Presque vingt ans après son dernier rôle au cinéma, Sylvie Vartan s’apprête à reprendre le chemin des plateaux de tournage. La chanteuse a été séduite par la proposition de Toni Marshall qui souhaite lui faire jouer le rôle de la maman de Patrick Bruel dans son prochain film.
Il fallait bien tout le talent et la force de persuasion de Toni Marshall pour convaincre Sylvie Vartan de refaire du cinéma. Jouer la comédie reste épisodique dans la carrière de la chanteuse et son dernier rôle sur grand écran remonte à L’ange noir, de Jean-Claude Brisseau. C’était en 1994. Vingt ans après, Sylvie Vartan s’est donc laissée séduire par le projet de la réalisatrice de Vénus Beauté, nous révèle Le Parisien dans son édition de jeudi.
Il faut dire que le prochain film de Toni Marshall a de quoi séduire. Il aura en effet pour interprètes principaux Patrick Bruel et Sophie Marceau, un couple inédit à l’écran mais au potentiel romantique évident. Les deux acteurs, qui se connaissent un peu dans le privé car leurs enfants fréquentent la même école, joueront deux collègues accros au sexe. Sylvie Vartan interprètera le rôle de la mère du personnage joué par Patrick Bruel.
Le titre du film, pour l’instant provisoire, est Les missionnaires. Tout un programme. Il mettra également à l’affiche Jean-Pierre Darroussin, François Morel et André Wilms. Le tournage est prévu pour le mois d’août.
Actualité chargée donc pour Sylvie Vartan puisqu’elle vient d’enregistrer aux Etats-Unis son nouvel album, Sylvie in Nashville, dont la sortie est prévue pour le mois d’octobre. La chanteuse s’est en même temps lancée dans une tournée symphonique puis présentera son album en février prochain aux Folies Bergères dans un spectacle intitulé Sylvie à la folie, qu’elle devrait ensuite donner un peu partout à travers la France.
Pro-democracy protesters gather in front of the Poland's Constitutional Court in central Warsaw in August, 2016 to support its judges as they hand down a verdict striking down reforms by right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) government as unconstitutional | Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images
EU ramps up pressure on Poland
The Parliament and the Commission feel the government hasn’t made enough concessions.
The European Parliament passed a resolution Wednesday pressing the Polish government to solve its constitutional crisis within the three-month deadline set by the European Commission on July 27.
Passed by a margin of 510 votes to 160 with 29 abstentions, the symbolic resolution found that there is still a “systemic risk to the rule of law” in Poland. It’s the latest step in Brussels’ attempt to bring Warsaw to heel in a long-running dispute over the shape of the country’s highest constitutional court.
The unprecedented procedure launched against Poland by the Commission could theoretically end with the country having its voting rights as an EU member suspended.
The Polish government has made some concessions, but those still far short of the Commission’s demands.
“At this stage, the dispute concerning the composition and the judgments of the constitutional of the tribunal remains unresolved,” Frans Timmermans, the deputy head of the Commission, told the Parliament on Tuesday.
The fight broke out late last year, when Poland’s newly elected Law and Justice party government refused to seat five judges appointed to the Constitutional Tribunal by the previous government. Law and Justice then elected and swore in five judges of its own. However, the tribunal’s president declined to seat three of them.
The right-wing government also pushed through a series of changes to the tribunal’s rules, which critics said were directed at limiting its ability to vet government legislation. The tribunal twice found those rule changes to be unconstitutional, but the government has refused to acknowledge the verdicts.
The feud has already led thousands to take to the streets in anti-government demonstrations and has strained Poland’s relations with the Commission and with allies like the U.S.
In a statement summarizing their vote, MEPs said the actions of the Polish government “endanger democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law in Poland,” referring in particular to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Prime Minister Beata Szydło, left, and Jarosław Kaczyński, head of the ruling Law and Justice party. | EPA/PAWEL SUPERNAK
Poland rebuked for ‘crippling’ high court
Venice Commission report says government’s refusal to accept ruling threatens to ‘deepen constitutional crisis.’
WARSAW — A report on the Polish government’s profound changes to the country’s top constitutional court released Friday concludes the steps endanger “not only the rule of law, but also the functioning of the democratic system.”
The study by the Venice Commission, a body of legal experts with the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog, comes as a blow to Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party government, which had been hoping to soften the language of a draft report leaked last month.
Despite lobbying efforts by the foreign ministry, the final report was scathing in the shortcomings of the government’s approach to the Constitutional Tribunal, which has set off a political and legal crisis in Poland.
The commission “repeated the reasoning of one of the sides, that’s what saddens me the most,” said Konrad Szymański, the deputy foreign minister. “We underlined that we can agree on one thing, that there are no simple solutions. However, the commission decided to choose a simple path.”
The commission was invited to Poland in December by Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski, after a wave of foreign and domestic criticism over the government’s actions.
What’s at stake
Part of the dispute is over who gets to be on the 15-judge court. The new government, elected in October, refused to recognize three judges elected by the previous parliament and instead elected its own judges, who have been sworn in by President Andrzej Duda but who haven’t been allowed to take seats on the tribunal.
The other dispute is over deep changes to the rules governing the functioning of the court rushed through parliament in December. Those rules make it possible to remove judges, set a minimum quorum of 13, change the definition of a majority needed for a verdict from half to two-thirds of judges and take away the tribunal’s ability to choose cases, insisting they be taken up in chronological order.
The Venice Commission warned that “crippling” the court’s effectiveness would undermine democracy and the rule of law. “Constitutional democracies require checks and balances,” it found.
Commission defends tribunal
The commission chastised the government for its refusal to publish Wednesday’s tribunal verdict, which found that the December rule changes were unconstitutional. The government argues that the tribunal should have acted according to those new rules, meaning the court, now counting only 12 judges and examining the new law out of chronological order, could not decide on the legality of the procedural rules.
Andrzej Rzepliński, the tribunal’s president, refused to accept that position and went ahead with the verdict.
The formal publication of the decision is the final step in making a tribunal decision valid. Calling the verdict only a “communiqué,” Rafał Bochenek, a government spokesman, said the tribunal “had not followed legal requirements.”
But the commission wrote that refusing to publish the judgment “would not only be contrary to the rule of law, such an unprecedented move would further deepen the constitutional crisis triggered by the election of judges in autumn 2015 and the Amendments of 22 December 2015.”
Consequences
The report will cause further problems for Warsaw because the European Commission has said it will take the Venice Commission conclusions into account when it restarts its probe into whether Poland has violated the bloc’s democratic principles after Easter.
“Current situation means these checks & balances are now in limbo. This is not acceptable in a EU based on rule of law,” tweeted Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament.
Law and Justice has oscillated on how to deal with the blowback to its approach to the tribunal. Some ministers have denounced Brussels politicians who dared question the government, especially if they were German, like Schulz.
But Prime Minister Beata Szydło showed up in the European Parliament in January to argue her case, and got generally positive reviews.
Although the Venice Commission came at Warsaw’s invitation, Jarosław Kaczyński, the leader of PiS and Poland’s most powerful politician, later denounced its draft report as “absurd from a legal point of view.”
Szymański’s tone in reaction to the final report was cautious.
The language has been more brutal in the country. Kaczyński has attacked anti-government protesters as being unpatriotic and backed by forces that want to keep Poland a colony — a theme echoed by Duda.
The constitutional battle is only one part of a series of rapid changes by PiS. Others include a politicization of the civil service, the government taking tighter control of public radio and television, verbal attacks on allies like Germany, and the replacement of top management in most state-controlled companies.
The opposition is planning a demonstration Saturday in front of the Constitutional Tribunal, and protestors have also gathered outside the prime minister’s office. The government said it plans its own massive counter-rally in the coming weeks, pulling in as many as 200,000 people to the capital.
Foreign worries
Although the constitutional crisis has battered Poland’s international reputation, opinion polls show PiS remains by far the most popular political party, with the support of 38 percent of those polled in a recent survey.
The other impacts are harder to judge.
The government’s refusal to publish the verdict could cause legal chaos. If the tribunal rules on any of the government’s other legislation — some of which is very controversial, such as a law dramatically limiting the property rights of farmers, or one giving the police more rights to snoop on people — lower courts will be uncertain whether such a verdict is binding or not.
It is unclear what will happen in Brussels. Hungary, also under fire for bending democratic rules, has sworn to block any attempt to suspend Poland’s voting rights in the European Council. However, Poland could find itself isolated on the margins of the EU, making it difficult to strike deals on issues like gaining approval for government aid to rescue floundering coal mines.
The crisis is complicating relations with Washington, the Polish government’s main foreign ally. John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, told Poland’s Rzeczpospolita newspaper that the U.S. is “alarmed” by the state of rule of law in Poland.
Interior Minister Mariusz Błaszczak told Poland’s TVN television the U.S. position “may be a misunderstanding.”
A student after the University of Kentucky filed a “bias incident” report against a producer of an on-campus production of Shrek: The Musical over a transgender joke that was part of the Tony award-winning show’s original script.
According to a report by The College Fix, a production of Shrek: The Musical at the University of Kentucky was on the receiving end of a “bias incident” complaint after a student noticed that there is a transgender joke in the show’s original script.
In one song, a character sings, “they tore my cotton granny dress / and called me a hot ’n’ tranny mess.” Before the complaint was filed, the show’s producers had decided to remove the joke from the script. “If you are upset by the line ‘tranny mess,’ I’m sorry,” the producer allegedly told students during a rehearsal.
The University of Kentucky’s production of Shrek: The Musical was not the first production to remove the politically incorrect line. The song, which was written specifically for the Broadway musical, has been modified by many regional productions of the show around the country.
A public records request revealed that a student had filed a complaint against the producer for his initial hesitation to remove the joke.
“It felt very out of place, inappropriate, and unnecessary to state any of this, let alone actually verbally saying this slur,” the student wrote in the complaint. “It made me very uncomfortable.”
The University of Kentucky website claims that “bias incident(s)” can occur even without intent. The definition provided by the university suggests that the only requirement for a bias incident is whether or not someone was offended.
“A bias incident can occur whether the act was intentional or unintentional, and may or may not be a legal act,” the University of Kentucky website reads. “In identifying a bias incident, the focus is on the impact on an individual or group, not the intention or motivation of the actor.”
Breitbart News reported in October that the University of Michigan will shut down its “bias response” complaint system in response to a First Amendment lawsuit which claimed that the system chills free expression on campus.
Viewers were left in disbelief after former White House press secretary Sean Spicer advanced to yet another round of Dancing with the Stars Monday night, with some calling it “bullshit” and others lamenting “the scariest thing about #DWTS is that Sean Spicer is still dancing.”
Spicer and dancing partner Lindsay Arnold danced the Jive to “Monster Mash” for DWTS’ Halloween-themed night. Despite receiving what ET described as “by far, the lowest scores of the night” — 18/30 — the dancing duo did not find themselves in the bottom two, thanks to the weight of fan votes. It means that conservatives, as Spicer has mentioned on Breitbart News Sunday, are showing up and sending a message to Hollywood.
Viewers, particularly those on the left, were in disbelief.
“The scariest thing about #DWTS is that Sean Spicer is still dancing,” one user wrote.
“What is happening on dancing with the Stars??? GET RID OF SEAN!!! I’m sick of him. Who’s voting???” another asked alongside the hashtag “#notdancingwithtrump.”
“I cannot believe Sean Spicer is still on Dancing with the Stars. I’m livid. We have lost two great ones because people vote for this mediocre dancer. Come on America, do better,” another tweeted, adding, “#TeamAnyoneBesideSpicer.”
Across the board, viewers were baffled by Spicer’s grassroots support. Some even suggested removing the viewer vote and only allowing the “pros” to judge due to Spicer’s continued stay.
Spicer has openly admitted that he tends to score low but told Breitbart News Sunday that his continued presence on the show is a testament to support from “Breitbart nation” and conservatives across the country.
“It means that they’re carrying us pretty high up the ladder because we’re never in the bottom,” Spicer said, adding that conservatives are sending the message to the left that they are “equal participants” and “cannot be canceled out.”
“I think that’s a great message to send. For all of those folks on the right — that we are equal participants and we cannot be canceled out,” Spicer continued.
“Hopefully this is helping the overall movement and people realize — hey look you’re an advertiser, if you’re a show, there are a lot of active folks on the right that you should be paying attention to,” he added.
Big conservative voices on Twitter also rallied for Spicer during the show.
“Team Trump show up!!!” Trump campaign’s national press secretary Kayleigh McEnany wrote.
Migrants queue for a security check near the village of Miratovac after crossing into Serbia via the Macedonian border on January 30, 2016. | Armend Nimani/AFP/Getty
EU gives Greece and Macedonia more millions for migration
The European Commission said Monday it would give €10 million to Macedonia to improve management of its border, and provide €12.7 million in emergency funding to Greece for migrant reception facilities.
The money for Greece will be used to set up 8,000 reception places on the mainland. Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the funds will help Greece reach its goal of accommodating 50,000 refugees, agreed in October.
Last week, EU states gave Greece six weeks to resolve “serious deficiencies” in how it processes migrants.
The €10 million to Macedonia aims to improve border checks, surveillance and registration, and to combat human trafficking, the Commission said in a statement.
Johannes Hahn, the EU’s neighborhood and enlargement commissioner, said the new funding would help authorities “improve border and migration management, and support their costs relating to the guest officers sent by EU member states and Serbia to the country’s southern border.”
The Commission said it took into account a request for assistance from Macedonia, and the results of a Commission visit last month.
Most of the more than 1 million migrants who came to Europe last year, came from Turkey to Greece and then through Macedonia and Serbia, on the Western Balkan route.
The right-back, who has already equaled his own record for assists in a season, says the team’s focus is on defence, but his partner isn’t so sure
Trent Alexander-Arnold has insisted that clean sheets are more important to him than assists, but the other member of Liverpool’s stellar full-back duo, Andrew Robertson, believes “it’s all about getting the balance right”.
The pair have been instrumental in attack and defence for the Merseysiders this season as they have opened up a commanding 22-point lead at the top of the Premier League table.
Despite saying he wanted to extend his record for assists by a defender in a Premier League season, which he set at 12 last season and has equalled already this year, England right-back Alexander-Arnold said he thought a strong defensive record was key to the Reds’ success this campaign.
More teams
“It’s defending. It’s the foundation to any result. You get a clean sheet you can’t lose the game. That’s our mentality,” the 22-year-old told Sky Sports.
“If we build the foundations with the defensive work and not conceding, we then have the attackers and the midfielders and even ourselves to go forward and create goals.
“More times than not we do score in games, so if we keep clean sheets we will win games.”
Robertson, the left-back who chipped in with 11 assists last campaign and has seven so far in 2019-20, said that while defending was crucial, the support of the midfield allows the pair to get forward, as manager Jurgen Klopp wants.
“Trent has said we believe that we can keep clean sheets and I think the midfield is key to that,” he said as he sat next to Alexander-Arnold.
“The manager wants us to get forward, he wouldn’t be happy if me and Trent were just stood on the halfway line defending and the back four just stayed where they are.
“It’s up to us to take the opportunities to get forward when we feel it is right.
“We have people like Fabinho, [Jordan Henderson, [James Milner] and [Georgino Wijnaldum] who will cover for us, or sometimes they go and we cover for them.
“It’s all about getting the balance right. Different games see different spaces open up and on the wings there is sometimes lots of space that we need to capitalise on.
“It’s no use to us if we’re just sitting back and focusing on the clean sheet because we know we can create chances and we’ve proven that.”
Guillaume Canet est cette semaine à l’affiche de Jappeloup. Un film dont il a écrit le scénario et qui retrace le parcours d’un cavalier et de son cheval jusqu’aux Jeux Olympiques de Séoul en 1988.
Nom: Jappeloup. Couleur: noir ébène. 1m58 au Garreau. Un cheval nerveux, imprévisible et capable de sauter des obstacles aussi hauts que ses grands concurrents.
Son cavalier? Pierre Durand. Tombé tout petit dans la potion magique de l’équitation de haut niveau, il préfère un temps se consacrer à sa carrière d’avocat, avant de reprendre le chemin des manèges, séduit par Jappeloup.
Le duo ira loin, très loin, grâce à l’amour de ses proches. Le père de Pierre Durand, incarné par Daniel Auteuil, rêve de haut niveau, d’olympisme, sa femme, Marina Hands, le premier amour de Guillaume Canet, renonce à sa carrière pour l’accompagner dans tous les concours. Et lorsque Pierre chute au pied du podium, c’est la groom de Jappeloup, incarnée par Lou de Laâge que l’on a découverte dans J’aime regarder les filles, qui le remet dans le droit chemin: celui du soin apporté au cheval, de la confiance mutuelle qui doit naître entre lui et son cavalier.
Le spectateur suit chacun des entraînements de Pierre, et au fil de ses concours, de ses triomphes et de ses déconvenues. Guillaume Canet qui a lui-même eu un accident à l‘âge de 18 ans sur un saut d‘obstacles, a tenu à rappeler que le haut niveau implique des souffrances, des doutes… Jusqu’à l’envie de vendre le cheval! Le jeune homme qu’il était avait quant à lui renoncé à la compétition pour se tourner vers une carrière au cinéma, avec le succès qu’on connaît.
Il a ici préféré confié la réalisation au Québecois Christian Duguay, en qui il a «toute confiance» car il souhaitait se remettre en selle pour le rôle, et se consacrer avec discipline aux entraînements. La mise en scène est très réussie, haletante, spectaculaire, d’autant que le spectateur n’est pas habitué à voir de l’équitation, surtout sur grand écran.
On peut regretter que les étapes de la vie familiale de Pierre Durand aient une telle place dans le film: comme par peur de ne pas faire du film un documentaire sportif. Jappeloup reste un film grand public. On peut aussi y voir une façon de rendre accessible ce domaine du sport de haut niveau, difficile à appréhender pour le commun des mortels. Guillaume Canet expliquait sur le plateau de France 2 qu’il s’était inspiré de films comme Rocky par exemple, où le récit du succès sportif ne tient que par l‘histoire d‘amour avec la fameuse Adrian. Dans Jappeloup, on vit avec Pierre, que ce soit lorsqu’il gagne un trophée, lorsqu’il se marie, voit naître sa fille. On l’accompagne. Et on y croit.
Après le décès d’un candidat de 25 ans, victime d’une crise cardiaque, lors du tournage de la première épreuve de la saison 16, TF1 a décidé d’annuler le tournage de Koh Lanta. Un coup dur pour la chaîne, dont l’émission était un rendez-vous très attendu des téléspectateurs.
Pas de Koh Lanta en 2013. TF1 vient d’annuler l’émission. Alors que les équipes de production étaient en plein tournage, l’un des candidats, Gérald Babin, 25 ans, est décédé juste après avoir participé à la première épreuve.
Cet événement a contraint la chaîne à stopper le tournage de l’émission. «Ce qui est sûr, c’est que cette saison au Cambodge est définitivement arrêtée. Tout le monde est en train d’être rapatrié», explique l’un des responsables de TF1 (au total, 80 techniciens et 16 candidats). Quant aux suites à donner à Koh Lanta, après le drame «ce n’est pas vraiment la question qu’on s’est posée».
Sauf que les internautes et les fans, eux, se sont interrogés. Certains se sont même demandés si TF1 allait diffuser et continuer de tourner cette nouvelle saison afin de créer le buzz. «C’est vraiment mal connaître TF1 et sa culture de chaîne grand public, rappelle Mathieu Géniole, chroniqueur au Plus du Nouvel Obs. TF1 n’est pas une chaîne trash».
Et oui, répétons-le : la production a tout de suite stoppé le tournage de l’émission et ne prévoit pas de le reprendre. Mais le jeu Koh Lanta a -t-il encore un avenir? Pour Mathieu Géniole «poursuivre ce programme serait un véritable suicide médiatique». Sauf que Koh Lanta est devenue l’une des marques les plus importantes de TF1. Chaque saison compte une dizaine de prime time, le vendredi soir, avec une moyenne de 7 millions de téléspectateurs. Près de 30% de part d’audience. Ce n’est pas rien.
Quel programme pourra remplacer Koh Lanta à la case du divertissement de fin de semaine? Il est encore trop tôt pour le dire. Seule certitude, TF1 risque d’avoir quelques difficultés à trouver un challenger à la hauteur. L’hypothèse d’une série américaine reste la plus plausible en si peu de temps. Koh Lanta était habituellement diffusée à la rentrée.
C’est la maison Sotheby’s qui a vendu la mèche: Madonna se sépare du tableau Trois Femmes à la Table Rouge, de l’artiste cubiste français Fernand Léger. La somme récoltée servira à financer des actions en faveur de l’éducation des jeunes filles, notamment en Afghanistan.
La chanteuse est une collectionneuse avertie, qui a déjà en sa possession des travaux de Frida Kahlo et Tamara de Lempicka. Mais aussi une oeuvre du peintre cubiste Fernand Léger de 1921, achetée en 1990, et dont elle va se séparer le 7 mai prochain. La valeur du tableau est estimée entre 5 et 7 millions de dollars. Une coquette somme qui doit être reversée à la fondation Ray of Light.
Et oui, la reine de la pop veut échanger l’estimable, l’art, contre l’inestimable, l’éducation des filles: «J’ai une grande passion pour l’art, mais également pour l’éducation, alors en partenariat avec Sotheby’s, je veux faire partager ses deux passions».«J’ai choisi de mettre aux enchères cette peinture de Fernand Léger et de reverser le fruit de la vente à des projets d’éducation en faveur des jeunes filles d’Afghanistan, du Pakistan et d’autres pays où l’éducation féminine est rare voire inexistante».
L’action humanitaire de la star en faveur de l’éducation a commencé au Malawi, où elle a adopté deux de ses enfants, et où son projet de construction de dix écoles a suscité la polémique. L’année dernière, un autre de ses projets, une école pour quatre-cent filles, est tombé à l’eau. Mais Madonna ne baisse jamais les bras: «Je n’accepte pas un monde où les femmes et les filles sont blessées, se font tirer dessus ou sont tuées parce qu’elles vont à l’école, ou enseignent dans des écoles de filles. L’heure n’est pas à la complaisance».
Comme Madonna, d’autres stars défendent la cause de l’éducation des femmes. Un peu plus tôt cette semaine, l’actrice Angelina Jolie a ouvert une école pour filles en Afghanistan et a annoncé la vente d’une ligne de bijoux pour trouver plus de fonds. Quant à la célèbre présentatrice, Oprah, elle a elle-aussi choisi de s’investir dans l’éducation, en faisant construire une école en Afrique du Sud. Une belle action malheureusement entachée par l’arrestation d’un membre de l’équipe du projet pour agression et abus sur des élèves.