I didn't want to have to write this piece, because I have been waiting to read it from someone else first. This didn't happen. I thought people in liberal papers in general, and the music press especially, would be raising the topic. Certainly, some women who know their music have been expressing outrage for some time: the new Amadou and Mariam album, Folila, features Bertrand Cantat, famous not just for having been the lead singer of the French rock band Noir Desir but also for hitting his girlfriend, actor Marie Trintignant, so severely that she ended up in a deep coma. She died from the results of her injuries a few days later, in August 2003.
The "lovely blind couple from Mali" are indeed great; they're well respected and have worked with just about everyone – from U2 to Damon Albarn and Johnny Marr. Jake Shears from the Scissor Sisters collaborates on the new album, as does Toumani Dibate. Cantat appears on three tracks. In a recent long piece in the Observer, he got a one sentence mention.
The case against Cantat, as you may remember, was huge in France. He admitted in court striking her four times over a text sent by her ex-husband. After this "row", emergency services were not alerted until early next morning. Trintigant died a few days later from her injuries. A postmortem revealed at least 19 blows to her head. Cantat's lawyers asked the judge (the case was heard in Lithuania, where it happened) to reduce the charge from murder to "homicide by imprudence", claiming he did not mean to kill her. He was sentenced to eight years for murder committed with indirect intent, but released after four. In court, he said: "This hand should never have risen. And I do not accept myself having raised this hand." Trintigant's mother described him as "an assassin … whose regrets I cannot for one moment believe". There was of course the usual repulsive stuff in the French press about it being a "crime of passion". Lazy rock journalists compared the couple to Sid and Nancy.
What I have just told you is not the stuff of music reviewing, and I don't have to answer to any record company. But I want to know why this woman's murder had hardly been mentioned, and why this man is being rehabilitated in this way. He made a comeback in France in 2010, though many artists refused to work with him. A gig was cancelled in Montreal last year after protests from women's groups. Obviously key to being accepted is for him to work with this "lovely blind couple" who hover above criticism. Are they being used? I don't know. Amadou and Mariam's manager has been asked in a small piece in Songlines about what statement they are trying to make by working with him: "In African culture, forgiveness is very important." OK. In all cultures, domestic violence is also very important and no talk of the beauty of Malian blues will make it go away.
I would call this silence a form of misogyny. I say this knowingly, in the same week we have discussed "misogyny" in the context of the silly Samantha Brick article (declaration of interest – I also write for the Mail on Sunday). My point is that misogyny and lack of editorial responsibility operate in many and complex ways. Yes, it is deeply complicated sometimes. Other times, not so much. All this fuss about daft Samantha Brick? Well no one died, as they say. That's why I wanted someone to talk about Marie Trintignant. She did die. The man responsible for her death will now be on the soundtrack to many a lovely, liberal dinner party. How can this be right?