“Sylvain Tesson is one of those writers who have the desire to share the love of words with everyone. I am happy that the Spring of Poets celebrates throughout France this vision of poetry, open, free and popular. » It is through this message posted this Sunday on X that Rachida Dati, Minister of Culture, reacted to the controversy.
The announcement of the appointment of Sylvain Tesson as godfather of the Spring of Poets, which will take place from March 9 to 25, caused some 1,200 personalities from the world of culture to jump. Gathered as a collective, they signed a column published Thursday by Release.
“Trinalization of the far right”
The signatories, including the authors Baptiste Beaulieu and Chloé Delaume, believed that this “reinforced the trivialization and normalization of the extreme right in the political and cultural spheres, and in society as a whole”.
The petitioners criticize the 51-year-old travel writer, winner of the Renaudot Prize in 2019, for The Snow Pantherto be a “leading figure of [l’] literary extreme right. He notably prefaced several novels by Jean Raspail, a monarchist and traditionalist Catholic writer, admired by identitarians, who died in 2020.
Coordinated by the association of the same name, the Spring of Poets is supported by the Ministry of Culture, the National Book Center and the Ministry of Education.