Ardisson and the decoration that does not pass

Host and producer Thierry Ardisson received the Legion of Honor on April 11 from Emmanuel Macron. The head of state praised a “character of total freedom, provocative and erudite”, even going so far as to describe him as a “decipherer of modernity”.

Did the president have in mind the question that Ardisson liked to submit to his show Everybody talks about it : “Is sucking cheating?” »

Regardless, the choice of this honor goes down very badly in France. In a text entitled “The Slap”, published Saturday in Release, Christine Angot sharply denounced this initiative. Invited in 1999 on the set of the show whose specialty was, according to her, “humor-humiliation”, at the time of the publication of her novel Incestthe author had a bad time.

Read Christine Angot’s column in Release (subscription required)

While the host read a passage where she recounts the sexual assaults her father subjected her to, certain guests (Clémentine Célarié, David Hallyday) snickered in front of the visibly amused host.

A year later, Christine Angot relates in Leave the city this strange scene. Reinvited by Ardisson, she experiences something even more trying. Faced with the insulting sentences published in the press about her and listed by the host, she tries to respond. It’s then that Laurent Baffie, the king’s fool, shouts: “I’m talking, Christine: you listen to me or I’ll smack you!” »

Christine Angot detached her microphone and left the set.

“It’s a slap in the face,” she wrote in the text of Release. Baffie had announced it. Macron gives it. » Ouch!

Still in this same issue of Releasethe Quebec essayist and novelist Martine Delvaux, visiting Paris as part of the Book Festival, recalled Thierry Ardisson’s insult to Nelly Arcan, who came to present her novel in France Whorein September 2001. During the interview Up and downArdisson asked the Quebec author what was the least sexy about her.

Faced with his hesitation, Ardisson told him: “I know,” before whispering in his ear: “We have to lose this Canadian accent because it’s terrible, I swear. We haven’t spoken like that since the 18th century.^e century. »

Read Martine Delvaux’s column in Release (subscription required)

Last Friday, dozens of French personalities, including Judith Godrèche, Anna Mouglalis, Emmanuelle Béart, Antoine Gallimard, Camille Kouchner, Anouk Grinberg, Olivier Assayas, Alexandra Lamy and Ludivine Sagnier, signed a letter to President Macron.

“At a time when awareness is finally being awakened about sexual violence against children and women, you consider it appropriate to decorate one of the leading figures of television trash of the 80s and 90s”, write the signatories, recalling in passing that Emmanuel Macron declared that Gérard Depardieu made France proud.

Actress Sara Forestier also reacted strongly to the host’s decoration, which she sees as a “shame”. During his appearance on the show, in 2006, as part of the promotion of the film hellthe young woman was bombarded with questions about her intimate life.

“Have you ever flirted with one of your father’s friends? », asked Thierry Ardisson. “Have you ever flirted with your father? », added Laurent Baffie.

Eighteen years after this surreal moment, the actress expresses her exasperation at seeing Thierry Ardisson today decorated. “I wonder what honor means to the French state. It is so honorable to trivialize incest, the control of older men over young girls, to humiliate young girls by reducing them to the status of sexual objects. »

Thierry Ardisson has not made any criminal gesture. But his uncle’s words are catching up with him today. His way of targeting the most attractive female guest on the set and treating her like an idiot in front of his audience has long paid off. It is no longer so today.

France is experiencing the effects of an unprecedented #metoo movement. Everything is going extremely fast at the moment. The decision to decorate Thierry Ardisson could not have come at a worse time. It is surprising to see that the president’s entourage was unable to predict the reaction this decoration aroused.

In her text, Christine Angot says something which sums up well what is happening at the moment in France. “We have changed eras. But they haven’t changed times. »

Thierry Ardisson is indeed a man from another era. He was unable to evolve and forget the macho comments he distributed to the young actresses and singers who appeared on his set.

Ardisson is so no longer of his time that he does not know that the expression “words fly away, writings remain” no longer means anything. Today, lyrics are archived, preserved and travel very easily. Talk to politicians and personalities whose comments are constantly reported by a growing number of journalists specializing in this type of section.

Next June, Emmanuel Macron will elevate Michel Sardou to the rank of Grand Officer of the National Order of Merit. In an interview given in 2023 to BFMTV, the interpreter ofBe a woman (“ a woman from the 80s, but a woman through and through) said that feminists “annoy” him and that he finds the #metoo movement “dangerous”.

But when he is pinned down by President Macron, we will say none of that. The words remain. Except at the time of the distribution of honors.