ANDRE VLTCHEK: Employees of Charlie Hebdo go periodically out of the building for a smoke. I try to engage them in a conversation, but they reply in very short sentences only. They do their best to ignore me. Somehow, intuitively, they sense that I am not here to tell the official story.
I ask them why don’t they ever poke fun at Western neo-colonialism, at the grotesque Western election system, or at the Western allies that are committing genocides all over the world: India, Israel, Indonesia, Rwanda, or Uganda? They impatiently dismiss me with their body language. Such thoughts are not encouraged, and most likely, they are not allowed. Even humorists and clowns in modern France know their place.
They soon let me know that I am asking too many questions. One of the employees simply looks, meaningfully, in the direction of armed cops. I get the message. I am not in the mood for a lengthy interrogation. I move on.
[…] A few hours later, I received an email in which Francoise reflected on his complex relationship with his native land, and its culture:
“Being French nowadays and being free to express yourself is impossible. Back in the early 2000s, I could not accept the frame that culture would impose on its artists, and they could not accept my questioning and different approach to art making. They either spat on me or even worse, went mute. So, I left. You must travel outside of Europe and live and work outside, to feel the world.
I felt also that politically engaged works of art were not considered real art in Paris. There is this thing in France: any political engagement is seen either as propaganda or as advertisement. Back in the early 2000s, we were supposed to make art for art’s sake. We were living under the glass dome of the conservatory. We were ‘protected by the government’.
They let us know that we should not talk about politics or religion in public. Maybe French secularism was a good idea but not to the present extent, when politics and religion became taboo. There is this climate of fear: our elders and teachers hardly discuss politics and religion. And so we didn’t know! Certain things are forbidden to be known in France.
Life in Paris became suffocating. Opinions were not expressed. We were not allowed to understand others. Life became boring: we had nothing substantial to talk about. And so we discussed greasy food and French wine. Economists describe the French economy as “austere”, but I would go further by saying that French behavior as well as French identity is austere. But the French people can’t see it because they now all think the same. They are trying so hard to stay French but they are forgetting, how the world has bled, so their French-ness could be preserved. Their culture was built from the blood flowing from the French colonies, and on the foundations of the modern-day French Empire.” More here.