Brigitte: Debout les femmes

An interesting clip for the song Debout les femmes featuring Brigitte as well as the likes of Pomme, La Grande Sophie, Cléa Vincent, Julie Zenatti and Hollysiz, performing an interpretation of the feminist anthem Debout les femmes.

It has been released as a benefit for the charity La Maison des Femmes, hte song being originally written in the 1970s as an anthem for the feminist movement.

While perhaps a song associated with an earlier phase of feminist politics, it remains relevant with this weekend seeing demonstrations against violence against women across France.

Brigitte commented on their Facebook page: " We are of different origins, different backgrounds, different ages.

"We wanted to raise our voices together, as if there were only one, in chorus, because while we are different we are together to protect our sisters, our friends, our daughters, our mothers."

The tune used for the song is the same as the song, originally titled in German Die Moorsoldaten, known in English as The Peat Bog Soldiers. The song originated in a Nazi concentration camp for socialists and communists in 1933 where, banned from performing political songs, inmates wrote their own.

The song became popular with Germans forced abroad during the war, and was adopted by German soldiers in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. A version of the song in French,  Le Chant Des Marais, is used by the French Foreign Legion as one of their marching songs.

With the #metoo movement raising awareness of the fact that inequality remains a far too common experience for women, it is a performance that links the struggle of today with the history of the movement.