Podcast: New Caledonia dialogue, homophobia in French football, moonlighting novelists

<p>How to get New Caledonians talking to each other; the incompatibility of being gay and a football player in France, and the naval officer who turned his world travels into fiction.</p> <p><span><span><span><span><span><span>In the face of political deadlock over the status of the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, pro-independence and loyalist parties are struggling to even talk to one another. </span></span></span></span></span></span>Caledonian journalist and writer <span><span><span><span><span><span><a href="https://jennybriffa.com/">Jenny Briffa</a> has spent </span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span>a good part of her life trying to get conversations going between the archipelago's different ethnic communities, and recently wrote </span></span></span></span></span></span><span><span><span><span><span><span>a triptych of plays around the three independence referendums held in 2018, 2020 and 2021. She talks about the territory's <a href="https://www.rfi.fr/en/france/20190926-podcast-notre-dame-fallout-bears-pyrenees-france-colonising-new-caledonia">colonial legacy</a>, its shared cultures, and how she sees herself as a white Caledonian, born of French parents. (Listen @0')</span></span></span></span></span></span></p><p>Football remains a very macho sport in France, and <span><span><span><span><span><span>failure to fit the straight, virile mould can lead to harassment, insults or worse. Ouissem Belgacem quit his career as a rising football star aged 20 when he realised he could never be an openly gay player. He finally came out publicly in his book <em><a href="https://www.fayard.fr/documents-temoignages/adieu-ma-honte-9782213720739">Adieu ma honte</a> </em>(Farewell to my shame) in 2021, which inspired a recently released <a href="https://www.canalplus.com/decouverte/adieu-ma-honte/h/21883617_50001">documentary series</a>. While he's no longer in the football world, he hopes to become a role model – something he never had – for today's players. He talks about