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French Music Seen From Abroad Jan 2007
Singers with a Cause
Paris
16/01/2007 -
As the media hype surrounding this spring's presidential elections in France ratchets up another notch, an increasing number of French singers have been jumping on the political bandwagon, pledging their support to left or right. But this has not always boosted their chosen candidate's image - as the government candidate, French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, recently found to his cost!
Doc Gynéco, whom the European Jewish Press in Belgium (21/12/2006) mistakenly describes as "the Gainsbourg of French rap", has slipped out of his regular position in the charts these days. But since he came out in support of Nicolas Sarkozy, it appears that the rapper's every move has been scrutinised in the press. First up, the Romanian Internet portal Playfuls (18/12/2006) reported that Gynéco had been "landed with a 665,000-euro fine for non-payment of taxes between 1998 and 2000." Worse was yet to come in the New Year. The French-Swiss edition of 20 Minutes (08/01/2007) delved further into the rapper's personal life, revealing how he drunkenly flouted the Highway Code. "Doc Gynéco, accompanied by the writer Christine Angot", the newspaper reported, "had been spending the evening with friends. On leaving, the singer called a taxi for his friend but refused to get into the car with her when it arrived. Witnessing Gynéco's inebriated state, the driver insisted he get into the taxi but the latter refused, saying he would follow them on his scooter – which he has continued to drive despite being stripped of his license. Arriving in central Paris, the taxi driver was forced to brake and Doc Gynéco crashed into the back of the car, not having braked in time himself. He proceeded to verbally abuse the driver before police officers intervened. The officers (…) found that the singer's alcohol level was three times over the legal limit."
Hardly a positive media spin for his friend Nicolas Sarkozy's campaign! And worse was yet to come. Johnny Hallyday, another celebrity supporter of the French interior minister, caused a national outcry when he announced his imminent departure for Switzerland. Britain's Daily Telegraph (15/12/2006) reported that Hallyday had provoked "furious debate" in France while the rest of the British and American press had a field day. "Veteran French rocker escapes taxes", ran the headline in the American financial magazine Forbes (17/12/2006). In order to benefit from Switzerland's more lenient fiscal regime, a journalist in The Washington Post (16/12/2006) noted that "Hallyday will have to live there six months and one day of the year". This is hardly the first time that a celebrity has been lured abroad by the promise of paying less income tax, acknowledged a reporter in Britain's Independent (19/12/2006), but this is "equivalent to the Louvre lending the Mona Lisa part-time to a gallery in Zermat". Spain's El Pais (05/01/2007) was altogether more succinct, noting that "old rockers never pay taxes". Fortunately, the Swiss newspaper Le Matin (27/12/2006) had already rallied to Johnny's defence, revealing the real reason behind the move : "(Monsieur Hallyday's) primary objective in Switzerland is to quit smoking!" it claims.
While the French weekly news magazine Courrier International (22/12/2006) wondered about the "Johnny effect" on the election campaign, other French celebrities busied themselves rallying round the Socialist candidate, Ségolène Royal. The Swiss magazine L'Hebdo (16/12/2006) noted wryly that in a country "where everything begins and ends with a song" the French presidential elections are "a godsend for music. "(French female rap star) Diam's has gone overboard for Ségolène, Johnny claims that there's 'a little bit of Sarkozy' in all of us and (French bad boy rapper) Joey Starr has gone philo-Trotskyist espousing Olivier Besancenot's cause… This isn't an election campaign – it's a jukebox programme!" And as if things had not gone far enough, L'Hebdo also reported that those "veteran hard rockers Trust have even re-opened their old metal plant, bringing out a well-timed record entitled 'Sarkoland'."
Meanwhile, far away from Politicoland, Yannick Noah, the former French tennis star turned reggae-pop celeb, has found an even better way to keep his name in the media spotlight. Noah is currently cresting on a new wave of popularity after an annual poll revealed that he is now France's second most popular celebrity after Zinedine Zidane. While Noah is on a winning streak, the Paris football team have been on a disastrous losing one of late. And the Canadian newspaper Metro (11/01/2007) reports that "Paris Saint-Germain have engaged the services of former French tennis champion Yannick Noah to restore calm in their troubled ranks". Noah has (partly) denied the claim, acknowledging that he has occasionally served as a morale-boosting "mental coach", but he claims he is too committed to his music career to take up any kind of full-time position with the team. And all the more so, as the reggae-pop chart-topper is currently preparing for a major French tour at the start of May.
Gilles Rio
Translation : Julie Street
15/11/2006 -
