Progressive sections in France denounced the bid by the mayor of Saint Denis, a suburb of Paris, to evict the leftist theater group, Compagnie Jolie Môme, from the La Belle Étoile theater in the city. Various artists and activists from the French Communist Party (PCF), La France Insoumise (LFI), and the Revolutionary Communist Party of France (PCRF) expressed solidarity with the theater group.
Critics have alleged that Saint Denis mayor Mathieu Hanotin, who belongs the French Socialist Party (PS), opposes the political positions of the theater group in working-class struggles and Palestine solidarity. This prompted the town hall to ask Compagnie Jolie Môme to leave their base of nearly two decades.
Earlier this year, city authorities made an open call to cultural projects to work in the Théâtre de la Belle Étoile. In November, the mayor selected the company Le Tambour des Limbes from among the applicants, which included Compagnie Jolie Môme, effectively ending two decades of the occupation of the theater by the leftist group.
Even though the city administration stated that their intention is the cultural development in the city, movements believe that the radical working-class politics of the Compagnie Jolie Môme have irked the social democrats, neo-liberal sections, and the right-wing groups in the town and town administration.
In their open letter in November, Compagnie Jolie Môme alleged that “the last ‘jury’ to which we were summoned as part of the call for projects concerning La Belle Étoile, the mayor of Saint Denis said that a theater should not host conferences, debates, politics, that a theater should only be a space for performances and celebrations.”
The petition circulated in solidarity with Compagnie Jolie Môme has been endorsed by 8,413 people as of December 17. The group has also organized a three-day event at Théâtre de la Belle Étoile from December 15 to 17 including concerts, theater performances, movie screenings, and political discussions.
On December 14, André Chassaigne, an MP belonging to the French Communist Party (PCF), told l’Humanite “I find it unacceptable to throw Compagnie Jolie Môme out on the street. First of all, because it means wiping away everything the company has built in Saint Denis over the past nineteen years, with the construction of this theater, which was a ruined village hall then.”
“It is unacceptable to build a wall of shame between theater and politics,” Chassaigne added. “Since when should theater be cut off from all (social) commitments? And besides, how could theater not be political? This shocks me all the more because I have always seen in the behavior of the Jolie Môme troupe a lot of loyalty and reliability in its commitments.”
The musical and theater group Compagnie Jolie Môme formed in 1983, has been working in Saint Denis from Theatre de la Belle Étoile ever since they refurbished and occupied it in 2004. The groups’ works like Barricade (about the Paris Commune), ‘I’ll come back and I’ll be millions…’ (on Spartacus), and Don’t Pay! (based on Dario Fo’s play on the Italian workers’ revolt), received critical acclaim.
The group has organized the La Belle Rouge festival, a left theater festival, in Puy de Dôme since 2006 and forms a regular contingent with a red flag in working-class mobilizations in the area.
