Twenty years after the legendary Bérurier noir group’s big concert at the Quebec City Summer Festival in front of 50,000 fans, its singer and lyricist, François Guillemot, or Fanxoa, is back to present to Montrealers his new musical project, the art-punk-jazz duo No Suicide Act, which he formed with saxophonist Mad Saxx. The musician, now a historian and researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and a specialist in Vietnam, looks back on the history of his group while commenting on the current political situation at home.
Funny coincidence. Two weeks before confirming this videoconference with the one we then nicknamed Fanfan, we were thinking about the music of the Bérus. It was during the broadcast of the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games; while the delegations of athletes paraded on the Seine, a DJ lined up the greatest hits of French song. Suddenly, it hit us: what is missing from this mixtape a song by Bérurier noir!
And more precisely Hello to you (from the album Long live Bertaga1990), the punk hymn to world unity that would have fit perfectly with the message sent by director Thomas Jolly. “Hail to you, oh my brother / Hail to you, Khmer people / Hail to you, Algerian / Hail to you, Tunisian,” sings François Guillemot in this classic of committed French rock.
“Several people have also had this reflection,” assures Fanfan. “Someone told me: ‘Frankly, they could have passed Hello to you.” Indeed, in a way, this song is now part of French heritage — and it is a message of international friendship. They could have shown jugglers, mind you, while the song is playing,” says the musician, alluding to the acrobat side of Bérurier noir, whose stage costumes, among other artifacts, were exhibited last spring as part of an exhibition at the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), which today preserves the archives of Guillemot and his friend mastO (Thomas Heuer, saxophonist).
“Youth annoys the National Front”
The Bérurier noir collection (accessible online on the BnF website) in a way confirms the punk group’s ascendancy in an alternative music scene that was being discovered in France in the 1980s. “But at the time,” Fanfan qualifies, “we didn’t consider ourselves a punk group. We saw ourselves more in the post-punk movement, or as a sort of folklore group – hence the label “Folklore de la zone mondiale” that we invented. A sort of French folk UFO, also French in some respects.” And which, between 1984 and 1989, established itself as a leading group thanks to four albums released by Bondage Records.
Known for his electro-punk aesthetic, thanks to his use of a drum machine in place of a drummer, and for his furious performances, his “theater of force” first offered in squatsin the subway, on the sidewalk, then in increasingly larger venues, Bérurier noir also campaigns for various social causes. One of his most famous songs, Pigsty (from the album Concerto for the deranged1985), shoots at everything that moves on the right and names Le Pen senior, then head of the National Front. Three years later, Fanfan decided to add to the original text the phrase “Youth pisses off the National Front”, which has since become a slogan of the left and was taken up again during the last presidential election, last spring.
So, Mr. Guillemot, are young people still bothering the National Front in 2024? “This is a question that was repeated by the media during the elections,” he says with a sigh. “Obviously, there is an increase in the ideas of the National Front and the “respectability” — in quotation marks — of the National Rally (RN). But the vast majority of polls have shown that young people vote left. This was the case during the second round. […] Jordan Bardella [président du RN] made a big communication on social networks, but he took in return the TikToks of the young people, many women in fact, who reacted and re-enacted this slogan that we had sung at the Olympia in Paris in 1989″, concert described as the most important in the history of French punk.
An activist, yes, committed, always, but a politician, Fanfan? He assures that he has never been tempted by political life and has never been approached by a party to run for office. “I have always been independent – at 14, I joined the Young Communists, but the following year, as they did not support the Baader Gang [Fraction armée rouge, organisation terroriste allemande d’extrême gauche]I tore up my card! he said, laughing. I am a simple citizen who supports reasonable people and tries to find a future for his children.”
Which does not prevent him from casting a harsh eye on Emmanuel Macron, “who lives in denial, unfortunately”. “I think he is a young president who had all the assets in hand, but who has slashed everything, little by little – his aura, his ability to discuss. What will we remember of his mandate? Ultra-liberal reforms and a stepping stone for the extreme right.”
Muddy memories
Twenty years after this concert at the FEQ on July 11, 2004 (which was the subject of a documentary, Liberated territorysigned Stef Bloch), Fanfan remembers a “magical” evening. “We were extremely worried because the weather was terrible: when we arrived, it was a storm. A monsoon rain that fell on the audience and cooled them down suddenly. But very quickly, it turned into a bouillabaisse! In fact, it gave rise to a wild party because people were so soaked and covered in mud that they had nothing left to lose by committing to the concert.”
His new project, No Suicide Act, also punk in spirit, this time combines jazz with rock, electronic music and poetry. The album will arrive next month; two excerpts have already been revealed, I am a mistake And What’s the weather like? ?. This last song grabs us at first listen, as François Guillemot reflects on the conflict between Israel and Hamas, an urgent subject if ever there was one.
“The title of our album is Interbellum. We live between two wars, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which is getting bogged down, and the one between Israel and Hamas. And it is absurd because, in the end, they will come to an agreement. The Russians and the Ukrainians, the Palestinians and the Israelis. However, this necessary dialogue is erased by wars that will cause thousands of deaths, all for nothing. In the end, we will have to talk to each other in order to live together.
Montreal will be the first to discover the songs from this new album, as well as new versions of a few selected pieces from the Bérus repertoire. “I’ll have my little papers to read my lyrics!” says François, laughing. With Lionel [Martin, dit Mad Saxx]we said to ourselves that it would be good not to play the first concert in France, then the window opened towards Montreal.” At the Foufounes électriques in addition, where Bérurier noir gave his first concerts in Quebec, in June 1987. “It’s a bit magical for us to play there again!”