France: Honoring a movie star is just tacky

Yves Michaud

Libération

I never used to join in the annual outcry about national honors being given to supposedly undeserving people, said Yves Michaud. As a holder myself of France’s top distinction, a knighthood in the Legion of Honor, I always found it ridiculous the way those already knighted, “puffed up with their own importance,” denounced newcomers as unworthy. And in 2010 a noted philosopher turned an honor down because he had been nominated by President Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he despised. Would it really have been any more glorious coming from former President Jacques Chirac, who was recently convicted for corruption? Still, there are limits.

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Sarkozy’s awarding of the Legion of Honor to Salma Hayek, a middling Mexican actress, is beyond belief. True, she’s not the first Hollywood star tapped—she joins Clint Eastwood, Robert Redford, and Steven Spielberg—but she is easily the least distinguished. Hayek’s only obvious qualification is being married to billionaire François-Henri Pinault, a Sarkozy crony and campaign donor. It simply looks “tacky.” Surely this was not what Napoleon had in mind when he created the award. The whole affair is a sad reflection on France’s new “supermarket culture,” which Sarkozy has fostered with his lack of taste and love of bling.