Omar Sy (44) has said something wrong again. In an interview with Le Parisien said the French actorknown from the movie Intouchables and the Netflix series Lupineexpresses surprise at the shock reaction to the outbreak of war in Ukraine in Europe.
“Ukraine was not a bizarre revelation to me. Because I have family in Africa [de in Frankrijk geboren Sy heeft Senegalese en Mauritaanse roots], I know that there have always been children at war, broken homes and parents losing their children, children being orphaned. (…) It surprises me that people are so touched by it. Does that mean if it’s in Africa, it affects you less?”
At first glance, the remark does not seem controversial, and Sy is certainly not the first to express surprise at the difference in response to the war in Ukraine and conflicts further afield. For example, since the beginning of the war, human rights activists and immigration and asylum experts have raised the question of why Ukrainian refugees are given a preferential position compared to refugees from Syria and African countries, for example. Also NRC devoted many pieces to the discrepancy.
Still, Sy’s words went down the wrong way with some of the French. Former EU minister and party colleague of President Macron Nathalie Loiseau went on the attack. She wrote on Twitter “no, Omar Sy, the French are not ‘less touched’ by what is happening ‘in Africa’. Some have given their lives so that the Malians are not threatened by terrorists,” she pointed to the 58 French soldiers who have died in the French military operation in Mali in recent years. On the right channel BFM TV she stated that Sy pretended that “the French are not interested in Africa”.
Others, such as MP from the radical right Rassemblement National party Julien Odoul and prominent lawyer Charles Consigny, went a step further and called Sy “ungrateful”. C-News, the French version of the populist right-wing Fox News, labeled Sy the “ungrateful one from Los Angeles,” where Sy currently lives. Calls for a boycott of Sy’s new film, Tirailleursabout the deployment of West African soldiers in the French army in the First World War.
Read also: Omar Sy as a charming gentleman burglar
‘I am the problem’
Left France stands up for Sy. One wonders why the actor is so attacked for a comment that does not seem so controversial. So writes the left-activist medium Counter attack that Sy “regularly expressed his love for France. (…) But if you have a migration background in France, a black skin and even the slightest criticism of the authorities or the problems in this country, you have to pay a high price.” Reference is also made to the open letter which Sy wrote in 2020 after the death of George Floyd in the US denouncing police brutality in France. Sy also raised a problem that has been discussed many times before, but his words led to a media storm.
Sy herself also sees a pattern. On a talk show broadcast Quotidien Sy said that “a system has been created whereby every time I come out of hiding with my little beard, people are looking for a fuss”. “It is not what I say that is being attacked, I am being attacked. The problem is who I am.”
The actor also said that he is tired of always having to justify himself and that he no longer wants to, but also does not have to do it – his accumulated fame and success have made him less vulnerable. “It is not a problem. It’s too late for that, les gars”, he said with a affable smile towards the camera. Sy wants untouchable are.
A version of this article also appeared in the January 14, 2023 newspaper
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