[Portrait] Elisabeth Gomis, un "cuir solide" pour défendre les nouvelles cultures africaines
"I know the struggles I've had within the matrix that is the French administration," says the 44-year-old director, who has just found a home in Paris for her place after months of uncertainty.
Some in the government advocated a location on the historic site of the Paris Mint, at the risk of distorting the project, renamed MansA, which aims to be a "permanent headquarters" for African cultures.
Another battle now awaits her to secure funding despite budgetary austerity. "It's a decathlon, you can't waste all your energy on the first events," philosophizes this athletics enthusiast with a striking profile in the senior administration.
Black, of Afro-descendant descent, raised in the Parisian suburbs by a cleaning lady mother and a working-class father: Elisabeth Gomis refuses to be reduced to her social and Guinean Bissau origins, fearing "that people won't look at what she's capable of." But the former Radio Nova producer isn't denying anything.
"It's also what gives me tough skin," says the woman who arrived at the Élysée Palace after an impromptu late-night phone call in the summer of 2017.
To his great surprise, he was then asked to join the Presidential Council for Africa (CPA), which the head of state would launch two days later in an attempt to rethink the damaged relations between France and the continent.
"We talk to you on Saturday, and on Monday, you shake the president's hand. And then you say to yourself: I didn't understand everything," she sums up.
No one blames him for not having voted for Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the presidential election, but his arrival at the Elysée Palace has not been a bed of roses.
"At first, there was a feeling of rejection. I don't come from that world, I didn't go to ENA or Sciences Po, and people saw the CPA as a parallel diplomacy," says the director, who claims to have received acrimonious emails from ambassadors. "I didn't understand how I could arouse so much hatred."
After this first round, Elisabeth Gomis made her nest at the CPA, then joined the organizing committee of Africa 2020, a series of events under the aegis of Emmanuel Macron, and forged links in Africa inaccessible to traditional senior officials.
"I'm not a diplomat, and it's easier for me to connect with people who are put off by official discourse, but who are sensors, barometers, of what's happening," she notes, defending her role alongside Emmanuel Macron, even if she doesn't agree with his entire policy.
"I can't just sit back and denounce things and not do my part when the door was opened to me," she explains. "Perhaps at first I was afraid of being used, perhaps I still am, but I see what I was able to do."
"Liz is, first and foremost, a very, very strong character," Elvis Adidiema, director of Sony Music Africa, who met her during a presidential trip, told AFP. "She managed to assert herself while remaining herself, and that's something increasingly rare in our industry."
At the helm of MansA, which hopes to welcome its first visitors in June, Elisabeth Gomis now wants to bring out "the B side of history" on colonization but also to move beyond this undermined past to "re-enchant the present."
"We want to bring out this pop culture that is exploding in Africa but that we have always sought on the other side of the Atlantic," explains the manager.
Her ambition to expand her business could spark new resistance from the administration, but she's ready for the fight. "I'm in the position I dreamed of being in, and there's no way I'm going to be trampled on," she says. Her opponents have been warned.
Comments
J'ai rien compris sur cet article le français n'est pas clair svp utiliser la syntaxe et écrivait un.bon français sinon en wolof.Moliere est très compliqué il faut la respecter
Le fait d'avoir cédé à la demande insensée des députés d'alors pour donner des passeports diplomatiques à leurs épouses a ouvert la porte à toutes les dérives. Et cela risque de décridibiliser davantage le passeport
Bof mal écrit ça se voit que vous n’avez pas fait l’ena ni science po !
Le fait d'avoir cédé à la demande insensée des députés d'alors pour donner des passeports diplomatiques à leurs épouses a ouvert la porte à toutes les dérives. Et cela risque de décridibiliser davantage le passeport
Personnellement, ce qui m’a frappé d’emblée c’est le multiculturalisme qui se dégage de la photo et du nom : une Gomis avec une coiffe et des boucles d’oreilles al-pulaar, j’adore.
Le fait d'avoir cédé à la demande insensée des députés d'alors pour donner des passeports diplomatiques à leurs épouses a ouvert la porte à toutes les dérives. Et cela risque de décridibiliser davantage le passeport
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Le fait d'avoir cédé à la demande insensée des députés d'alors pour donner des passeports diplomatiques à leurs épouses a ouvert la porte à toutes les dérives. Et cela risque de décridibiliser davantage le passeport
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