Who is Sonia Mabrouk really? The “freedom fighter” vaunted by Le Figaro Magazineor the “director of reaction” and “muse of the “rightosphere”” decried by Release ? His latest book, Reclaiming the Sacred (Observatory editions), will not dissipate the mystery surrounding the native of Tunis, granddaughter of a minister from Bourguiba, and whose frenzied ambition presided over the lightning ascent in the media: debut in Young Africa in 2005, recruitment in 2008 at Public Sénat, where Jean-Pierre Elkabbach took her under his wing. Until her entry into Europe 1 in 2013, where she won until she won the morning political interview, while joining CNews in 2017.
We knew the pugnacious interviewer at 8:13 a.m., the whistleblower against the dangers of Islamism, the ravages of which she was able to observe in her native Tunisia. We imagined him less to indulge in a praise of the “sacred”, that is to say “everything that opens up to greater than oneself”. Yet it is to the reconquest of this transcendence that the journalist calls in Reclaiming the Sacred. “Let us once again be permeable to the invisible, to mystery and to the sublime”, she enjoins, without fear of grandiloquence. A confusing booklet, between anthropological reflection and an injunction to resilience, which summons both the German writer Ernst Jünger and Frédéric Lenoir. Mabrouk pleads there for the mass in Latin and plainsong, “expression of a sacred made up of rituals and multi-secular musical pieces”, evokes his wonder at the “golden voices” of the muezzins heard in Tunis, Istanbul or in Cairo. In an interview with Figaro Live, we even saw her improvise as a theologian by deploring the “deviation of the Christian proposal”, transformed, since the Second Vatican Council, into “welcome of the other, of the migrant, in a humanity gathered”…
Something to surprise those who saw in her, in a reductive way perhaps, a fighter for secularism. Sign of an evolution or dissipation of a misunderstanding? “Perhaps I expressed myself badly, replies the interested party in her office of Europe 1 cluttered with books. For me, secularism has never consisted in trimming any religious or sacred expression; it is to first of all expression at home, individual, not a form of proselytism. And above all, it is not secularism. For example, I have never been against the veil, but against the constraint that is imposed on certain women .” A representative of the Republican left, who rubbed shoulders with her on television sets, wonders: “I don’t really know if she was a fighter for secularism. I feel she is a little more reserved compared to my sensitivity than towards more identity-based discourses. These are small nuances, an insistence on the historical and civilizational aspects of French identity, rather than civic and political ones.” The theme of transcendence, she had already approached it in the past, as in French insubordination (2021), where she called for the rally behind the “sacred” national.
Appropriation
Unsurprisingly, his book appealed to conservatives. “Sonia Mabrouk develops an original statement on the singularity of the crisis that the West is going through. She places the subject at the right level: the question is that of our common landmarks”, praises the philosopher François-Xavier Bellamy, MEP and member of the Republicans. It remains to be seen whether the resurgence of the sacred, however desirable it may be, can be decreed.
Conversely, part of the left sees in its defense of our Judeo-Christian roots, reaffirmed in this book, the sign of a timely compliance with the editorial line of Vincent Bolloré. The owner of CNews is engaged with his group, Vivendi, in the takeover of Lagardère, holder of Europe 1, of which he is the majority shareholder. A former radio journalist testifies: “Sonia Mabrouk corresponds to what the current management of the radio wanted: a person very loyal to the shareholder, beyond even, who corresponds ideologically to the shareholder of the group. C It was a natural meeting. She had her political biases, her vision of society, and this corresponded to a shift in the editorial line of Europe 1.” The interested party retorts: “I have been at Europe 1 for thirteen years. I have climbed the ranks with the teeth one by one. I am not the muse of anyone. I am loyal to my employers, but I do not owe my career and my books only to me.”
Basically, each camp has its own Sonia Mabrouk… “The left absolutely wants her to be ultra-reactionary – and things are not as clear as that; the right, perhaps, wants to appropriate her too much, to instrumentalize it”, underlines Tugdual Denis, assistant director of the drafting of Current valuesa weekly where she appears regularly. At home, a real jubilation of the debate, of the contradictory, which sometimes leads to provocative outings, as when she asks the journalist Elise Lucet, present at her side on a television set, an investigation into her own employer, France Télévisions. The fact remains that, basically, many conservatives share his positions, without triggering the same passions…
“Metamorphosis”
Do its origins contribute to feeding fantasies and projections of all kinds? Sonia “the Carthaginian” claims her Tunisian roots, speaks warmly of La Goulette, the merchant and multicultural port where she grew up. France, which she discovered at the age of 10 before settling there at 20, and whose nationality she acquired in 2010, she idealized, “sublimated”, as she says. Hence the temptation to make an example of it. The journalist Charles Villeneuve, who participated with her in the Great Voices of Europe 1, sees in this woman, “deeply in love with French culture, one of the jewels of the teaching of French abroad [NDLR : elle a étudié au lycée français de Tunis]. She is an example of a possible integration of Muslims and represents a Tunisian society with extremely cultured elites.
Discreet in her early days, the young woman affirmed her ideas over time. “He was someone very reserved, very polite, perhaps too much. Rather a good soldier than someone who wanted to impose his ideas or his subjects, or debate”, remembers Marwane Ben Yahmed, who started at Young Africa. Michel Grossiord, former journalist for Europe 1, completes: “The apprentice journalist has metamorphosed into a fighter.” In French insubordination (2021), Sonia Mabrouk attacked the “decolonials, radical Islamists and Islamo-compatibles” who threaten France. Her face on the front page Current values, it is the guarantee of good sales. On May 15, she will participate, alongside host Franck Ferrand, in a conference of the very conservative association Les Awakeners to discuss the French soul. A sincere commitment, for those who know her. “Alas, I think she means what she says…”, sighs Marwane Ben Yahmed.
secret personality
The star hides a secret character behind a playful approach. One would have thought she was scalded by the portrait published at the end of 2021 in Release. But she willingly lends herself to the game of the interview. Sure of her charm, she reveals in the premises of Europe 1 her slender figure, perched on high heels. And only gets annoyed when she mentions the mention, in the daily article, of her “male and pale mentors”, a treacherous allusion, among others, to Jean-Pierre Elkabbach: “A blow below the belt”… Or of his belonging to the Tunisian bourgeoisie: “My grandfather, traveling companion and Minister of Bourguiba, ended up without a dinar on his account. When I arrived here, I fought for my job.” Friendly and complicit, she promises to quote an article by The Express in her interview the next day – she won’t… Her former colleagues remember a mysterious woman, not necessarily benevolent with the sisters of her generation, protecting her secret gardens. “She has a very pleasant relationship, you can’t be angry with her, but she gives nothing of herself, remembers a colleague. I know who Sonia Mabrouk is; I don’t know who Sonia is. “
And yet, this woman, presented as modest, delivers the most personal confession by evoking frankly, in her book, the brutal death of her “adored mother”, an event that triggered her journey towards the sacred: “Wrapped in an immaculate white sheet , a slight smile on her lips, the prominent cheekbones, the proud forehead, the freckles delicately scattered around her so delicate nose, my mother radiated the sacred.” A mourning that brought tears to her on the set of what time. “Sonia Mabrouk was deeply linked to her mother, in a characteristic oriental way, even stronger than in Europe, says Charles Villeneuve, himself a native of Lebanon. This death brought her closer to her origins.” Perhaps we should first see, behind this unexpected conversion to the sacred, the cry of love of a daughter for her mother.