Telling the "
truths that we could not tell
" when we were in charge is a great classic of ex-ministers.
The exercise is often a double-edged sword: the reader expects revelations that are generally not in the pages, and always wonders, in the end, why the things denounced were not settled when they could be.
By publishing
682 days, the ball of the hypocrites
, Roselyne Bachelot has just subscribed to the rite.
She does not say everything, but she often writes with humor.
Attention!
She shoots on sight, her publisher had warned.
Not on the President of the Republic or on his friend Jean Castex, in any case: most of his shots are centered on the unions and the artists.
As you read, a small background of contempt for certain journalists encountered during these 682 days point, here or there.
Sometimes described as
“cultural journalists”
or
“malicious journalists, which is a pleonasm”
, they were obviously not always allies.
It does not matter: the former minister, by staging the insufficiency of the unions, politicians, artists or media, plays on velvet.
Entering the government to defend artistic circles, Bachelot arrives in the midst of a health crisis, having to manage the fury of museums, cinemas or concerts at the time of confinement.
But while the government and the Ministry of Culture widely open the tap of aid, the singer Benjamin Biolay launches him one day:
"You put me on dry bread."
Actors “overpaid, and unappreciative”
“Throughout this crisis, I remained stunned by the double language of this environment, able to show my gratitude in private, while deploying aggressiveness and victimization on television”
she writes.
The memory of the disastrous Cesar ceremony in 2021 allows him to add a ladle to these film actors
“overpaid, and not very grateful to the most generous government in the world”
.
It will excuse, in part, the artists, by the
"suffering"
of not having been able to play or perform for many months.
Emmanuel Macron had he also not affirmed that Culture was not an essential good?
The unions also take it for their rank, described as
“sacred cows”
fighting to perpetuate an
“archaic system”
.
Listening to them,
"I often had the impression of attending endless general meetings of co-owners"
, she testifies.
Admittedly, in this game, Roselyne Bachelot admits that
“we are all accomplices”
.
Including her, therefore, who despite her profile as an experienced right-wing woman, did not dare or could not confront these famous sacred cows.
A statement of helplessness?
Without a doubt.
After forty years in politics, the former minister also believes that
"the degradation of the ministerial image is something incredible"
.
And do not come and talk to him about the golden age of the ministry under Jack Lang, the policy of the offer made in the 1980s “
having in no way served the democratization of culture”.
Worse, it contributed to transforming the ministry into a window and a manager of
“feudalism”
.
682 days,
Plon editions, 283p, 20.90 euros.
