Amid the colorful celebrations marking Bastille Day last Sunday, Francois Hollande unveiled yet another French stamp emblazoned with the face of Marianne, France’s revolutionary symbol. According to Hollande, the effigy represented the French youth he hopes to prioritize during his presidency; little did he know this cartoon-like depiction would spark nation-wide controversy.
Designed
in secrecy over a period of two months, the stamp shocked the French right when
one of the designers, Oliver Ciappa, admitted on Twitter that the face of
Marianne, who represents liberty and reason for the French, was mainly inspired
by the breast-baring Ukrainian activist and member of Femen, Inna Shevchenko.
Shevchenko, who was
included in Madame Figaro’s list of the world’s top 20 iconic women of the year,
has become the face of the organization. According to the Figaro, 630 million
copies of Ciappa’s Marianne are already in circulation.
The bare-breasted revolutionary
symbol – the Marianne, that is – has
inspired artists for decades, and remains the most
popular face on French stamps since 1944. Arguably, the best known depiction is Eugene
Delacroix’s famous painting “Liberty Leading the People,” which long
figured on the 100 franc bill.
In a blogpost for HuffPost France, Ciappa
explained: “I chose Inna Shevchenko as a model, after days and days of trial and searches. She embodies the
values of the (French) Republic best; liberty, equality,
fraternity. Feminism is an intrinsic part of those values.” He then went
further by stating that had Marianne existed today, she would have probably
been part of Femen.
Femen was founded in Ukraine
in 2008 and describes itself as “fighting patriarchy and its three
manifestations – sexual exploitation of women, dictatorship and religion.” In
August 2012 Shevchenko sought political asylum in France after being prosecuted
for dismembering a crucifix near Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv. Since then she
has set up FEMEN Paris, a training center for activists, and has launched a
number of attacks on the French-right, including an attack on a neo-Nazi march gathered to pay homage to Joan of Arc
earlier this year.
Among the critics, leader
of the Christian Democratic Party Christine Boutin, famous for her vocal
opposition to civil unions in 1998 and same sex marriages, tweeted her disgust, demanding the immediate
withdrawal of this “outrageous stamp,” saying it was an attack “on the dignity
of women and the sovereignty of France,”
Inna Shevchenko on the
other hand was thrilled. As the first non-French “Marianne,” she stated “Femen is on French stamp. Now all homophobes,
extremists, fascists will have to lick my ass when they want to send a
letter.”
Kyiv Post intern Isabel Douglas-Hamilton can be reached at [email protected].
