front will accuse.
The burgrave will moan.
Virtue will gasp.
On August 22, President Macron officially announced the pantheonization of Josephine Baker. The end of several years of media battle for Régis Debray. It was he who first mentioned the name of the singer and dancer, in a column published in
Le Monde
in December 2013.
“From the Folies-Bergère to the supreme sanctuary?
From the banana belt to the laurel wreath?
Profanation!
The National Front will accuse.
The burgrave will moan.
Virtue will gasp.
If kitsch consists, as Kundera says, in “looking at oneself in the mirror of embellishing lies and recognizing themselves there with a touched satisfaction”, nothing would be more exotic, less hypocritical and narcissistic, than to hoist this American naturalized in 1937 , libertarian and Gaullist, war cross and medal of the Resistance, at the heart of the nation.
It is at the height of a man ”,
pleaded the philosopher.
To read also Josephine Baker, a "rainbow tribe" in unison
The writer also saw it as an opportunity to dust off the image of the Pantheon, and to honor a somewhat forgotten heroine.
"To
see the flesh and science, the whimsical and the tortured, Orphée and Jean Moulin, rest side by side, would not be the worst way to bring life back to the top of the hill, to close the gates of war and 'grant the Republic to new times, polyphonic, rebellious and good-natured.
"
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