Académie Goncourt: Didier Decoin does not want a new mandate at the head of the jury

The president of the Goncourt Academy, Didier Decoin, wants to step down in 2024, he announced in an interview published by L'Obs on Friday. Didier Decoin was questioned about his intention to run again. “We don’t know what the future holds but if the vote was today, I would say no,” he explained.

Prix ​​Goncourt in 1977, he took over this presidency in January 2020, succeeding Bernard Pivot. “It’s a heavy load. I thought it had to be done at a certain point, but I didn't come home to be president, I came home to be a member of the Academy,” he added.

The Goncourt Academy is a recognized association of public utility which renews its office every year. In January 2023, the president was re-elected by a vote of nine to one. It is common knowledge that two men would happily see themselves take over: the secretary Philippe Claudel, and a juror, Pierre Assouline. “Claudel wants it, Assouline too, but I don’t have the impression that they want to bite for it,” Didier Decoin confirmed to L’Obs. He considered that the strong dissensions arising from the 2022 edition had been calmed. “There are impulses, but there are no hard feelings. It’s not part of our DNA,” he said.

Also read: The prestigious Goncourt jury undermined by clan war

In October 2022, the choice to designate the finalists of the prize in Beirut, out of solidarity with this French-speaking city, was criticized by the Lebanese Minister of Culture, close to the Shiite Amal movement, ally of Hezbollah, who refused the right “to Zionists to come among us and spread the venom of Zionism in Lebanon.”

Half of the ten jurors then pleaded to cancel the trip to Beirut, while the other half, including Didier Decoin, insisted on doing so. On the day the prize was awarded, in November, these two camps then voted stubbornly for 13 rounds each for a different novel, until the 14th when the president's vote counted double. This had benefited Vivre vite by Brigitte Giraud.