Moi Aussi: How the French Ad Industry is (Finally) Getting its #MeToo Reckoning

For the French advertising industry, the #MeToo movement has been a slow burner. It’s been over 18 months since multiple women broke their silence on the actions of Harvey Weinstein, accusing him of sexual assault and triggering a cascade of sexual harassment and assault allegations around the world. In that time Christelle Delarue has been watching and waiting, her finger poised to flick away the bottom card that would bring the whole house of French advertising’s structural sexism toppling.

Christelle, founder and CEO of proudly feminist ad agency Mad&Women, has spent that time making sure that when she struck it would count, gathering testimonies from women about abuses of power and patricarchal privilege in the workplace. “I received 223 texts, emails and messages after the #MeToo movement [started],” she says. Sometimes she would invite the women to her home, so they could know their stories would be safe. She even found jobs at her own agency for those advertising women who were suddenly unemployed after telling their stories.

She’s found it hard to sit on these accounts. “At the time, I thought about creating a non-profit organisation but I felt like it was too soon; we were not ready to talk. Advertising is a small world where almost everyone knows each other: we knew that talking could have a lot of consequences on our lives and careers.”

But the situation changed in February 2019, when a French community of high profile cyber bullies calling itself the ‘LOL League’ had its sexist and victimising behaviour revealed in the press. “It caused a major whirlwind in the industry,” says Christelle. Many of the reports focused on the prominent journalists implicated in the boys’ club behaviour, but several men from the advertising industry were among them, including a strategist who worked at Publicis Conseil since 2011, and according to French newspaper Le Monde has been laid off in what the company has called “as a precautionary measure”. 

With the country once again talking about the entrenched culture of harassment in the industry, Christelle knew that now was the time to strike. “After those revelations, I do believe that women across agencies are finally ready to speak out and to take a stand. Knowing that, I took the lead and acted as a whistleblower in the biggest French newspaper.” She wrote an article in Le Monde on February 15th to denounce sexist behaviour. 

"My sisters and I, girls of advertising, survive your wrongs even though you aren’t able to detach yourselves from them," she wrote. She called for a reckoning in the industry that had enabled so much suffering. “Understand this, great [male] advertisers, there will be no absolution this time. Spare us the sorry sight of your deceptive gestures and finally have the elegance to watch each other fall.”

The industry couldn’t remain unmoved. After that, what the French media soon started calling the #MeTooPub movement began. Women began speaking out. Le Monde began digging deeper, speaking to dozens of people in the French advertising industry and (unsurprisingly) found a rich seam of stories about harassment at the hands of those with power in the industry. 

Two young creatives, who now work at Mad&Women, said they are were in conflict with their former creative director, Baptiste Clinet, who they have accused of psychological and sexual harassment and inappropriate behaviour. He has since parted ways with his agency, Herezie, "by mutual agreement". 

Other prominent names soon surfaced in the melee. Claire Maoui-Laugier opened up in a blog post on Medium about alleged sexism she experienced while at Fred & Farid. Marcel’s CEO Pascal Nessim was also accused of sexist behaviour and Buzzman’s Georges Mohammed-Cherif was named several times in Le Monde’s investigations too.

Gildas Bonnel, president of the AACC’s (Association of Communication Consulting Agencies) corporate social responsibility committee felt compelled to act. “I am president of the Sidièse agency, which is exclusively dedicated to these topics, and in charge of social responsibility. It is natural that I was asked to bring up this topic but I did not expect to hear such graphic testimonies. In addition, some comments on social networks shocked me. There are topics that would be too heavy for me to advertise on.

“The AACC is an organisation representing its member agencies. It was very difficult for us to react to the case of an offended agency especially as we did not know the different facts,” says Gildas. The organisation felt it needed to take some action to react to the mood of the industry though. So on March 19th it published a document to all its members informing them how to ‘Act Together Against Sexual and Psychological Harassment in an Agency’. A straightforward how-to guide, it detailed what constitutes harassment under French law and what employers, victims and witnesses alike can do when they believe harassment has occurred.

This had the effect of inviting even more testimonies. “When we were alerted of all the other similar cases, we were collectively shocked,” says Gildas. Combining the strong emotional reactions on social media, conversations with journalists and relevant stakeholders the AACC became convinced that there was a systematic problem to address.

Christelle was there to help them respond. She’d created that non-profit organisation she’d talked about and named it Les Lionnes (‘The Lionesses’). After just over two weeks it already counts more than 200 women among its membership.

“What we are witnessing today is a wave of unprecedented protest against sexist and sexual violence in the creative industries,” says Christelle. “Now, women are not only speaking out, but they are also being heard and supported in taking action. This drastic change is both moving and empowering. It is what I have longed for and relentlessly worked for over the past seven years [when she founded Mad&Women].”

She’s serious about action. The Lionesses have five aims, guided by focus points identified by the French High Council for Equality to fight sexism:

○ To measure it (though financial inquiries etc.)

○ To understand it (through communication campaigns and raising awareness)

○ To condemn it (as citizens and as judges)

○ To help victims (with programmes such as Women Safe and other non-profit organisations (“but they are under-financed,” says Christelle)

○ The state has a responsibility and must set an example

The AACC wanted to meet the victims, so Christelle brought The Lionesses to the association. “I must say that this meeting impacted us a lot,” says Gildas. “The testimonies proved to us that shocking actions as such were real and weren’t as distant and imprecise as we thought. What touched us the most after our meeting with the association The Lionesses is that we shared the same love of our industry and our trade. We have the common ambition to protect everyone so that our agencies and our profession retain all of its talent and can offer everyone a bright future in the business.”

Christelle and the women mobilised around her are desperate not to let this issue slip back to the periphery of the conversation. “Statements are only meaningful if followed by actions,” she says. “That’s why I went there last Friday. I reminded them of how alone I found myself during the MeToo movement, and how silent they were when I asked for their support during the last 18 months.” She’s given the association her “to do list” - “all the measures I am asking them to take in order to eradicate these destructive behaviours.”

She emphasises that it’s crucial to remember how much needs to be done now the goals are laid out. “The road towards complete and absolute gender equality is not an easy one,” she says. “Years of systematic oppression cannot be erased this minute. It took great courage for many women to come forward and some men have been held accountable for their sexist and misogynistic behaviour, but the wrongdoings are still countless.”

Christelle is optimistic about what the French communications industry can become, if it listens to The Lionesses and similar voices. “As an ad woman, feminist and activist, I do believe that communication is a major tool to eradicate sexism. The day we’ll stop depreciating, sexualising, under-representing and erasing women in our communication, we will finally have the possibility to break the stereotypes that cause sexist behaviours.

Gildas concedes that the AACC’s memo is blunt - a quick reaction to a subject it felt it couldn’t stay silent on given the building pressure. “We will soon make a more substantiated document to analyse the reasons for such deviant behaviour and especially the silence that too often surrounds predators. We are going to work on a very complete action plan. I’m glad. We need engaged and radical characters to arm our agencies and their governments against behaviours that are absolutely filthy and outdated.”

He’s wary of the momentum slipping away from the cause and stresses that he is afraid of the threat posed by habit, everyday life and forgetfulness. “We must remain very mobilised,” he says.

Christelle has a different outlook: “Fear is not something I abide by and will never be a driving force for me. I always strive to reach the best possible outcome. That is why I only have action plans and hopes. Realistic hopes.”