but why so much hatred against Omar Sy?

Omar Sy is at the top of the favorite personalities of the French. Part of which, paradoxically, has little taste for its success in "Lupine". What is the violent wave of criticism he is currently under the sign of?

Omar Sy carries the triumph of Lupine, currently on Netflix's top trend, even abroad. He is also loved at home: since 2013 he has occupied the top of the list of favorite personalities of the French and was even No. 1 in the ranking that year. Yet some are currently resenting the actor. First, those who blame the series Lupine for taking a black man in the title role. And this, even if the actor plays a fan of the burglar (whose ethnic origin has never been specified in Maurice Leblanc's work).
Then, those who reproach him for his commitments against police violence. The actor has taken a clear position on the subject: in 2021, speaking about the death of several people during an arrest or a police check, such as Cédric Chouviat and Adama Traoré. But also, in June 2020, in a column published on the L’Obs website where he asked "the questioning of a system which cannot claim justice without putting an end to the organized impunity which has been rife for decades. This established order is no longer tenable", insisted the artist.

The petition accompanying this forum had been signed by nearly 200,000 people. A commitment that today earned the actor to see his name circulate among the possible guests of the Beauvau de la Sécurité, launched from January to May 2021 to discuss the problems encountered by the police in France. Enough to provoke the ire of the main police unions, but also of part of the political class.

Omar Sy, returned to his status as a black man and an immigrant child

Among the most virulent detractors of the artist, we find the extreme right and in particular, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen. On January 18, 2021, on CNews, she felt that the actor should be content … to thank France. "Omar Sy is a man whom France has allowed to be an international star, to become a multimillionaire, to go and live happily in the United States. He is coming back to France (…) to explain that this France is a racist France from his American post. Other than saying thank you, I don't know what else he could say ", she said. An argument that can also be read in hundreds of article comments, on Facebook pages ranging from Parisian to Konbini via aufeminin.

But why should the actor thank or be silent, more than any other French personality? What explains such an outcry over his speeches? This hatred under the slightest article mentioning his name? As this Internet user points out in a Twitter thread published on January 26, these comments are a sign of a pervasive racism in our society, which still sees non-white people as the children of immigrants, who must be silent and do not make waves. We can also note that Omar Sy, in the comments, is often referred to his sole status as a black man. As if the latter assigned him to a servile role and that any desire for emancipation deserved violence. This reasoning allowed black people to be put under wraps, including on French territory and not so long ago, the painful echoes of which are still felt today.

Result of this racist, xenophobic and neocolonialist thought, which does not fall under artistic criticism and which must be named as such, we find ourselves today recalling that Omar Sy is French. May it contribute to the country's international influence. That he pays his taxes in France, and that he is not, as many Internet users claim, a "tax exile" since living in Los Angeles. He is also legitimate in his fight against police violence, which affects him from a personal point of view as a black man from a working-class neighborhood. On this point as on all the others, Omar Sy owes nothing to anyone, no offense whoever invents a France of origins, in which those whose parents were born elsewhere should keep a low profile.

Mathilde Wattecamps with Coline CM