New symbol of France modelled on US-born performer and activist Joséphine Baker
A ceremony will pay homage to the French Resistance agent, with her son present
Joséphine Baker first became known as a singer and dancer - but she would later become an activist, a World War Two Resistance agent, and renounce her US citizenship for French
John Arehart/Shutterstock
A new ‘Marianne’ statue of US-born French performer and wartime Resistance member Joséphine Baker is set to be unveiled tomorrow (January 18), in the presence of Ms Baker’s son.
The Marianne is a symbol of France and the Republic, and is always depicted as a young woman wearing a traditional phrygian cap.
Who was Joséphine Baker?
Joséphine Baker was a Franco-American music-hall star, resistance fighter and anti-racist campaigner.
She was born in the US but became French in 1937 after marrying Frenchman and industrialist Jean Lion. She would later renounce her US citizenship, and spell her name with an 'é'. In 1947, she married another Frenchman, composer and violinist, Jo Bouillon.
She raised her 12 adopted children in France (who she called her ‘rainbow tribe’), and worked as an agent of the French Resistance during World War Two. She was later awarded the resistance medal la Rosette de la Résistance, and the Croix de Guerre, and was named a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur by General Charles de Gaulle.
She became the first black woman (and only the sixth woman overall) to have a cenotaph in the Pantheon mausoleum in Paris in 2021 (her body remains in Monaco), in recognition of her historic role as a singer, dancer, activist, and World War Two Resistance agent.
The Pantheon is the resting place for great national figures in France, and induction can only be conferred by the president.
Read also: US-born French icon Joséphine Baker to enter France’s Pantheon
Read more: New square in Monaco marks Joséphine Baker’s links with Princess Grace
New statue: ‘Several lives in one’
The new bust was designed by Lucas Bouan Tsobgny, 27, who graduated from the Beaux-Arts in Paris in 2021.
He spent a month working on the project in his studio in Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint-Denis, Ile-de-France). His research included listening to podcasts about Ms Baker’s life.
“The Marianne is a symbol that is still very much alive, and I wanted to keep it that way,” he said, to France 3. “The commission was quite open-ended. We had to make a bust of Marianne, in the effigy of Joséphine Baker, but for the rest we were free to make our own choices.”
He explained that he had included many symbols on the statue to show that “Joséphine Baker had several lives in one: a life of resistance, but also of performing”. The symbols include Ms Baker’s medals, as well as her famous banana belt, and a feather on one of her shoulders.
Mr Tsobgny added that his research into Ms Baker’s life had made him aware not only of her time in France, but also her family’s extreme poverty, and the devastating racism of the American South.
The statue will be unveiled at a ceremony tomorrow in Fleury-Mérogis (Essonne, Ile-de-France).
Mayor of Fleury-Mérogis, Olivier Corzani, said: “The decision to give a face to Marianne, an emblematic figure, is particularly relevant in the current context. Faced with the resurgence of extremism and hate speech, her fight for ‘universal fraternity’ - which Joséphine Baker carried into her personal life through her ‘rainbow tribe’ - is crucial,” he said.
Brian Bouillon-Baker, Joséphine Baker's son, who will also be present at the ceremony, said: “The first Marianne to bear my mother's effigy is a tribute to the republican example my mother set. It is a new source of pride for our family. She would have been very proud and even very moved.”
Mr Bouillon-Baker advised Mr Tsobgny on aspects of the statue, including saying that his mother’s face carried a “radiant expression, but with a touch of gravitas”.
