He was a poet-provocateur whose songs transformed French music and whose often outrageous behaviour on TV was shrugged off with a smile.
But plans to name a new Métro station east of Paris after the singer Serge Gainsbourg have sparked a row, with campaigners saying he was a misogynist whose songs glorified child abuse and should not be celebrated.
More than 4,000 people have signed a petition saying that the new line 11 Métro station in Les Lilas, due to open in 2024, should not be named after Gainsbourg, who died in 1991 and whose career spanned more than 30 years, 25 albums, numerous soundtracks, films and hundreds of songs for other singers.
The petition argues that, in the post Me-Too era, a station should not carry the name of a “notorious misogynist” and the decision to pay tribute to Gainsbourg “spits in the face” of all victims of sexism.
The petition asks: “What message is being sent by this decision to write his name into the public space?” It said a station called Serge Gainsbourg would send a message that it was “acceptable, even encouraged, to be violent towards women and children, if it’s done by a man in the name of art”.
Daniel Guiraud, a former leftwing mayor, proposed naming the station after Gainsbourg because of his 1958 hit, Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a Métro worker.
Marie, 29, a public sector worker who helped launched the petition, told French media that politicians could not just pretend there were no problems surrounding Gainsbourg’s personality.
She told the newspaper le Parisien: “Many of us find it shocking. Some will say it’s not important, that what really counts is having a new Métro station. But names are a symbol of what we choose to glorify and showcase. This is very important … Les Lilas is a town that sees itself as very feminist … Society has changed over the past 10 years and I hope we can be heard on this issue.”
The petition highlights aspects of Gainsbourg’s life, including the 1984 song and video Lemon Incest, which he made with his daughter Charlotte when she was 12. In the video, Gainsbourg lies on a bed shirtless, with his daughter, who is wearing only a shirt and knickers, singing about “the love that we will never make together”. The song was a hit in France but Gainsbourg was accused of glamourising abuse.
His daughter, who is now 52 and an actor and singer in her own right, has said the song did not promote abuse, telling the Guardian in 2019: “He’s just talking about the infinite love of a father for his daughter and of a daughter for her father – and you can’t condemn that. Because there’s nothing physical.”
The petition also highlights Gainsbourg’s alleged behaviour in relationships with younger women, including Charlotte’s mother, the late English actor and singer Jane Birkin, as well as his 1986 TV appearance on a chatshow with the singer Whitney Houston when, sitting beside Houston, he said: “I want to fuck her”.
The feminist writer Florence Porcel said the Métro station should instead be named after the French singer Anne Sylvestre.
The town hall in Lilas did not respond with a comment.
