The left can’t stand France’s new culture minister

France’s new minister of culture has promised to put an end to the creeping cancel culture that is threatening the country. ‘Today wokeism has become a policy of censorship,’ said Rachida Dati, who was appointed to her post last month. ‘I am in favour of the freedom of art, the freedom of creation, and I am not in favour of censorship’.

She explained that she will launch her campaign next week, summoning the great and the good of the cultural world to ‘ensure that we support creative freedom and do not support these new censors.’

Dati might have had in mind the 1,200 poets, editors, publishers, booksellers and actors, who recently signed a petition demanding the head of Sylvain Tesson, a celebrated travel writer. They were upset that he had been appointed the patron of a poetry event, judging him a far-right reactionary and every other leftist trope that has come to characterise the censorious age. The same signatories accused Emmanuel Macron of running an administration, ‘closer than ever to the far right.’

Dati – who served as Minister of Justice in Nicolas Sarkozy’s government a decade and a half ago – made her remarks in an interview on CNews. That in itself will unhinge the hysterical element of the French left, who regard CNews as – you’ve guessed it – far-right. They are in a minority. The broadcaster is booming and is set to become the most popular news channel in France this year.

The left-wing newspaper Liberation – which published the letter from the 1,200 censors – is particularly aghast at the popularity of CNews, and its sister radio station, Europe 1. It recently described their viewers figures as ‘worryingly high’, wailing that it was ‘a sign that their far-right line is finding an audience’.

Dati’s interview on CNews was conducted by Sonia Mabrouk, one of the broadcaster’s most prominent journalists.