Talk:Raymond Devos

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[edit] References

I have added material from his BBC obituary. I have also added it and his IMDb entry to the external links. There is also the AFP article on his death in French which I have left in place because his article will probably be looked at by a large number of Francophones. Capitalistroadster 19:05, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nationality

As far as I know, Raymond Devos is not French but Belgian. He was born near the French-Belgian border in 1922, but all available references indicate that he had not the double nationality. --Edcolins 20:35, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you can read french, the french page has some more (boring) details on the subject. Both his parents are french and he was born in Belgium near the border and considered himself a frenchman born outside of France. He lived in France for the greater part of his career. I could not care less about a France/Belgium classical tug of war and I think classifying as both actually is the more informative route. Pascal.Tesson 21:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

It is similar situation as with Nikolai Antropov. He is Russian, but born in Kazakhstan. The only difference in this case is that it was all under USSR. Otherwise, very similar situation.

Norum 16.06.2006

Update: I just looked around the obituaries. Predictably, the belgian newspapers say "belgian comedian Devos is dead" and AFP says "french born in Belgium". He spent the first two years of his life in Belgium and the rest essentially in France. He had both nationalities (at least so AFP claims). Pascal.Tesson 22:03, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you. Interesting and unclear indeed. --Edcolins 07:10, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Would be nice to resolve the unclarity somehow. --Edcolins 07:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
The French wikipedia article in its section "Français ou Belge ?" does not cite any source. The discussion appears to be pure speculation. The fact that his parents were French does not necessarily make him a French citizen. Reliable sources wanted. --Edcolins 10:05, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Really, the two parents of Raymond Devos were French. He was born near the Belgian-French border in Mouscron, Belgium, where his bearth was declared. But his father forgot to declare the birth to the French consulate, and, although Raymond Devos always benefited of the French nationality throughout his life.

His official situation was never regularized at the Civil State registry in Nantes (for French people born abroad). He did not need to do so given his past history of life, the official honor he received (the French nationality cannot be removed to people honored in the Légion d'Honneur), his military record in the French army, and the nationality of his parents. The laws regulating the French nationality do not require to be born on the French territory, and his Belgian Civil State birth record was perfectly valid for France (there are lots of people in France that were born abroad, or born in areas that were French before the independance) and was not against this principle. Also the French law does not require the abandon of any past nationality (dual nationality is officially recognized in France, and people just need to justify their French obligations according to equivalent obligations attached to the other nationality, or effective country of residence, if they want to use this option).

Due to his parents (all children of French parents have the full right to the French nationality, wherever they are born), and the fact that he lived in France during almost all his life except in his first months, and the fact that his French nationality was never disputed, he was French legally (confirmed on his identity card, on his family book, and his passport).

But under the Belgian law, he could claim the Belgian nationality due to the birth record in Mouscron, but he did not claim his Belgian rights during his life, as he did not want to initiate into flaming critics by doing so (because his image was intimately attached to the French culture in France). But he never crticized his Belgian origin, and was proud too of being a multinational, and he was appreciated too in Belgium where he was honored too.

He was respectful of his French nationality, and received during his life of several honorific titles wuth the French Légion d'Honneur, and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. He was very proud that his texts are included in schoolbooks, and that a French school is named after him.

So he was a binational legally, but only used the rights attached to his French nationality.

So newspapers in France can speak of a "French humorist" and Belgian newspapers can speak about the "Belgian humorist" (they would be more correct and respectful by not excluding the other nationality, as this is insulting for his memory). Raymond Devos was against the nationalist flags that some are trying to put on his head; this nationalism was definitely not his battle.

Rest in peace. verdy_p 10:21, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think debating this makes any sense. He clearly was born in Belgium. He clearly had French parents, had the French nationality and clearly lived about 80 years of his life in France. I think "Belgian and French humorist" reflects that. No sense in putting an "and/or" or a warning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pascal.Tesson (talk • contribs)
Please cite your sources. Unless proper, reliable sources are cited to assert his nationality, please do not remove the tag {{Missing information|Raymond Devos actual nationality or nationalities}}. Information should be unambiguously verifiable. It isn't. Thank you. --Edcolins 19:04, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Many reliable sources mention that he was Belgian, but the Larousse dictionary mentions he is French. Let's say he is French-speaking in the first sentence, with a further sentence about the divergent sources... --Edcolins 20:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Well I guess you do not consider the Larousse dictionnary as a reliable source? Or the 20 different reputable newspapers and news agencies who reported the death of "french comedian Raymond Devos"? Or maybe you don't consider that it is common knowledge that children born of parents who have the french nationality automatically are french (as I can confirm by my own experience) or that Devos served the STO which was imposed on the french or that it does not make any sense that he would spend 80 years of his life in France as a foreigner when he can have the nationality. There are a slew of references everywhere attesting to that. Just google it man. What do you want? A photocopy of his passport? If that helps, in an interview following his SACEM prize he described himself as a "Artiste de variétés français, né à Mouscron en 1922 (Belgique). Tour à tour diseur, poète, prestidigitateur, jongleur et musicien." [1] But wait, are we sure he said that? Pascal.Tesson 22:29, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes, of course, Larousse may be considered a reliable source, otherwise I would not have added this particular source (even though it is a French publisher, which may be biased for one reason or another). But, the French Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, the BBC, TF1, and so on, are also deemed to be reliable sources of information. The SACEM and the interview is a further reliable source but not necessarily reflecting the absolute truth (Raymond Devos may well have presented himself as a French comedian for personal reasons in that case, but this may not reflect the reality. Further, he may also have meant French-speaking as well, who knows. Finally, we are not even 100 % sure he actually said that).
When reliable sources diverge, Wikipedia must state so. This is an official guideline as you may know:
The neutral point of view is a means of dealing with conflicting views. The policy requires that, where there are or have been conflicting views, these should be presented fairly, but not asserted. All significant points of view are presented, not just the most popular one. It should not be asserted that the most popular view or some sort of intermediate view among the different views is the correct one. Readers are left to form their own opinions. (see The neutral point of view).
This case is a basic, simple application of this policy, a textbook case. Please do not remove the references I added (after a Google, Google book and Google scholar search, I did this, dude!) and please respect the NPOV policy. Readers should be left to form their own opinions. Thank you. --Edcolins 11:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
I have read again the text in French entitled "Grand Prix de l'humour : Raymond DEVOS". [2] This is actually not an interview but an award speech. Let me explain:
"Tentons néanmoins une petite visite guidée... par l'intéressé lui-même. Raymond Devos : "Artiste de variétés français, né à Mouscron en 1922 (Belgique). Tour à tour diseur, poète, prestidigitateur, jongleur et musicien. Son sens de l'absurde anime ses monologues où, à travers calembours, non-sens et gags verbaux, le personnage principal est toujours le langage".
This means: "let's try a guided tour... [and let's start the guide tour] by the person concerned." And then what follows is a definition-like description of the person concerned, i.e. Raymond Devos. There is no evidence that the definition was drafted by Raymond Devos. The "definition" is part of a speech read when Raymond Devos received a French award called the "Grand Prix de l'humour". I have never heard an award ceremony where the speech is delivered for somebody, the speech having been written by the person concerned... --Edcolins 13:27, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Are you a native french speaker? You clearly do not understand that sentence. It says "Let try a guided tour, (guided by)... the artist himself". Note the un-translatable subtle pun. Note also that quotations mark open at that point. Note also that an interview of Devos was clearly done for the purposes of writing this speech. This is not a case of conflicting views on an issue, it's a case of conflicting definitions of being Belgian or French which is an entirely different thing. Pascal.Tesson 14:48, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
Well, I stop the nascent revert war here, and I ask somebody (who has not been involved yet in the discussion) to provide a third opinion on this matter.
My position is:
In its current form [3], the article does not conform with the NPOV policy. I believe my last version [4] complies with the NPOV policy. That is,
  1. Raymond Devos is now presented as both Belgian and French, while the available sources all present him as either Belgian or French. Wikipedia's main policy is not a policy of compromise, but a policy of neutrality.
  2. All the sources I added [5] should be reinserted. They underline the different, conflicting views on the matter.
  3. There is a disagreement on the interpretation of the text Grand Prix de l'humour : Raymond DEVOS. Pascal.Tesson interprets the text as meaning that Raymond Devos described himself as a French comedian. I interpret the text differently. There is absolutely no evidence that the award speech is based on an interview. And Pascal.Tesson does not provide any evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, IMHO:
  • the definition-like description was most probably not written by Raymond Devos, because the context is an award speech (and people usually do not participate in writing their own award speech),
  • the definition is full of praise (and Raymond Devos was too modest to write such a full of praise definition - "Nous perdons un géant de la poésie sur scène à la jovialité espiègle, généreux et modeste." - Jack Lang [6]),
  • the sentence "Tentons néanmoins une petite visite guidée... par l'intéressé lui-même" means "let's try a guided tour... [and let's start the guide tour] by the person concerned." (in context the word "Tentons" in French means "Let's give it a try", and with the three dots (an ellipsis), it should be interpreted as "Let's give it a try and start with", ... "Raymond Devos:" and then follows a definition-like description with quotation marks to indicate that it is a definition-like description.
In addition (see section "Nationality"):
The sentence "Because he was born in Belgium but spent all but the first two years of his life in France, there is often some confusion about the nationality of Devos." is pure speculation regarding the source of the "confusion". The sentence is POV.
The sentence "Media reporting his death were in disagreement, (...)" omits to state that the disagreement precedes his death (see my sources in [7])
The sentence "Both can be considered correct depending on one's definition of nationality." is POV. The assertion violates the NPOV policy since "Readers should be left to form their own opinions." (see The neutral point of view)
"He was entitled to both passports since he was born in Belgium from French parents but he described himself as an "artiste de variétés Français, né en Belgique" (French showman born in Belgium)." is unsupported by reliable sources (first portion of the sentence: "He was entitled to both passports") and further it is a biased interpretation of the award speech (see above.)
Thank you.--Edcolins 20:56, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


What do you mean it's a biased interpretation of the award speech!?!? It's a DIRECT QUOTE from the man! Pascal.Tesson 21:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Do not scream. Thank you. That's just your interpretation. --Edcolins 21:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
And might I add, he was indeed entitled to both passports. These are verifiable facts. I'm not saying he had both but children born in Belgium are entitled to Belgian passports, and children of french citizens born anywhere are entitled to a french passport. What do you want as a reference???
Here's one last reference. If that does not kill it, I don't no what will.[8] Pascal.Tesson 21:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
Raymond Devos may have been entitled to be French and Belgian, but was he? IMHO "to be entitled" and "to be" are not the same thing. The article you provided indicates that Raymond Devos was entitled to be French, the Raymond Devos believed he was French ("(...) le citoyen français nordiste qu’il croyait être") and that he was apparently not recognized as a French by the French administration. --Edcolins 21:29, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

OK here's my take on it:

  • Sources differ on whether he's French or Belgian, so we shouldn't say he's either.
  • Sources that describe him as "French" might be referring to his language rather than national origin.
  • Putting eight footnotes in one sentence is a bit extreme. They should be merged into one, and, if this is really such a controversy (if we don't know, maybe we should just leave it out?) then that can be explained in a footnote, not the introduction.
  • Wikipedia is not a board of inquiry. We can't determine his nationality ourselves. We can only say what people say about him, and since nobody seems to be sure, it seems we can't say anything unless we find a reliable source that trumps the others.

Fagstein 21:57, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

You know, I have better things to do then fight for this. Never mind the simple fact that it makes simply no sense to think that the guy would spend 80 years of his life in France without claiming his french nationality. Never mind the fact that French citizen's children are automatically recognized as french by the french authorities. Never mind the fact that someone who lives his whole life, including his childhood in France, born out of french parents should be considered as "french" no matter what. Never mind the fact that the figaro article I cited earlier[9] claims that he had his national identity card (which, as you can check, requires that you are french)[10]. Never mind the SACEM interview. Never mind that googling "nationalité de Raymond Devos" you can find a gazillion references to interviews where he clears this up[11] [12]. Why should we let facts get in the way? I'm taking this off my watchlist Edcollins, do what you want, but do me a favor: sleep on it, review the evidence and if you still feel that there is not conclusive evidence that it's correct to say he was french, then revert it. Pascal.Tesson 01:48, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
(And if I may add), this obsession to make sure that Wikipedia reflects the confusion about certain topics makes it a less valuable tool of reference. We have plenty of evidence to support adding a note in the guy's biography that he's often somewhat incorrectly refered to as Belgian. Of course it's not 100% wrong and that's why I have this little paragraph of explanation. Pascal.Tesson 01:51, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fagstein's third opinion

I have implemented the third opinion. Please discuss any planned change regarding this matter before going ahead. Thank you. --Edcolins 21:04, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Last try. Let me translate [13] for people that do not understand french. The crucial paragraph is:
Raymond Devos était né en Belgique en 1922 - une année seulement après Georges Brassens, autre magicien des mots qui jouissait un peu de la même cote d'amour du public et des amoureux du langage. Et donc, malgré sa nationalité française, la mention «belge» est restée pour toujours dans les bios et les dictionnaires: «En fait, nous disait-il lors d'une interview en 1994 à Paris, je suis quand même un faux Belge.»
which translate to (bold is mine of course):
Raymond Devos was born in Belgium in 1922 (...) And so, depsite his french nationality, the "belgian" label stuck for ever in biographies and dictionaries: "in fact, he told us in a 1994 interview in Paris, I'm still a sort of fake Belgian.
Now we have a clear choice. Make sure that Wikipedia perpetuates that confusion and stick with the "belgian" label or trust the word of Devos himself on the subject. Pascal.Tesson 23:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)
This would appear to be on point. Unless some other source contradicts this in some way, I would support including it in the article (perhaps a paragraph further down explaining the confusion and his response to it). Fagstein 05:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
Thank you for this reference. I didn't know this one [14]. Apologies, it seems you were correct from the outset and I was damn wrong. With all the references indicating that he was Belgian (including the BBC, the French Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, and so on) this is rather confusing. So... what exactly is your conclusion? (1) Was he French only, was he both French and Belgian? What does "je suis quand même un faux Belge." mean? Does it mean "I am Belgian, but rather French than Belgian since my parents were Belgian" or does it mean "I am not Belgian at all"? After all, was he a Belgian citizen because his father went to a Belgian town hall to declare his birth? The sentence "je suis quand même un faux Belge" does not make completely clear whether he was Belgian but did not feel like a genuine one, or whether he was not Belgian at all. (2) And what is the significance of the fact that he was never "declared" to the French authorities? He received a French passport, but was never "recognized" by the French autorities. How did he get a French passport, then? We are nearly done, I hope. --Edcolins 07:34, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed resolution

I humbly propose the following changes.

  • changed the first paragraph to include "french".
  • changed the nationality section. Mention he's french, say that he was respectful of his belgian origin.
  • cut one reference. I think one of each type is enough.

Please feel free to modify if you feel that's not quite the right way to say things. I also think it's important to keep that discussion to a minimum: the guy is one of the most recognized names in french-speaking humour and I think it would be a shame to have half the article discussing a not-so-important side-issue. Pascal.Tesson 12:33, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur quand même with the proposed solution. Thanks for your contribution to this article! --Edcolins 14:36, 20 June 2006 (UTC)