We are not serious when we are 60 years old. Bertrand Kern, the PS mayor of the town of Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), 60,000 inhabitants northeast of Paris, born in 1962, therefore had an idea worthy of a friendly collective of final year students: rename his commune, for the whole of 2023, “Pantine”. Objective, “to make visible a reflection”, “to put in the foreground a cause”, namely equality between women and men, according to the site of the municipality. Chao Pantin. Actually not at all. The town hall immediately specified that the true name of the city would not disappear from any official document, from any mail, from any sign. Moreover, the decision was not taken by the municipal council. Only the giant letters forming the name “Pantin” on one of the squares of the city will be decked out with an additional “E”, for one year, therefore. Audacity leaves you speechless.
We are only a little ironic because the mayor was daring when he said “banco” to this proposal that we imagine coming from the fertile brain of a (or a) young dynamic and enthusiastic communication officer. Bertrand Kern is even the hero of the political communications trainees. There, where in all the municipal councils of France and Navarre, the gentleman councilor brushes aside with a polite word the amusing but naive proposal of his young collaborator – “of course, it is an interesting intuition but there is a subject feasibility”, the first magistrate of Pantin darkened. We would have liked to be a little mouse to attend the debates during the decision-making meeting, probably in a pretty room in the Pantin town hall. Were the protagonists still under the influence of a drunken New Year’s Eve? One would bet that it was a question of modernity, of strong symbol, of questioning the masses. At one point, in front of the implacable arguments of a vibrant young executive, a participant was able to exclaim: “It’s great”. Was there any applause? In any case, we had the feeling of writing a piece of history, even a crumb, it was already something.
As expected, the initiative met with some media interest. Between Tuesday January 3 and Wednesday January 4, Bertrand Kern was the guest of RTL, BFMTV and RMC. With Apolline de Malherbe, the mayor showed a disarming sincerity. “I do concrete things regularly but no one talks about it so I did it symbolically,” he explained. And the elected to recall the actions undertaken by his city, the establishment of an associative café, the reception of Afghan migrants. Feminicides were also discussed. Mission accomplished ? Regarding the enhancement of Pantine’s actions and the notoriety of its mayor, perhaps. As for the image conveyed of political action, on the other hand, the symbol is disastrous. And so revealing of the values of an era.
Does the name “Pantine” improve the lives of the people of Pantine?
We must return to the press release published by the town hall of Pantine on its website. “This little ‘e’ catches the eye, questions, challenges,” writes an unidentified editor, perhaps one of the leaders of the revolutionary act decided in the Pantin meeting room. It’s like reading the notice of a contemporary art exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo or in one of the 23 regional funds of contemporary art in our territory. In this episode, the politician turns into a trend-setting artist, a transgressive performer. We would take a break in front of “Pantine” as before The Scream by Edvard Munch. “It’s moving, it makes you think”, is called upon to comment on the inspired observer. Fine, but we would almost forget the central question: does the name “Pantine” make it possible to improve the lives of the people of Pantine?
Behind the initiative, there is the idea, very fashionable – the same debate exists around inclusive writing -, that we must multiply these small lexical symbols to influence consciences, and therefore, ultimately, make progressive ideas win. In intellectual circles, this is called the “cultural battle”, and it is considered that all segments of life must be swept away. Even if the concrete profit sometimes seems hardly tangible. Thus reflections at regular intervals from Sandrine Rousseau, who has become the chief polemicist of the left. When the MP explains that “we have to change our mentality so that eating a steak cooked on a barbecue is no longer a symbol of virility”, she may be right about the consumption gap between men and women, but how is this does this concretely allow us to envisage any advance in female emancipation?
Tehran in Iran
Everything happens as if these elected officials, disillusioned with their mission to act concretely on the rules of life in society, were referring to the handling of consciences and emotions. A role that recalls the choice of that of the guru, the committed youtubeur or the artistic performer. The good side is that this strategy makes it possible to overcome the evaluation of the results. The concrete profit being imperceptible, one can overwhelm oneself by attributing to oneself a “successful sequence” with “set milestones” and “lines that have moved”. Communication takes the place of action. Paradoxically, these gadgets also give the impression of a great disconnection from the stakes. If there is anything more urgent in the fight for women’s rights than adding an “e” to the name of a city on the giant letters of a square, it is that the condition of women should not be as threatened as that. It is hard to imagine Iranian women renaming their capital Tehran.
Since the announcement of the town hall of Pantine, the most widespread reaction is to take it as a joke by looking for amusing town names. Bordelle in Gironde, Strasbourg in Alsace… A quick-witted colleague immediately asked the audience about the feminization of the Juan-Les-Pins district. Indeed, it is better to laugh: there are 361 days of political communication left in 2023.