Frédéric Beigbeder, new target of French feminists.
On the night of April 20 to 21, the famous Bordeaux bookstore was vandalized ahead of a meeting with the author.
This follows the publication of his latest novel
Confessions of a slightly outdated heterosexual
(Albin Michel) and in particular a remarkable passage on the air of France Inter on April 3.
Responding to a question from Sonia Devillers, he explained in particular: “I wrote about gender-based violence […] fifteen years before #MeToo.
Why don't I have an anti-sexist fighter medal?
The day after my death I should be in the Pantheon, like Annie Ernaux!”
READ
ALSO - Confessions of a slightly overwhelmed heterosexual
, by Frédéric Beigbeder
:
memoirs of a tidy man
A remark that did not fail to trigger the ire of Internet users, with very real repercussions.
Frédéric Beigbeder, known for his provocative and corrosive humor, received threats and intimidation, even outside his home.
Yesterday again, in Bordeaux, he paid the price.
He must be present at the Paris Book Festival tomorrow, Saturday April 22.
The novelist and journalist Tristane Banon was moved by this relentlessness in a forum from which we publish some extracts:
“So here is the new man to kill of French feminism, we have the fights that we can.
Frédéric Beigbeder now unleashes hatred and vindictiveness.
This Friday, April 21 again, when he had to sign at the famous Bordeaux bookstore Mollat, it was vandalized the night before, covered with collages and graffiti of all kinds, all indignant at the coming of the author guilty of all the "words" of the moment.
His signing session will however be maintained, and the author will arrive under police protection, improbable and ubiquitous (half) victory of the new censors of our time.
At the time of writing this text, a number of feminists, certain of being those who will change the world by prohibiting a man from signing books, are demonstrating in front of the said bookstore.
These are the great fights of the century for some.
He didn't rape, he didn't force, he didn't insult.
Never.
He is not blamed for that.
No one can find anything reliable of the sort to properly weaponize their media shootout, or justify this popular new cabal.
His book, too honest, only serves as a pretext for a lynching that has become ordinary because, ultimately, it is much easier to unleash on a man than to count our individual and collective shortcomings.
[...]
Frédéric Beigbeder is not an angel, not a devil either.
He is not a philosopher, not an anthropologist, not a cop, commissioner, judge or minister for equality between women and men.
In writing this book, he did not go against any law but, even more, against any humanist principle.
That he is reproached, at the end of everything, for having positioned himself as a victim, in a world overflowing with victims, while he was born white, bourgeois and in the right place on the globe, is to gross injustice.
There is no competition of misfortune.
[...]
Fifteen years ago, a Belgian journalist asked me what I thought of the (bad) life of Frédéric Beigbeder.
I remember having answered him “Frédéric received a bourgeois education, in his milieu, you don't commit suicide, it's far too vulgar.
So he slowly kills himself in front of all of us, hoping that we'll save him, and we have fun.
»
In his last book, I read nothing other than the confirmation of my intuition at the time and, at a time when everyone wants to put him to death, I myself am very happy that love l finally saved.”