Bertrand Cantat and his group Détroit opened a participatory prize pool on the Ulule platform on Wednesday to finance their next album. The former leader of Noir Désir has had no distributor or record label since his conviction in 2004 for the murder of Marie Trintignant and his release from prison in 2010. On Friday, the prize pool had accumulated 134,000 euros from 2,200 contributors.
The operation, however, displeases many feminist figures. Clit Revolution, Rose Lamy and Lauren Bastide have called for a boycott of the prize pool, of course, but more generally of the Ulule platform.
The company in turn reacted by publishing a press release. “This project created enormous unease within our team,” said Ulule managers, who explained that they were unaware that Bertrand Cantat was the beneficiary of this prize pool since his name did not appear anywhere. “We do not wish to associate Ulule with what Bertrand Cantat represents for victims of domestic violence,” they add, specifying that, without removing the collection, they will “no longer give it any visibility” on its communication channels.
Ulule, however, specifies that it is not able to close the said prize pool because the object and contents thereof are not of any illegal nature. “Once a fundraiser has been launched, we only have the right to stop it during collection if its subject or content is illegal, or contravenes Ulule’s conditions of use, which is not not the case with this one,” explains the press release.
The platform has thus assured that it will fully donate the commissions it receives from the kitty of Bertrand Cantat and his group Detroit to “an association helping women victims of domestic violence”.
