French minister’s steamy novel turns up heat on Macron
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Loading... - Masika Khaled
- 05 May 2023
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Sex scene in Bruno Le Maire’s book provokes ridicule and anger among opposition politicians
An explicit sex scene in a newly published novel by the French economy minister has left the government facing fresh accusations it is not listening to the concerns of the country just as it tries to contain anger over the unpopular rise in the pension age.
The toe-curling sexual descriptions in the novel, Fugue Américaine, written by the economy minister, Bruno Le Maire, have angered opposition politicians and inspired anti-government slogans and graffiti at street demonstrations as the government struggles to contain the political crisis over Emmanuel Macron raising the minimum pension age to 64.
The novel was published hours before the credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country’s debt worthiness last week, feeding accusations from leftwingers that writing the novel had taken Le Maire’s focus off the economy and inflation.
The minister’s book is a fictionalised account of the pianist Vladimir Horowitz, told through the story of two brothers who travel to Cuba to attend one of his concerts. But it was a sex scene in chapter 11 that has gone viral and prompted French satirists and protesters to ridicule Le Maire.
The public broadcaster France Info said that the sex scene, involving a character called Julia, had been greeted with “mockery and stupefaction”, while the French edition of the Huffington Post headlined its story “Bruno Le Maire has written about an anus and no one was ready for this.”
Julia’s declaration, “I’ve never been this dilated”, sparked ridicule and became the topic of anti-government signs and graffiti at May day demonstrations across France.
The satirist and comedian Sophia Aram read out the sex scene on France’s most popular radio station to a soundtrack of Spandau Ballet music amid jokes about the economy on its knees.
Olivier Varlan, a historian, joked on Twitter that the government should put in place a psychological hotline for people who had stumbled upon the chapter by accident. The award-winning French novelist Nicolas Mathieu, although accepting that any sex scene taken out of context would look ridiculous, offered his own re-writing of the scene. Read More…
