Last Sunday, Brigitte Macron’s wife went with her daughter Tiphaine Auzière to see a show by comedian Ary Abittan at the Folies Bergère theater in Paris. The playful outing would not have had a greater impact if it were not for the statements he made before the performance, in which he described “dirty cunts”, which could be translated as “shitty assholes”, to four feminists who had interrupted Abittan’s show the day before, accused of rape in 2021 and who had been retired from the stage for some time for this reason.
A camera captured a conversation between the two, just before the show began. Brigitte Macron approached the comedian to greet him: “How are you doing?” “I’m afraid… of everything,” he answers. “If there are shitty assholes, we throw them out on the street,” Brigitte Macron replies, laughing.
This brief exchange between the two has not exactly been funny, but has provoked a chain of reactions in feminist groups, the political class and many media. To begin with, the #noustoutes collective (all of us) to which the militants described as “stupid” by the first lady belonged. They appeared at the Abittan show that was held on Saturday with masks with the comedian’s face and shouted at him as a “rapist.”
“We are deeply surprised and scandalized. The words used [por Brigitte Macron] They say a lot about your vision of things. The political message is extremely shocking,” one of the group’s activists told the AFP agency.
“I’m also a shitty asshole. And I support all the others,” actress Judith Godrèche, one of the most visible figures in the world, has posted on her social networks. metoo against sexual violence in cinema. In 2024, for having raped her when she was a teenager.
At the end of 2021, comedian Ary Abittan was accused of rape by a 23-year-old woman. She accused him of having imposed non-consensual sexual practices on her. After two years of investigation, the investigating judges closed the case, considering that there was not enough evidence to indict him. She appealed, but a trial could not be held.
He had retired from the stage after the complaint and returned in May 2024 with tours of France. Since then the #noustoutes collective had requested that their shows be cancelled. They allege that Abittan was never acquitted of the alleged crime, since there was no judicial process. They remember that 83% of complaints of rape or sexual assault end up being filed, due to lack of evidence, because it is one person’s word against another’s.
Brigitte Macron’s words have caused great indignation in the country and representatives of left-wing parties have censored her outburst, considering that it is an insult to victims of sexual violence, especially those who cannot prove that they were victims. “These are very serious statements, a first lady should not say that,” criticized the leader of the environmentalists, Marine Tondelier. Manon Aubry, MEP from La Francia Insumisa, Jean Luc Mélenchon’s party, has ironically said: “We started this mandate [de Macron] saying that women’s rights were a priority and we ended up insulting them.”
The case of the comedian is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Her return to the stage has been highly criticized by feminist groups, who do not understand why it has not been cancelled. Emmanuel Macron, after dozens of women accused him of having attacked them during filming.
Last May, the interpreter during the filming of a film in 2021. Some time before, Macron had said that Depardieu was “a source of pride for France.”
“We must stop the useless controversies. Although the terms are not appropriate, the first lady expresses a reality. These interventions [de las feministas] repeated do not help the cause they defend,” defended deputy Prisca Thevenot, of Macron’s party, Together for the Republic. The Minister of Public Accounts, Amélie de Montchalin, has admitted that it is not “a language appropriate to public debate.”
Brigitte Macron’s entourage explained to AFP that “this conversation must be seen simply as a criticism of the radical method used by those who, masked, disrupted Ary Abittan’s show on Saturday to prevent it from taking place.” Former president François Hollande has also spoken out: “Although the forms can be criticized, when it comes to women fighting against violence against women, one does not speak out in those terms.”
