Marjane Satrapi Declines Legion of Honor over France’s “Hypocritical Attitude” Toward Iran
147Jan. 15, 2025
French Iranian artist, writer, and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi has refused to accept the Legion of Honor, France’s highest order of merit, citing the country’s “hypocrisy” toward Iran. French dailyLe Mondereports that Satrapi, a native of Iran who arrived in France in 1994 and was awarded French citizenship in 2006, had been named to the rank of Knight of the Legion of Honor in July but had since decided to reject the laurels ahead of a presentation ceremony scheduled to take place later this month. Satrapi explained her decision, which hinged in part on France’s visa policies, in an Instagram post addressed to French culture minister Rachida Dati.
“I can’t ignore what I see as a hypocritical attitude towards Iran,” wrote Satrapi, adding that she intended no disrespect to the award. “I can’t continue seeing the children of Iranian oligarchs come to spend their holidays in France, even become naturalized, while at the same time young dissidents have difficulty in obtaining a tourist visa to come to see what the country of the Enlightenment and human rights looks like.”
Satrapi, who gained wide acclaim for her graphic novel and film Persepolis, about her youth in Iran and Austria during and in the wake of the Islamic Revolution, has long been a vocal critic of Iran’s theosophical regime. In refusing the Legion of Honor, she joins a cohort including Impressionist painter Claude Monet, Nobel Prize–winning author Annie Ernaux, economist Thomas Piketty, and philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre.