It’s been four years since Hapsatou Sy found herself facing Éric Zemmour on Thierry Ardisson’s set, when he decided to rename her “Corinne” to better match his vision of France. Since 2018, she has not forgotten anything. This Friday, November 4, 2022, the polemicist and former presidential candidate is tried for “racial insult”. The former Canal + host confided in her state of mind today in the columns of the Parisianproviding specific information on what she has been going through since the political-media man attacked her.
By questioning the first name of Hapsatou Sy, Eric Zemmour deeply struck the entrepreneur and columnist, an injury that followed her in her daily life. To illustrate her point, she explains in The Parisian the most intimate moments when this attack came back to him full in the face: “The day I give birth to my second child, in November 2019, the anesthesiologist took the liberty of playing a joke on me by calling me Corinne. He seemed to find it funny. I cut it short and asked that he no longer take care of me.“
The allusion to “Corinne” has become recurrent in the daily life of Hapsatou Sy, mother of Isaac and Abbie that she had with the host Vincent Cerutti. She clarifies as follows:These jokes, I have also heard them many times in work meetings, in the street, on social networks and even on a Wikipedia file. In fact, it was the extreme right and the horde of Éric Zemmour sympathizers who renamed me Corinne during these four years, under the impetus of their ‘guru’. I also received hate messages from them, envelopes containing excrement, etc. It’s incredibly violent.”
I have never heard anything so hurtful.
In 2018, the ex-journalist of Figaro was promoting his bestseller French destiny in Sunday Earthlings. He approached his favorite subject, the origin of the first names which must come from the calendar where the Christian saints appear. Hapsatou Sy takes it up: “My name is Hapsatou, I am French.“But his interlocutor believes that his mother was wrong to choose this first name and thinks that the first name Corinne would suit her well. Between shock and embarrassed laughter at such arrogance, the editing suggests that the two protagonists are exchanging spades, no more.
The show Further investigation broadcast in November 2021 the continuation of the exchange, filmed behind the scenes by a relative of Hapsatou Sy, and cut during the editing at the request of the legal department of C8 – a measure that Thierry Ardisson fully recognized. “What you have just said is not an insult to me, it is an insult to France. It’s extremely hurtful“, proclaims Hapsatou Sy. Eric Zemmour replies: “Your first name is an insult to France. France is not a virgin land, it is a land with a history.“
After the show, she had explained herself with the presenter Thierry Ardisson who described Eric Zemmour’s words as horrible but assumed that he had invited him, an animated conversation filmed with a hidden camera. This is the beginning of settling scores with the host, the C8 channel and the Canal + group that she left.