Overview
- Gossip site Public published backstage footage from Paris's Folies Bergère in which Brigitte Macron used coarse language about activists who disrupted Ary Abittan’s show.
- The protest by #NousToutes the night before featured chants of “Abittan, rapist” and masks labeling the comedian, whose 2021 rape case was definitively closed by the judiciary in January 2025.
- In the video, Abittan says he is afraid before Macron responds with the insult and suggests ejecting any repeat disrupters.
- Macron’s office said she was trying to calm an artist after a disruption and condemned what it called radical methods that block performances.
- Left-wing politicians and feminist groups denounced the language, with NousToutes turning the insult into a rallying hashtag and figures such as LFI deputy Sarah Legrain and former president François Hollande urging accountability.