February 21, 2025
French-Iranian author Marjane Satrapi, best known for her book and film Persepolis, has refused France’s Legion d’honneur award to protest the country’s “hypocrisy” in dealing with Iran. In a letter to France’s culture minister posted on social media January 13, Satrapi said she would not accept the state award widely viewed as the greatest award in the world after the Nobel prizes.
“I can’t ignore what I see as a hypocritical attitude toward Iran, which forged the other part of my identity,” she wrote, adding that she meant no disrespect to the monumental award. In a post on Instagram, the 55-year-old explained her thinking in more detail, citing France’s visa policies, which prevent dissidents leaving Iran for the European country.
“I can’t continue seeing the children of Iranian oligarchs come to spend their holidays in France, even become naturalized, while at the same time young dissidents have difficulty obtaining a tourist visa to come to see what the country of the Enlightenment and human rights looks like,” she wrote.
Satrapi, an outspoken critic of Iran’s theocratic regime, arrived in France in 1994 and gained French citizenship in 2006. “When you have people who are fighting for democracy,… you need to support them,” she told Agence France Presse (AFP). She joins an illustrious list of artists and intellectuals to have refused the Legion d’honneur.
They include philosopher JeanPaul Sartre and, more recently, Nobel Prize-winning author Annie Ernaux and left-wing economist Thomas Piketty. Refusing the award has become something of a popular means of protest for many on the left. Past controversial recipients, who accepted the award, include Russian President Vladimir Putin and deposed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. The National Order of the Legion of Honor, formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honor, is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil.
It was established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte to replace all the awards that existed under the previous monarchy, and has been retained (with occasional slight alterations) by all later French governments and regimes. The order was the first modern order of merit. Under the monarchy, such orders were often limited to Roman Catholics, all knights had to be noblemen, and military decorations were restricted to officers.
The Legion d’honneur, however, is open to people of all ranks and professions; only merit or bravery count. All previous orders were Christian, or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Legion d’honneur is a secular institution. Every year at least five recipients decline the award. Even if they refuse to accept it, they are still included in the order’s official membership.
Eleven other Iranians have been given the award. They are: ° Ali Amini (1962), former prime minister; ° Bahram Aryana (1966), former chief of staff of the Armed Forces; ° Safi Asfia, engineer and statesman; ° Amir-Abbas Hoveyda (after his execution in 1979), prime minister; ° Mohammad Gharib (1954), pediatrician; ° Shirin Ebadi (2006), human rights lawyer and Nobel laureate; ° Ahmad Nafisi (1962), mayor of Tehran; ° Mohsen Rais, (1947), ambassador and foreign minister; ° Ali-Akbar Siassi, Iranian intellectual, psychologist and minister of education; ° Nasrine Seraji (2011), architect; ° Gholam Hossein Amirkhani (2017), calligrapher.
