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EXPOSURE. How the Senegalese poet-president invented African “soft power”: response to the Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac museum, in Paris.
By Valérie Marin La Meslée
Trades. President Léopold Sédar Senghor greets backstage the actors of the troupe of the National Daniel-Sorano Theater of Senegal who presented “Macbeth” in November 1969 at the Odéon, in Paris, in the presence of the French Minister of Cultural Affairs, Edmond Michelet ( left).
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“Un great of Africa has just died, his last “Vieux”. A grammarian, that is to say, a greedy for rules under the disorder of the world. A poet, that is to say a hunter of secret echoes. a democrat, […] an unfailing friend of France in what is universal about it: its language, that of freedom. Ninety-five years of such an existence is a salute. We move about, and we take off our hats when we lay in the ground one who lived so highly. Well no ! » Well no: neither Jacques Chirac nor Lionel Jospin, then Prime Minister, had made the trip to Dakar on December 29, 2001, for the funeral of the former President of Senegal (1960-1980). ” A shame “, then concluded Erik Orsenna, outraged by this French indifference towards the poet-president Léopold Séd…
KEYSTONE-FRANCE/GAMMA-RAPHO (x2) – Sophie Bassouls/Bridgeman Images – quai Branly museum – Jacques Chirac (x2) – SP – quai Branly museum – Jacques Chirac/photo Pauline Guyon/SP – Jens Ziehe/BPK, Berlin , Dist. RMN-Grand Palais – AFP (x2) – quai Branly museum – Jacques Chirac, photo Pauline Guyon/Paris 2023, ADAGP – quai Branly museum – Jacques Chirac, photo Pauline Guyon – quai Branly museum – Jacques Chirac/photo Pauline Guyon /Maria Helena Vieira da Silva/Paris, 2023, ADAGP