Jean-Luc Godard: Hollande should nominate Marine Le Pen Prime Minister.

Godard Now Prefers Marine Le Pen.

David Thompson once commented that Jean-Luc Godard, the celebrated, and once leftist, cinéaste was fated to remain a “Young Turk” all his life.

Now approaching his dotage Godard still feels the need to make provocative statements.

Interviewed at length in yesterday’s Le Monde and asked about the European election results he announced,

J’espérais que le Front national arriverait en tête. Je trouve que Hollande devrait nommer – je l’avais dit à France Inter, mais ils l’ont supprimé – Marine Le Pen premier ministre.”

I was hoping that the Front National would come first. I find that Hollande should nominate – I said this on France Inter, but they cut it out – Marine Le Pen as Prime Minister.

Interrogé par le journal sur les raisons de cette prise de position, le réalisateur répond : “Pour que ça bouge un peu. Pour qu’on fasse semblant de bouger, si on ne bouge pas vraiment. Ce qui est mieux que de faire semblant de ne rien faire (rires)”.

Asked by the newspaper the reasons why he took this stand, the film-director responded, “To shake things up, so that we make at least some moves towards changing things, even if they don’t really do so. It’s better than pretending to do nothing.

Jean-Luc Godard continue son propos en rappelant que “le Front national avait deux sièges au Conseil national de la Résistance. A l’époque, c’était une organisation paracommuniste. N’empêche qu’elle s’appelait Front national…” 

Jean-Luc Godard continued his theme, recalling that, “The Front National had 2 seats on the National Resistance Council. At that time it was a pro-Communist organisation. Still, despite this it was called the Front National….”

L’organisation en question n’avait rien à voir avec le Front national actuel, créé en 1972 par Jean-Marie Le Pen. “Ce n’est qu’une synonymie…”, font d’ailleurs remarquer les interviewers du Monde. Mais Jean-Luc Godard n’en démord pas :“Non. Si on dit que ce n’est qu’une synonymie, on reste dans les mots, pas dans les faits. C’est un fait. Vu l’importance de la nomination, et de nommer, bien sûr, que c’est une synonymie… Le premier ministre du Luxembourg s’appelle Juncker. C’était aussi le nom d’un bombardier allemand [Junkers]

The interviewers reminded him that this Front National had nothing to do with the present-day Front National, created in 1972 by Jean-Marie Le Pen, and that only the name was identical (a synonym). Jean-Luc Godard did not back down, “No. If you say its the same word, you are stuck in words, not facts. It is a fact. Given the importance of this nomination, this is also a synonym as well…the Prime Minister of Luxembourg is called Junker. That is also the name of the German bombers….

Le cinéaste reconnaît qu’il n’est “pas pour eux”. “Il y a longtemps, Jean-Marie Le Pen avait demandé que je sois viré de France. Mais j’ai juste envie que ça bouge un peu… Les grands vainqueurs, ce sont les abstentionnistes. J’en fais partie depuis longtemps”,

The Franco-Swiss film-maker did recognise  that he was  “not one of them” (the Front National). “Jean-Marie Le Pen wanted for a long time to kick me out of France..but I simply wish that things change. The real winners (of the elections) were those who abstained, and I’ve been one of them for a long time. “

During the same interview asked about his latest film, Adieu au Langage Jean-Luc Godard further illustrated his wide culture and knowledge by asserting that the word Parole did not exist  English.

The days of Godard’s radical films, like  Le Petit Soldat (1963) , Week-end (1967), La Chinoise (1967), not to mention his involvement in the Marxist  Dziga Vertov Group, seem so distant now.