SAY MY STREETS
It all begins with a random walk. I just looked up and was like: “Funny street name”! One second later, I was picturing in my head the lives, loves, and challenges people that somehow the politicians decide to honor by naming a street after them. Here is a scope of some of these famous names. Under their names or titles, there is human life, with all the success and all the mistakes that can lead to.
Eugène and Marie-Louise Cornet: members of the french Resistance, killed at la Raperie d’Oissery (France) August 26, 1944: Eugène was injured, and Marie-Louise stayed by him side till the end (she will be shot and her body burned).
Gabrielle Josserand: member of the french Resistance, died at the camp of Pithiviers (France). My first instinct was to draw a white woman but I changed my mind (we get so little information about black women part of the Resistance).
Octave Mirbeau: author of" le Journal d’une femme de chambre", his third autobiography introduced a hero (just like Mirbeau) who was expelled from high school, because of his homosexuality. It appeared later that he was actually raped by a Jesuit Father, who, fearing a denunciation, accused the character of same-sex relationship.
Anatole France : he spent all his childhood in his father's book store. He learnt how to read with an old Bible from 16th century.
Jean Jaurès : suspicious of Jews but great defender of Dreyfus, for secularism but also for Catholic schools. At 25, in favor of colonisation, he changed his mind about the domination of colonised people, and embraced socialism, with the miners' strike in Carmaux, France.
André Messager : co-director of the Opéra Garnier. He also gave a role in one of his operettes to a friend of his daughter's, Denise Grey (who 50 years later would play the role of the grandmother in the famous movie "La Boom").
Cécile Brunschvicg : a "moderate" feminist who entered in politics with the Dreyfus affair. Her greatest achievement is the creation of 1,700 school canteens. In 1938, she fought for ending the civil incapacity of married women.
Maurice Ravel , composer of the "Bolero": in 1920, Ravel was proposed for the Legion of Honour and refused: "To consent to be decorated is to recognise the right of the State or the Prince to judge you".
Jean Nicot: Columbus brought tobacco in Europe and Nicot in the French royalty, by sending some to Catherine de Médicis, who was suffering terrible headaches.
Simone Iff : she is at the origin of the manifesto of the 343 (French women who testified "I got an abortion"). She will advocate so that abortion is not only a health issue but a right for all women, and will obtain reimbursement for the abortion.
François Mitterrand : I was more interested in Danielle, Mitterrand's wife. She said one day: « he has mistresses, I will also have lovers ».
Westermann: French general and war criminal for his exactions in Vendée (France). He was one of the actors of August 10th, 1792, when the "Sans-culottes" stormed the Tuileries palace. At the end of that day, Louis XVI and his family were thrown behind bars.