🇺🇸 ENGLISH
In case you have missed the news about Mori Yoshiro, the (former) Tokyo 2020 Olympics president, sexist comments that led to his resignation, here is a great article from French newspaper Le Monde. It details what happened and the events that led to his resignation, much of which he had originally denied. The primary push for Mori’s resignation came from pressure by the sponsors, which was enticed by around 700 volunteers and several high profile Olympic torch-bearers quitting the week prior. This is all particularly interesting since the #metoo movement never really took off in Japan in the way it has in the US and France. Japan does also not have a strong culture of protest or boycott which makes this all the more surprising that so many raised their voice and stood up against it.
Another attention grabbing aspect of this article is they mentioned his potential successor Kawabuchi Saburo’s political views as being far right. This is not something you would usually see in the Japanese mainstream media, especially written so blatantly. In Japan people are less politically conscious in general, in my opinion, whereas in France, the media is usually more sensitive to politics, especially when it comes to far right views. In fact, in Japan it is notorious that comedians for example rarely create political comedies; this is also the case for celebrities who generally don’t comment on politics. But that is a different topic I’ll discuss more in a future post! If you would like to read about Mori in English, this article is pretty complete too:
🇫🇷 FRENCH
Très bon article du Monde sur la polémique déclenchée par les propos sexistes de Mori Yoshiro, président du comité d’organisation des JO de Tokyo. Il mentionne aussi son successeur potentiel Kawabuchi et ses penchants d’extrême-droite. À lire si vous n’en avez pas entendu parler!
🇯🇵 JAPANESE
森喜朗氏の(女性蔑視発言問題での)辞任について、早速フランスの「ル・モンド」紙でも取り上げられていますね。さらに後任と噂されていた川淵三郎氏が極右だということもはっきり書かれています。やはりそういうところは、フランスのメディアはしっかり書きますね。日本ではあまり極右や人の政治について気にしないと思いますが、フランスはそういうところにとても敏感です。