French President Emmanuel Macron has enlisted a street artist to create a new image of Marianne, the symbol of liberty and the de facto face of France, which appears on the country’s postage stamps. Over 300 million stamps with the new image have already been printed, and they will be released on Monday.
Presidents usually choose an image that captures something of the contemporary zeitgeist, and Macron has named the new Marianne by French-British street artist Yseult Digan, Marianne l’engagé, meaning Marianne the engaged, or the politically committed.
Digan, who is based in the West African city of Abidjan and goes by the moniker YZ (pronounced “eyes”) has created a portrait of a young woman with a glint of determination in her eye. “I wanted this Marianne to be strong, proud, and determined, with an unflinching look to the future,” Digan said at the unveiling of the image. The work appears on a 50-foot mural on the side of a public housing estate in Périgeux, a well-populated town in southwestern France a few miles from the factory of La Poste where the stamps are made. Read more