Latest news with #SimoneVeil
LeMonde
2 days ago
- Politics
- LeMonde
Paris brings back statues of pioneering women from 2024 Olympics ceremony
Paris on Friday, July 18, installed the first of 10 statues of pioneering French women displayed during the 2024 Olympics in a northern district of the capital. The first of them, a golden representation of the campaigning lawyer Gisèle Halimi, was set up in the capital's northern La Chapelle district on Friday. The 10 statues featured as part of the French capital's boundary-breaking opening ceremony for the Summer Games in July last year. They include Simone Veil, who spearheaded the legalisation of abortion in France, and the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir. Halimi, a Tunisian-born French lawyer who died five years ago aged 93, earned national fame for her role in a 1972 trial defending a minor who had an abortion after a rape. She ensured not only that the young woman, Marie-Claire Chevalier, was acquitted but also helped swing public opinion on the issue of reproductive rights. She was one of the most prominent of 343 women who in 1971 signed an open letter saying that they had had abortions. Michèle Zaoui, an architect working for the city of Paris, said the plan was to keep the statues in the neighborhood for a least a few more years until the opening of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. During artistic director Thomas Jolly's Olympics opening ceremony, the statues surged up from the waters of the Seine.
Local France
2 days ago
- Politics
- Local France
Paris dusts off statues of trailblazing women from 2024 Olympics
The 10 statues featured as part of the French capital's boundary-breaking opening ceremony for the Summer Games in July last year. They include Simone Veil, who spearheaded the legalisation of abortion in France, and the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir. The first of them, a golden representation of the campaigning lawyer Gisele Halimi, was set up in the capital's northern La Chapelle district on Friday. Halimi, a Tunisian-born French lawyer who died five years ago aged 93, earned national fame for her role in a 1972 trial defending a minor who had an abortion after a rape. She ensured not only that the young woman, Marie-Claire Chevalier, was acquitted but also helped swing public opinion on the issue of reproductive rights. She was one of the most prominent of 343 women who in 1971 signed an open letter saying that they had had abortions. Advertisement Michele Zaoui, an architect working for the city of Paris, said the plan was to keep the statues in the neighbourhood for a least a few more years until the opening of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. During artistic director Thomas Jolly's Olympics opening ceremony, the statues surged up from the waters of the Seine.
France 24
3 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Paris dusts off statues of trailblazing women from 2024 Olympics
The 10 statues featured as part of the French capital's boundary-breaking opening ceremony for the Summer Games in July last year. They include Simone Veil, who spearheaded the legalisation of abortion in France, and the feminist writer Simone de Beauvoir. The first of them, a golden representation of the campaigning lawyer Gisele Halimi, was set up in the capital's northern La Chapelle district on Friday. Halimi, a Tunisian-born French lawyer who died five years ago aged 93, earned national fame for her role in a 1972 trial defending a minor who had an abortion after a rape. She ensured not only that the young woman, Marie-Claire Chevalier, was acquitted but also helped swing public opinion on the issue of reproductive rights. She was one of the most prominent of 343 women who in 1971 signed an open letter saying that they had had abortions. Michele Zaoui, an architect working for the city of Paris, said the plan was to keep the statues in the neighbourhood for a least a few more years until the opening of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. During artistic director Thomas Jolly's Olympics opening ceremony, the statues surged up from the waters of the Seine. © 2025 AFP
BreakingNews.ie
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- BreakingNews.ie
Marcel Ophuls, filmmaker who forced France to face wartime past, dies aged 97
Marcel Ophuls, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker whose landmark 1969 documentary The Sorrow And The Pity shattered the comforting myth that most of France had resisted the Nazis during the Second World War, has died aged 97. The German-born filmmaker, who was the son of legendary filmmaker Max Ophuls, died on Saturday at his home in southwest France of natural causes, his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert told The Hollywood Reporter. Advertisement Though Ophuls would later win an Oscar for Hotel Terminus, (1988), his searing portrait of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, it was The Sorrow And The Pity that marked a turning point, not only in his career, but in the way France confronted its past. Deemed too provocative, too divisive, it was banned from French television for more than a decade. French broadcast executives said it 'destroyed the myths the French still need'. It would not air nationally until 1981. Advertisement Simone Veil, Holocaust survivor and moral conscience of postwar France, refused to support it. But for a younger generation in a country still recovering physically and psychologically from the aftermath of the atrocities, the movie was a revelation, an unflinching historical reckoning that challenged both national memory and national identity. Jean Paul Belmondo, Jeanne Moreau and director Marcel Ophuls on the set of Banana Skin in 1963 (Pierre Godot/AP) The myth it punctured had been carefully constructed by Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who led Free French forces from exile and later became president. In the aftermath of France's liberation in 1944, de Gaulle promoted a version of events in which the French had resisted Nazi occupation as one people, united in dignity and defiance. Advertisement Collaboration was portrayed as the work of a few traitors. The French Republic, he insisted, had never ceased to exist. The Sorrow And The Pity, which was nominated for the 1972 Oscar for Best Documentary, told a different story. Filmed in stark black and white and stretching over four and a half hours, the documentary turned its lens on Clermont-Ferrand, a provincial town at the heart of France. Through long, unvarnished interviews with farmers, shopkeepers, teachers, collaborators, members of the French Resistance, even the town's former Nazi commander, Ophuls laid bare the moral ambiguities of life under occupation. Advertisement There was no narrator, no music, no guiding hand to shape the audience's emotions. Just people, speaking plainly, awkwardly, sometimes defensively. They remembered, justified and hesitated. And in those silences and contradictions, the film delivered its most devastating message: that France's wartime story was not one of widespread resistance, but of ordinary compromise, driven by fear, self-preservation, opportunism and, at times, quiet complicity. The film revealed how French police had aided in the deportation of Jews. How neighbours stayed silent. How teachers claimed not to recall missing colleagues. How many had simply got by. Resistance, The Sorrow And The Pity seemed to say, was the exception not the rule. Advertisement It was, in effect, the cinematic undoing of de Gaulle's patriotic myth, that France had resisted as one, and that collaboration was the betrayal of a few. Ophuls showed instead a nation morally divided and unready to confront its own reflection. In a 2004 interview with The Guardian, Ophuls bristled at the charge that he had made the film to accuse. 'It doesn't attempt to prosecute the French,' he said. 'Who can say their nation would have behaved better in the same circumstances?' Born in Frankfurt on November 1, 1927, Marcel Ophuls was the son of legendary German-Jewish filmmaker Max Ophuls, director of La Ronde, Letter From An Unknown Woman, and Lola Montes. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the family fled Germany for France. In 1940, as Nazi troops approached Paris, they fled again, across the Pyrenees into Spain, and on to the United States. Marcel became an American citizen and later served as a US army GI in occupied Japan. But it was his father's towering legacy that shaped his early path. 'I was born under the shadow of a genius,' Ophuls said in 2004. 'I don't have an inferiority complex, I am inferior.' He returned to France in the 1950s hoping to direct fiction, like his father. But after several poorly received features, including Banana Peel (1963), an Ernst Lubitsch-style caper starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau, his path shifted. 'I didn't choose to make documentaries,' he told The Guardian. 'There was no vocation. Each one was an assignment.' That reluctant shift changed cinema. After The Sorrow And The Pity, Ophuls followed with The Memory Of Justice (1976), a sweeping meditation on war crimes that examined Nuremberg but also drew uncomfortable parallels with atrocities in Algeria and Vietnam. In Hotel Terminus (1988), he spent five years tracking the life of Klaus Barbie, the so-called 'Butcher of Lyon', exposing not just his Nazi crimes but the role western governments played in protecting him after the war. The film won him his Academy Award for Best Documentary but, overwhelmed by its darkness, French media reported that he attempted suicide during production. In The Troubles We've Seen (1994), he turned his camera on journalists covering the war in Bosnia, and on the media's uneasy relationship with suffering and spectacle. Despite living in France for most of his life, he often felt like an outsider. 'Most of them still think of me as a German Jew,' he said in 2004, 'an obsessive German Jew who wants to bash France.' He was a man of contradictions: a Jewish exile married to a German woman who had once belonged to the Hitler Youth; a French citizen never fully embraced; a filmmaker who adored Hollywood, but changed European cinema by telling truths others would not. He is survived by his wife, Regine, their three daughters and three grandchildren.
Associated Press
26-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Marcel Ophuls, the Oscar-winning filmmaker who forced France to face its WWII past, is dead at 97
PARIS (AP) — Marcel Ophuls, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker whose landmark 1969 documentary 'The Sorrow and the Pity' shattered the comforting myth that most of France had resisted the Nazis during World War II — has died at 97. The German-born filmmaker, who was the son of legendary filmmaker Max Ophuls, died Saturday at his home in southwest France of natural causes, his grandson Andreas-Benjamin Seyfert told The Hollywood Reporter. Though Ophuls would later win an Oscar for 'Hôtel Terminus' (1988), his searing portrait of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, it was 'The Sorrow and the Pity' that marked a turning point — not only in his career, but in how France confronted its past. Deemed too provocative, too divisive, it was banned from French television for over a decade. French broadcast executives said it 'destroyed the myths the French still need.' It would not air nationally until 1981. Simone Veil, Holocaust survivor and moral conscience of postwar France, refused to support it. But for a younger generation in a country still recovering physically and psychologically from the aftermath of the atrocities, the movie was a revelation — an unflinching historical reckoning that challenged both national memory and national identity. The myth it punctured had been carefully constructed by Charles de Gaulle, the wartime general who led Free French forces from exile and later became president. In the aftermath of France's liberation in 1944, de Gaulle promoted a version of events in which the French had resisted Nazi occupation as one people, united in dignity and defiance. Collaboration was portrayed as the work of a few traitors. The French Republic, he insisted, had never ceased to exist. 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' which was nominated for the 1972 Oscar for Best Documentary, told a different story: Filmed in stark black and white and stretching over four and a half hours, the documentary turned its lens on Clermont-Ferrand, a provincial town at the heart of France. Through long, unvarnished interviews with farmers, shopkeepers, teachers, collaborators, members of the French Resistance — even the town's former Nazi commander — Ophuls laid bare the moral ambiguities of life under occupation. There was no narrator, no music, no guiding hand to shape the audience's emotions. Just people — speaking plainly, awkwardly, sometimes defensively. They remembered, justified and hesitated. And in those silences and contradictions, the film delivered its most devastating message: that France's wartime story was not one of widespread resistance, but of ordinary compromise — driven by fear, self-preservation, opportunism, and, at times, quiet complicity. The film revealed how French police had aided in the deportation of Jews. How neighbors stayed silent. How teachers claimed not to recall missing colleagues. How many had simply gotten by. Resistance, 'The Sorrow and the Pity' seemed to say, was the exception — not the rule. It was, in effect, the cinematic undoing of de Gaulle's patriotic myth — that France had resisted as one, and that collaboration was the betrayal of a few. Ophuls showed instead a nation morally divided and unready to confront its own reflection. In a 2004 interview with The Guardian, Ophuls bristled at the charge that he had made the film to accuse. 'It doesn't attempt to prosecute the French,' he said. 'Who can say their nation would have behaved better in the same circumstances?' Born in Frankfurt on Nov. 1, 1927, Marcel Ophuls was the son of legendary German-Jewish filmmaker Max Ophuls, director of 'La Ronde,' 'Letter from an Unknown Woman', and 'Lola Montès.' When Hitler came to power in 1933, the family fled Germany for France. In 1940, as Nazi troops approached Paris, they fled again — across the Pyrenees into Spain, and on to the United States. Marcel became an American citizen and later served as a U.S. Army GI in occupied Japan. But it was his father's towering legacy that shaped his early path. 'I was born under the shadow of a genius,' Ophuls said in 2004. 'I don't have an inferiority complex — I am inferior.' He returned to France in the 1950s hoping to direct fiction, like his father. But after several poorly received features — including 'Banana Peel' (1963), an Ernst Lubitsch-style caper starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau — his path shifted. 'I didn't choose to make documentaries,' he told The Guardian. 'There was no vocation. Each one was an assignment.' That reluctant pivot changed cinema. After 'The Sorrow and the Pity,' Ophuls followed with 'The Memory of Justice' (1976), a sweeping meditation on war crimes that examined Nuremberg but also drew uncomfortable parallels to atrocities in Algeria and Vietnam. In 'Hôtel Terminus' (1988), he spent five years tracking the life of Klaus Barbie, the so-called 'Butcher of Lyon,' exposing not just his Nazi crimes but the role Western governments played in protecting him after the war. The film won him his Academy Award for Best Documentary but, overwhelmed by its darkness, French media reported that he attempted suicide during production. In 'The Troubles We've Seen' (1994), he turned his camera on journalists covering the war in Bosnia, and on the media's uneasy relationship with suffering and spectacle. Despite living in France for most of his life, he often felt like an outsider. 'Most of them still think of me as a German Jew,' he said in 2004, 'an obsessive German Jew who wants to bash France.' He was a man of contradictions: a Jewish exile married to a German woman who had once belonged to the Hitler Youth; a French citizen never fully embraced; a filmmaker who adored Hollywood, but changed European cinema by telling truths others wouldn't. He is survived by his wife, Régine, their three daughters, and three grandchildren.
