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CHRONIC. Her admirers want an entry to the Pantheon, but Colette, who made fun of morality and politics, does she really belong there?
By Christine Clerc
© – / AFP
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VSolette had been missing for 27 years when Jean d’Ormesson achieved the feat of getting elected to the French Academy in 1981 – for the first time in nearly four centuries! – a woman, Marguerite Yourcenar. So why not the Pantheon? Four other women having been welcomed after Marie Curie among the 73 “great men” that “the grateful country” wanted to honor, the name of Colette was therefore mentioned for this “temple of heroes”.
On each anniversary of his death – the 80e this year – his fervent admirers are mobilizing. It is not only the importance of the work of the novelist that they highlight – some sixty works, since Claudine at school (1900) until The birth of the day (1928). Not only either the impertinence and the elegance of its…