Renaud Pierre Manuel Séchan, known as Renaud, born in Paris on 11 May 1952, is a popular French singer, songwriter and actor.
His father comes from a Protestant southern-french family (from the Cévennes), and his mother is the daughter of a coalminer from the poor Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. Renaud dedicated part of his work to his familial roots, singing traditional songs in the regional picard language and acting in Germinal, a film based on the...
more
Renaud Pierre Manuel Séchan, known as Renaud, born in Paris on 11 May 1952, is a popular French singer, songwriter and actor.
His father comes from a Protestant southern-french family (from the Cévennes), and his mother is the daughter of a coalminer from the poor Nord-Pas-de-Calais region. Renaud dedicated part of his work to his familial roots, singing traditional songs in the regional picard language and acting in Germinal, a film based on the famous Emile Zola novel.
His early work is characterized by a volatile temperament, innovative use of French, and edgy, dark, left-wing social and political themes. Raised in an educated milieu, the son of an intellectual, Renaud adopted the looks and attitude of working-class youth in the 1970s, and reflected this in his lyrics. A recurrent theme is his disgust for the average French people with petit-bourgeois preoccupations and right-wing leanings (see beauf). His music focuses on the disparity between classes, the abuse of political power...
less