Mathilde Edey Gamassou, a schoolgirl of African and Polish descent, will ride on horseback through the city center dressed as Jean in armor to commemorate the end of the English siege of the city in 1429.
According to the local newspaper La République du Centre, the State Prosecutor noted two Tweets. One, posted by Joachim Murat on Tuesday, claims that “the biggest problem is that she is ugly enough to die, we are getting close to a baboon’s head.” The other was a response posting pictures of bananas.
Despite the threat of prosecution, insulting messages have continued to appear. One user Tweeter that “she’s as ugly as a headlouse [and] she can’t represent Joan of Arc as a mixed-race person”.
Other Tweets also questioned using a black girl to represent France’s Medieval heroine. One tweeted that “a mixed-race #JoanofArc is like having a blond Chinese mandala (sic) or Lincoln as a Beninois. You can’t transfigure historical figures for the sake of mixing and open-mindedness.”
France’s Secretary of State for Gender Equality, Marlène Schiappa, tweeted her support, also for legal action, adding: “Joan of Arc does not belong to the group claiming to defend national identity. Neither does French history”.
Jean Garrigues, an historian, and close to president Emmanuel Macron, told the local newspaper that “the choice of a figure of miscegenation is a message of openness” and “the basis of the republican appropriation of the myth of Joan of Arc”.
It appears that the black girl was not chosen by accident at all. According to Garriques, her presence will be “an important moment for the regional and local political life”.
Garriques added: “I remind you that it was in 2016, at the Orleans celebrations, that Emmanuel Macron’s presidential campaign was really launched. This event played a very important local and national role because it is in the use of the myth of Joan of Arc that Emmanuel Macron legitimized his own career.”