“Unacceptable behavior” for the mayor (PS) of Avignon, Cécile Helle, “merges with the darkest hours of our history” for the prefect of Vaucluse, Violaine Demaret, “total condemnation” of the President (Renaissance) of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region Renaud Muselier… Elected officials and local and national public officials are unanimous in condemning the wild posting, on the night of Wednesday May 17 to Thursday May 18, of caricatures representing Emmanuel Macron, graying temples, decked out with a “49.3” as a mustache, in a transparent allusion to Adolf Hitler. The poster is completed with a quote from Gandhi on the “sacred duty” of the ” civil disobedience “ against a state “outlaw or corrupt”.
A dozen of these posters, where the caricatured face of Mr. Macron is framed by the words ” No thanks ” and the hashtag #agirousubir, were pasted on billboards in the papal city, before being removed on Thursday by municipal services. These posters are, in fact, a replica of a mural by a local graffiti artist, Lekto, who had already caused controversy in April. Carried out in a parking lot in the city, it had been erased immediately, at the request of the town hall of Avignon.
We do not know for the moment who was able to carry out this wild collage. On social networks, local activists from Florian Philippot’s party, Les Patriotes, very committed against health policy since the Covid-19 pandemic, were the first to salute, on Thursday, this “nice response from Vaucluse residents” Who “signify their refusal of 49.3 and authoritarianism”, evacuating the polemical dimension by judging that this is a simple political provocation. Contacted, Victor Valero, local leader of the Patriots, claims to have nothing to do with this display, which he “discovered” leaving home, but “support this action”, also welcomed in several conspiracy groups or groups hostile to vaccination against Covid-19 on social networks.
The graffiti artist Lekto – who did not respond to requests from the World – already enjoys a certain popularity in spheres hostile to vaccination and to the “system”. Active since 2020, he has produced a number of provocative frescoes around current events, with an anti-system and hostile prism to the media mainstreammade up as dogs on a leash in one of his works, produced in 2022.
Some of his drawings thus represented the former Minister of Health Olivier Véran in “Soldier of Big Pharma”, the Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanin, dressed in CRS, decked out with a strabismus and brandishing a launcher of defensive balls; or even the former Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, decked out in a dunce’s cap. On the other hand, other figures were entitled to more favorable treatment from Lekto, such as the singer and conspiracy activist Francis Lalanne, represented as Asterix dressed in a yellow vest; or the controversial professor Didier Raoult, figured making the distinctive sign of Marseille rapper Jul.
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