macleans | Dieudonné first performed the quenelle—literally, “dumpling”—in 2005 during one of his shows.
He did so offhandedly during a stream of consciousness bit about the
great mammalian plot against humans. “Today, dolphins look down on human
beings. They know they can shove their fins right up our asses,” he
said, indicating on his right arm with his left hand exactly how far
those dolphin fins could reach. The quenelle was born.
Dieudonné has since used the gesture in his campaign posters in 2009,
when he ran unsuccessfully for European parliament. In the posters,
which call for a “Liberated Europe,” the comic notably stands next to
Alain Soral, a notorious anti-Zionist whose knack for self-promotion
nearly rivals that of Dieudonné.
The quenelle has since taken on different meanings for different
people: for some, it’s a show of solidarity for the oppressed. For
others, it’s a cutesy way to demonstrate one’s displeasure with the
political status quo, or a grab bag of apparent sacred cows (including,
naturally, the Holocaust.) It’s this last bit that is most troubling:
given Dieudonné’s obsession with all things Jewish and Zionist, many see
it as a blatantly anti-Semitic gesture akin to the Nazi salute.
Regardless of the meaning, those who perform the gesture are likely
all supporters of Dieudonné, which is perhaps the reason why the comic
is so gleeful these days: many, many people are doing it. Superstar
soccer players, politicians, military members, reality TV stars, and
thousands upon thousands of regular Joes: in France, the quenelle is
everywhere.
Given the origins of the gesture, you’d think the French government
would give the quenelle the attention it deserves—that is to say, none.
Yet the French government has long given up on ignoring Dieudonné, and
has instead become one of his chief promoters.
Successive French Presidents from Jacques Chirac onwards have
attempted to shut Dieudonné up, resulting in dozens of cancelled shows.
In 2009, Nicolas Sarkozy’s government attempted to have him banned from
running for European parliament. Dieudonné was giddy at the news, going
so far as to call Sarkozy spokesperson Claude Guéant “my press attaché” when I interviewed the comic that year. “Attention, buzz, it’s not positive or negative. It just is. I’ll take either. I’ll play the bad guy if they want,” he said.
The current government of François Hollande has only ramped up the
anti-Dieudonné offensive. It has put its military and civil service on
notice: doing the quenelle is a potential firing offence. French
interior minister Manuel Valls successfully urged the cities of
Bordeaux, Tours, Orléans and Nantes to cancel his upcoming shows. “It’s a
victory for the republic,” said French interior minister Manuel Valls.
Dieudonné’s longevity and burgeoning popularity would suggest,
however, that it’s a victory only for Dieudonné. His career has only
benefitted from these attempts to silence him. In 2005, the year he
first quenelled, Dieudonné “was disappearing from the media spotlight,”
as Le Figaro pointed out recently.
“His shows were getting cancelled. He was forced to perform his shows
on a bus. So he cultivated a counter-culture that bloomed on the
Internet.”
It was here where the quenelle went from being a reference to
perverse dolphin acts to… well, whatever people wanted it to be: soccer
celebration, anti-authoritarian jab, a middle finger to the deeply
unpopular Hollande government and, distressingly, ersatz Nazi salute.
Absurdly, quenelle hysteria forced a Parisian store to temporarily close
it doors. It seems staff received several death threats after
one of its mannequins was left in the quenelle position. (The mannequin
in question was actually modeling a purse someone forgot to install.)
