After Bruno Le Maire, Rachida Dati also defends Sylvain Tesson, as Minister of Culture. The writer was singled out Thursday in a column published in Libération and signed by “more than 1,200 poets, editors, booksellers, actresses and actors of the French cultural scene” opposing the appointment of Sylvain Tesson as godfather of the Spring of Poets, which will be held from March 9 to 25.
“Culture is generous, it needs authors who introduce our literary heritage and our new poetic scene. Sylvain Tesson is one of those writers who desire to share his love of words with everyone. I am happy that the Spring of Poets celebrates this vision of poetry everywhere in France, open, free and popular,” declared Rachida Dati in a tweet published this Sunday, January 21. The minister, however, refrains from explicitly mentioning the anti-Tesson platform.
The new Minister of Culture is not the only one to have spoken out. Other right-wing political figures spoke, such as Bruno Le Maire, Xavier Bertrand, but also Éric Ciotti and Valérie Pécresse.
Also read: Patrice Jean: “Do the petitioners know that Baudelaire was more reactionary than Tesson?”
According to the authors of the column, Sylvain Tesson, regular in the columns of Le Figaro, represents a “reactionary icon” and a “leading figure of the literary extreme right”. “We refuse that a cultural event to which we are in fact inextricably linked in a symbolic way, created “in order to counter preconceived ideas and to make manifest the extreme vitality of poetry”, be embodied by a writer established as an icon reactionary,” they add.
