Omar Sy calls out “racism” after reactions in France to the Ukraine war

Wolf Star Omar Sy has hit back at critics for his comments about different attitudes towards the war in Ukraine and conflicts over it, saying the attacks against him are simply an example of racism.

She, one of France’s most popular actors and the country’s highest-paid black actor, caught the eye of a media storm this week during an interview at home The Parisian newspaper about his new WWI drama Father and soldier.

Released by Gaumont in France on January 4 after its world premiere at Cannes Un Certain Regard, the drama follows a Senegalese man in his forties who volunteers to accompany his conscript son to the Verdun front in 1917.

Inspired by the true stories of 200,000 men drafted from French colonies to fight in the conflict from 1914 to 1918, the work has a personal resonance for the actor, who was born in France to parents of Mauritanian and Senegalese descent and grew up

an appeal to the film’s anti-war theme, The Parisian She asked if he was concerned about the current conflict in Ukraine.

She countered that the war was not a “crazy epiphany” for him and that other wider conflicts had already affected him to the same extent.

“Does that mean if it’s in Africa, it affects you less… I feel the same threat whether it’s in Iran or Ukraine,” he replied.

“A war casts a dark shadow over humanity, even if it takes place on the other side of the world. We remember that man is capable of invading, attacking civilians and children. It feels like we have to wait for Ukraine before it wakes us up.”

“Ah, but my friends? I’ve seen it since I was a kid. If it’s far, they say there, they’re wild, we’re not like that anymore. It’s like when Covid started when people said it’s just the Chinese.

Within hours of the interview being published The Parisian website, French centrist politician Nathalie Loiseau posted an angry response on Twitter calling for the killing of 58 French military personnel. North African Sahel fought extremist insurgents from 2013 to 2022.

“No, Omar Sy, the French are not ‘less affected’ by what is happening ‘in Africa’. Some gave their lives so Malians are no longer threatened by terrorists,” she tweeted.

Your answer was questioned by The Parisian in a follow-up article, explaining that Sy’s comments were general in nature and reassuringly in an interview in which he never specifically mentioned the “French” attitude or Mali.

She initially took a phlegmatic approach to the controversy on subsequent television and radio broadcasts related to the film’s promotion, saying he did not want to fuel the debate or appreciate it.

“What I said in French is available in an interview at The Parisian… Read it and try to understand it. If you don’t understand it, shame on you,” he told the Arte talk show 28 minutes on Thursday.

When pressed, he added: “Of course it’s racism and I say it out loud. Can’t I speak out about France because I’m the child of an immigrant? Because I’m black, I can’t express myself through France?” he said. “People who think it’s racist, I call it out and stand by what I say.”

Left Newspaper liberation also asked Sy’s critics.

The actor was recently named the third most popular actor in France in a poll conducted by the Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, liberation said Sy’s implied suggestion that the French are less interested in conflicts in Africa than in a Russian invasion of a part of Ukraine “on the outskirts of Europe” is nothing out of the ordinary.

“Extremely right, but unfortunately not alone [the far right]immediately stood up to denounce the words of a “star” living in the United States, to deny him any legitimacy to express himself as French.