French Politician: Assassin's Creed is "Propaganda Against the People"

[MovieBob]

French Politician: Assassin's Creed is "Propaganda Against the People"

Former Minister says Ubisoft's latest has "far right" view of French history, presents "an image of hatred."

The following may include SPOILERS for Assassin's Creed: Unity.

bugs and glitches; [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/assassins%20creed%20unity] but the latest volley to be tossed at the high-profile Ubisoft release has come from the realm of French politics.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, France's former Minister of Vocational Education and onetime Presidential candidate for the Left Front, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Front_(France)] has fiercely condemned the French Revolution-set game for its portrayals of historical figures and events of the time. In a recent radio interview, he specifically cited the (in his view) depictions of Revolutionaries as "barbarians, bloodthirsty savages" versus portrayal of Artisocrats and Royals as "fine upstanding people."

Further quotes from the interview (translated by The Telegraph [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11231217/Assassins-Creed-Unity-makes-travesty-of-the-French-Revolution.html]) included:


"The man who was our liberator at a certain moment of the Revolution - because the Revolution lasted a long time - Robespierre, is presented as a monster,"



[AC:Unity] "presents an image of hatred of the Revolution, hatred of the people, hatred of the republic which is rampant in the far-right milieux (of today)."


Mélenchon, [http://www.jean-luc-melenchon.fr/] who left France's Socialist Party in 2008 to found The Left Party and has served as Party President since. He received approximately 11% of the vote in the country's 2012 election.


Source: The Telegraph [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11231217/Assassins-Creed-Unity-makes-travesty-of-the-French-Revolution.html]

Permalink

 

[Alma Mare]

I haven't played the game nor seen Robespierre's portrayal, but the guy WAS a monster. Maybe not the cackling lunatic type, but a monster all the same.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

heres the thing, there were a LOT of barbarias in the french revolution, look no further than robespierre

 

[Serrenitei]

Also, I'll just go ahead and say: games != reality

 

[Parshooter]

It would have been nice to have had Robespierre be a character that spiraled to paranoia and villainy. Too bad this is an Assassin Creed game where the bad guys aren't real characters. So everyone is labeled a Templar and is consider bad even though you're killing more people than they are.

 

[Jandau]

Oh for fuck's sake, someone makes an alternate interpretation of history in a WORK OF FICTION and some idiot...

...no, you know what, I'm not doing this. This is just some politician trying to score points with people who don't know any better, he doesn't really care about what he's saying and likely has no understanding of what Assassin's Creed is, what video games are in general, and likely needs help turning on his computer. Not worth getting annoyed over, best to just ignore it.

 

[Something Amyss]

Also, I'll just go ahead and say: games != reality

Yes, but where else are we going to learn about historical figures? Books? Classes? I laugh at your suggestions, sir!

First it's Assassin's Creed, and then, the Hitler History Channel!

On a related note, remember when everyone was using historicity to defend ACU? Seems like only yesterday.

It would have been nice to have had Robespierre be a character that spiraled to paranoia and villainy. Too bad this is an Assassin Creed game where the bad guys aren't real characters. So everyone is labeled a Templar and is consider bad even though you're killing more people than they are.

They should be required to grow a thin mustache and beard combo. Even if they already have facial hair. Or are women. That's how cartoony they are!

 

[cikame]

So did someone tell him about certain parts of the game, or did he investigate himself?
I'm always weary when a politician, who doesn't play video games, has something to say about video games.

 

[TallanKhan]

To start with the Assassins Creed universe is a fictional one, one that draws on our history for sure, but one that remains 100% fictional.

Secondly, there were one hell of a lot of monsters during the French Revolution, in fact, every revolution has had it's monsters, whether they were frenzied Anarchists taking their chance to further fray society or a foaming-at-the-mouth political fanatic taking the opportunity to enforce their world view on everyone else, they have always been there. While a turning point for democracy and an event that shaped the future of the nation, the French revolution was a bloody, sordid affair during which thousands died, hunger and suffering were widespread, and it took decades for any benefit to be felt by people on the street.

It is possible to acknowledge that it was a time of terrible atrocity without loosing sight of that fact that in the long run a great deal of good resulted from those events.

 

[DaViller]

The thing I liked most about AC was the portrayal of it´s villains. They all ended up doing terrible things, but they mostly had understandable reasons for it and sincerely thought they where doing the right think. Then in AC2 they just went "fuck it" and made every villain into a mustache twirling cartoon character, the game was better from a gameplay perspective but really suffered on the story and character level. I lost interrest in AC afterwards.

OT: Thats pretty interresting. The french revolution is a really cool subject, on one hand you have the nobles who oppressed the lower class for centuries so one could say they kinda got what was coming to them, on the other hand you have the lower class people who pretty much went form fighting the oppressors to being straight up tyrants themselves (well not all of them of course there where people who fought the jacobines). This whole thing also ties back into the whole games as art debate. If games are in fact art, then the whole "lol we´re just videogames, we don´t need to treat history responsibly" defense pretty much falls flat on it´s face. I also wasn´t aware that depicting the french revolution as negative was popular among french right wingers, I would say the revolution itself was a positive thing but the whole aftermath was pretty erm... fucked up.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

Wow, what a surprise, a politician is using something completely unrelated to attack the opposing political party?

And he's using historical figures to do it?

Pour un second, j'ai pense qu'il etait americain, mais on ne doit pas etre un politicien americain d'etre un imbecile >.>

 

[OManoghue]

I can see that every country has people who can't separate fiction from reality, Screed games all have a disclaimer at the beginning stating that the events taking place are fiction and that they have a multi cultural team working on all of them all around the world.

I'm more disappointed that this guy's name is "Jacques Thomsonier"

 

[Hades]

I don't really see the problem with the examples the man gives.

The revolution gave birth to a lot of bloodthirsty barbarians and Robespierre really was a monster, a monster that seemed blind to the fact that he was one.

I never hear French politicians make a fuss when Napoleon get demonized into just a petty midget dictator even though he salvaged the disaster project that was the Revolution and spread its values across Europe....admittedly at a very bloody sword point.

 

[Ukomba]

Pretty sure the French Revolution was savage and some of the things done could be called blood thirsty (40,000 executions for being "enemies of the revolution" counts as blood thirsty I think). That whole period was a pretty dark and chaotic time for France, followed immediately by an imperialistic period where they set off on a Germany, cerca WW2, style attempt at concurring Europe. I could see an argument being made that the revolution was a net negative for Europe and France. This attack actually makes me a little more sympathetic towards that mess of a game.

 

[Thaluikhain]

...

Ok, on one hand, this is a stupid rant by a minor politician.

But, OTOH, this is a brilliant piece of meta advertising. Sort of.

Like when the US government made them change the ending of the film version of 1984 to something that suited the authorities better. Spin that right, and it ads to the story.

 

[Trishbot]

I'm still just utterly disappointed the game didn't let you play as Guy Fawkes.

That really would have been fun.

 

[PunkRex]

Is it just me or is he the spitting image of the villain from V for Vendetta?

 

[JenSeven]

Okay, kinda weird the comments here. I guess it might have to do with Americans and American history not being that long.
And maybe to do with this game being set in a country that is not America and is actually tied to reliable historical events.

Let's say this game (which uses a historical setting and tries to appear to be historically accurate) portrays George Washington personally torturing and literally crucifying captured enemy soldiers. Showing Abraham Lincoln as a deranged tyrant.
And so on.

You would be saying different things here then, wouldn't you?

 

[Newage]

Pour un second, j'ai pense qu'il etait americain, mais on ne doit pas etre un politicien americain d'etre un imbecile >.>

Nice try
But the correct sentence would be : "Pendant un moment, j'ai pensé qu'il était américain, mais on a pas besoin d'être un politicien américain pour être un imbécile."