... was for an interview that appeared in Le Devoir . It was in November 1995 in Paris. The
here.
Thanks for the songs, M. Ferrat and also for your generosity that day.
***
That day, students from colleges and universities in France were on strike. Thousands of them marched through the streets of Paris to demand a government that pays nuclear tests suitable conditions in order to study.
They had the support of Jean Ferrat, who left his small village in the Ardeche and who was then in Paris. Ferrat's support as he has always supported the living when they rise and they are not content with the crumbs that drop their powerful, too often disdainfully. "The kids are having a fantastic way," he remarked.
is so rare, yet the rebellion. Ferrat knows, he who fought on all fronts. "There is a poem by Aragon, who said it clearly. His name I hear, I hear and I set to music there are more than thirty years: it is unfortunately still very topical. And it happens this week without much what I see or read what I do not remember. "
Ferrat then recites his beautiful deep voice saying that, through him, I know by heart, too: "I've seen so much that went away, they only asked that the fire They had so little anger, they contented themselves with so little. "A pause, during which an angel is passing. Ferrat then continued: "This" so little "is so true. People, everywhere, always, who are having so much, so have. And have so little anger. "
Ferrat willingly leave the singer instead the militant and willing to reverse its assault course. "I've never been a member of the French Communist Party, said he, but I was a fellow traveler. I was very often close to the positions of the PCF, especially as regards the defense of the poor. And then, especially after the Second World War I like him fiercely opposed to the colonial wars that led France, these barren and terrible shipments. "
At the root of its commitment, as many people of his generation, there is first the war: occupation, the anti-Jewish laws, the Vichy regime, Nazism, persecution, all this is the backdrop for his commitment on which, little by little, will enroll painful disillusionment, especially with the revelation of Stalinism. Ferrat wishes to remind all that clearly. "Stalin, the Soviet Union in general, they were the saviors of democracy. Of course, the allies had also played a big role, but the USSR had paid the heaviest price: 20 million lives to stop Hitler. Stalin was thus seen through it and even then the evidence could not be objectively recognized. Especially since the outset, the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 had been against it all the capitalist world, which denounced it. In this context of a confrontation between two contradictory types of companies, any criticism of the USSR was considered the anti-Soviet propaganda. "
Like many others, the awareness of painful realities concerning the Soviet regime Ferrat in fact gradually. With, among others, the events in Prague and the episode of white coats, which play a revealing role. And above all, for him, the dramatic revelations of Arthur London. Ferrat said: "This description of the Soviet services, this whole shocking story when it forced London to say he was a traitor, all beautifully lit, unfortunately, the Stalinist trials in democracies. Could no longer ignore the trials of 1936 in the USSR. "
Ferrat confess never to go sing in the USSR. "There was, apparently, adverse reports about me. I was told: "You must understand the words." Subsequently, I realized that was it: they were afraid that people do not understand the words. "
Her journey leads to late 70s, a song called The Balance Sheet and which earned him enmities. He confirmed and signed. "I objected, so the concept of" generally positive "that, at a convention, the PCF had put forward to judge the Soviet regime. I thought we could not reason well so accountant. "
Since then, Ferrat remained a committed man who spares no criticism for that and it is as if the species human does gave no alternative but the jungle and the zoo. "You see what happens, the jungle, in the countries of the former Soviet Union: mafias, ethnicities, clans, power in the hands of gangsters, the return to the Stone Age. What was there before was not great, but what comes now is it much better? I wonder. And we see now, ironically, ex-communists more or less liberal supporters return to power. "
In France itself, Ferrat is a matter of great concern with the rise of the French extreme right, embodied by the National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen. It expresses itself rather pessimistic about the chances of the deal. "The rise of everything that is hateful in rights, which led to bloody dictatorships, it happens in countries struggling with the social and economic deprivation. When people are out of work, there are always demagogues to exploit their misery by giving them the illusion they can do something. I am appalled by what is happening in France and is the result of the contradictions that are worsening and widening gaps even within the richest societies. "But in fact, we live in a world where it seems the jungle now expand his empire, where everywhere there is a subordination of life for the benefit, the law of the contract without brake pressure which people and societies to the explosion.
The demagoguery, this perversion of language in politics, also concerned at the highest point the poet attached to words and their correct meaning. It detects events into the recent French political life. "There are phenomena quite extraordinary," he notes. Take Mitterrand: he was elected on a leftist agenda that has changed after two years. Chirac, who is in power now involved in government for 25 years. It is a horse back politics. But he managed to convince people that he was a new man. He gave a speech that the Athenians of antiquity had already qualified for grandstanding and it took! It is only after six months he has shown that his actions contradicted his words. "
Ferrat admits familiar with the situation in Quebec, where he has for thirty years. "The evolution of this country has always interested me. It seemed that there was something like an opening to a possible future and different. It's a feeling that knows few parallels in our old European societies - I met him here in 68. So I always thought that there, there were forces who acted. It is a country living, we feel this heat, like eating a little future. "
It followed the recent referendum, but also admits that it is difficult to comment on this. He added that he still thinks it would be good "if the country opened its huge wings" but said it is not clear the current situation, with its possibility of another referendum.
a tough job
Jean Tenenbaum, "said Jean Ferrat, was born in 1930 in Vaucresson. In the fifties, he began a career as a singer-songwriter mingling poetic songs and protest songs (Night and Fog, Potemkin), which earned him an international reputation.
Like other famous names from the French-language songs, Ferrat place very high demands of his poetic and musical art, whose secret blend produces quality songs. That said, talking of a minor art about the song does not bother him. "Minor if you will," he replies, I do not care. Here as in all things there are mediocre. As in literature, cinema, painting. "
Ferrat left the stage for twenty years, but he still regularly recorded discs. His latest, which has been very successful, is dedicated to Aragon, a poet whom he had already put several pieces of music. "I was reading Aragon soon after the war, tells Ferrat. I've known for a book called The Eyes of Elsa. I had a guitar, I made a music to a poem. Aragon responded: it had pleased him. I then met him. After I was very impressed by his other texts. "And how Aragon responded to these musical settings of his poems? Ferrat said: "He let me do. When I was doing music, I record it and I was make him listen. He never said anything against it. Even if he did not add some songs to his feet. It's so little that I have-I-me, for example, it does not please him too. But it did not interfere. "
Ferrat think for the younger, his job became more difficult in its infancy, the business requirements are there too the lion's share. "I know so many people who do things well and can not be heard," he says.
If artists have a social responsibility policy, they should say what they think and criticize what needs to be added Ferrat also that this action has limited effectiveness. "I do not think the words of the artists are sufficient to change society. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately. "
For a dozen years, his commitment to it has also taken the form of participation in the political life of the village where he lives, where he was successively alderman then deputy mayor - a mayor left, he says. He freely admits that this experience has contributed greatly. "There is an increased awareness of the problems of people participating in politics and civic life."
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