“We have nothing against the King of the Belgians”: a French town hall rejects a private screening intended for Philippe of Belgium

This sentence, Patrice Bernard, mayor of L’Île-d’Yeu, probably did not often have the opportunity to pronounce it. He ended up asserting that he had not “nothing against the king of the Belgians”in an interview with West Franceto appease the spirits after the refusal of its municipality to make the only cinema on the island available for a private preview. The local and Belgian press reported on this affair, first spotted by Belgian journalist Michel Henrion.

During August, the founder of ARP Sélection took advantage of Philippe’s presence on the 23 km2 island, where the sovereign has a second home, to propose the organization of a screening. The producer Laurent Pétin thought that the king would find interest in discovering The False Eveningfilm about a feat of the Belgian resistance. But the session, which ARP Sélection hoped to schedule on August 17, never took place.

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Motion rejected by court

A week earlier, the town hall did not give its agreement, the municipal office having rejected the request “unanimously”. “The provision of the cinema room for private commercial promotion purposes is not currently governed by any municipal regulatory provision”justified Patrice Bernard on Facebook, specifying that the request was made “ten days” earlier, “much too late to be examined”. The associations would respect a deadline of two months.

Fort Marrie, ARP Sélection has summoned the municipality for interim relief in the hope of maintaining the session. The Nantes administrative court rejected the request, finding that no fundamental freedom had been manifestly infringed. For his part, Patrice Bernard, a former butcher involved in local political life for around twenty years, assured West France not have “nothing against the king of the Belgians, nor against the Belgians, who are numerous on the island”.

A personal dispute?

Laurent Pétin’s wife, producer Michèle Halberstadt, believes that the decision stems from a more personal dispute. As noted The Parisianwho is also a novelist, made comments on television at the end of April that were likely to provoke a reaction on the Vendée island. “On the Island of Yeu, if you are not from Iceland, you are foreigners. We are the “two months a year” because we only come in the summer”declared Michèle Halberstadt in the show “C à vous”. “ The Islais are silent, withdrawn into themselves. It’s small, full of what people will say, gossip »»she added.

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The King of the Belgians, Philippe, who was to remain on the island until August 22, would not have been able to attend the session in any case. The sovereign had returned to his country earlier to support the efforts of firefighters against the flames in eastern Belgium. He will be able to discover in December in theaters The False Eveningthis film which stars Arieh Worthalter (The Goldman Trial ), Mélanie Thierry, Karim Leklou and even François Damiens.

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Director Michaël R. Roskam (the brilliant thriller When night comesin 2014) depicts a snub by the Belgian resistance to the Nazi occupiers organized in November 1943. In one night, 50,000 copies of a false edition of the Eveningthen in the hands of the Germans, were distributed in newsstands. In order to ridicule the Wehrmacht, but also the Belgian collaborators. The feature film will be visible in early 2027 in French cinemas. And maybe at Ciné Islais…