The city of Besançon paid tribute on Wednesday to the writer Colette (1873-1954) with a giant bust installed in front of the station, on the occasion of International Women's Rights Day.
The entirely white work, by the sculptor Nathalie Talec, evokes the writer, through the bust of a young girl, with a cat on her shoulder and a scarf bearing passport stamps, a reference to her taste for travel .
“
The matte white of the biscuit - porcelain, the material that makes up the sculpture - evokes travel.
The figure represented, a character with closed eyes, refers to an inner journey, through dreams and imagination
”, declared Nathalie Talec, during an inaugural speech.
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The statue, 3.50 meters high, pays homage to Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, who would have turned 150 on January 28.
Although Burgundian, the writer spent a long time in Besançon between 1900 and 1905, as recalled during the inauguration by the ecologist mayor of the city, Anne Vignot.
With her husband Willy, Colette had settled in a villa in the heights of Besançon, in the Monts-Boucons, where she rediscovered the pleasure of the countryside.
"A figure of the emancipation of women"
"
It was very close that from Bourguignonne, I turned bisontine, or at least franc-comtoise
", she wrote.
His separation from Willy will put an end to this little paradise.
“
The dispossession of his home in Monts-Boucons, during his divorce, is heartbreaking.
It is a pivotal moment in her life, where she emancipates herself from her husband and where her desire to write is reinforced
, ”summarized Ms. Vignot.
"
Her divorce will allow her to live from her pen, to gain freedom, autonomy, independence, which make her a figure of modernity and the emancipation of women," she said
.
The mayor of Victor Hugo's hometown wanted the inauguration of the statue to coincide with March 8, International Women's Day.
Meanwhile, in Paris, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to feminist activist Gisèle Halimi.
“
Promoting women is a social issue.
Getting them out of invisibility is a duty
,” she pleaded.