PARIS
— The song was supposed to raise money, not a ruckus. But because it
features a group of young singers whining and another group of older
singer-celebrities reproaching them, the recording, made for a French
charity, has provoked a storm of anger and laid bare a generational
divide in French society.
“You had everything — peace, freedom, full employment,” the younger side sings. “We have joblessness, violence and AIDS.”
“Everything we have, we had to earn it,” the more senior celebrities respond. “It’s your turn now — but you need to get going!”
The
song, “Toute La Vie” (“All Life Long”), was written by a music star
from the 1980s, Jean-Jacques Goldman, to raise money for a well-known
organization, Les Restaurants du Coeur, that runs food banks. A video featuring the song was posted last week on YouTube,
and it took off on social media, with more than 2.6 million views since
then. But along the way, it garnered more than a thousand critical
comments on Facebook and tens of thousands of messages on Twitter,
setting off a tense and startlingly bitter debate in France.
It
was the younger generation that took offense, feeling that in the song,
they were characterized as lazy and unwilling to make an effort in life
by adults who seemed dismissive of the obstacles young people face.
The
song is “paternalistic,” “reactionary” and “anti-young,” Marc-Aurèle
Baly, a music critic in his 20s who writes for Les Inrocks, a music
magazine, said on Friday in a televised debate about the song on BFM TV.
The
group of older singers and other celebrities, known as Les Enfoirés,
roughly translated as The Bastards, records a song each year for the
charity. They have never been known for breaking musical ground, and
this year’s song, while it has a catchy beat, was no exception. Neither,
though, do people take their efforts as serious commentary on French
society.
Laura
Slimani, who heads a youth branch of the governing Socialist Party,
said she thought Mr. Goldman probably just chose his lyrics poorly.
Still, she said, it came across as an insult to young people.
“It’s
a little complicated to reproach young people for not ‘getting going’
when there is 25 percent unemployment among people under 25, and 22
percent fall below the poverty line,” she said.
She
also noted that young adults do not have the same right to the welfare
payments that older French people receive if they have little or no
income.
At
first glance, the French generational tensions appear somewhat
reminiscent of those in the United States surrounding the “millennials,”
people born in the 1980s and 1990s who are delaying marriage, extending
their educational years and still have a hard time finding jobs.
But the comparison is not an apt one, French sociologists and social critics say.
The
income gap between generations is even more severe in France than in
the United States, said Louis Chauvel, a French sociologist who has also
worked in America on income inequality and other issues. On top of
that, Mr. Chauvel added, the United States economy has been rebounding,
while unemployment in France has been rising since 2008 and has hovered
around 10 percent for the last two years.
“In
the U.S., the young 25-year-olds have lots of opportunities,” he said.
“It’s generally much better to be relatively young in the United States
than to be aging.
“In
France, we face a completely different trend: We have more and more
educated young French citizens, and they face economic scarcity, even
though they have more education than their parents.”
Young
adults in France see their taxes going to finance social benefits for
retirees that they believe they will never receive, Mr. Chauvel added.
The most energetic and smartest among them do find jobs, he said, but
often they can do it only by leaving France for Britain, Australia or
the United States.
Compounding
the problem, said Olivier Galland, a sociologist at the state-financed
National Center for Scientific Research, is the tendency in France to
attach great importance to status. Low workplace turnover means there
are frustratingly few openings for young people to break in, achieve and
move ahead.
Put
it all together, Mr. Chauvel said, and the young in France feel not
just anger but wrath — and little patience with musical lectures from
their elders, especially when those elders include musicians who have
made it and are seen as financially flush.
Reactions
on Twitter suggest that people of all ages took exception to the song.
“My daughter sent out 200 resumes without getting a single response ...
Ah yes but she has #TouteLaVie! Shameful!” one clearly irate parent
wrote.
“Baby
boomers who lecture the unemployed youth that they are so lucky, ‘you
are going to pay for our retirement,’ ” said another facetious Twitter
message.
Some
of Les Enfoirés have distanced themselves from the song, while others
have publicly defended it. Mr. Goldman, evidently surprised by the
outcry, posted a statement on the group’s website that tried to strike a
conciliatory note, suggesting that the song’s lyrics reflect wider
social attitudes and not the singers’ own feelings.
Les
Enfoirés are “playing the role of adults who answer, as they too often
do, by shirking their responsibility and acting in bad faith, but hoping
that youth will do better,” it said.
So
far, though, young listeners have not been buying that explanation. All
they hear in it, they say, is an attempt to evade responsibility for
the song’s patronizing tone.
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