On Monday, October 13, 2025, Nathalie Lévy hosted a new edition of the daily Canal+ show “En Aparté.” That day, the host welcomed musician and actor Benjamin Biolay, who notably expressed his admiration for the late Serge Gainsbourg. However, he was much less effusive about a major star of the 70s.
An iconic figure in the French music scene for many years, Benjamin Biolay also enjoys a successful acting career. On Monday, October 13, 2025, he was Nathalie Lévy’s guest on the show “En Aparté,” during which he expressed his admiration for Serge Gainsbourg. “There are quite a few things that remind us of Gainsbourg, both in your style and in your writing,” the host said to her guest of the day. “Yes, but in personality, I know a tennis coach who’s ten times more like him than me, for example, you see. It’s just that we both played classical music, we like poetry, and yes, I’m a romantic,” the musician replied.
“Can it be a burden sometimes to be compared to Gainsbourg?” the journalist then wanted to know. “Not at all. Being compared to Michel Fugain must be a burden, but being compared to Gainsbourg is wonderful, frankly,” the actor immediately retorted. As a reminder, the enmity between Benjamin Biolay and Michel Fugain is nothing new. Indeed, the two artists have regularly attacked each other in recent years through the media. “I denounce certain types of behavior when it isn’t compensated by a contribution to our profession. Songwriting is a major art form, contrary to what Gainsbourg said. Commercialism is harmful to creativity. Rearranging a song or redoing what has already been done serves no purpose,” Michel Fugain declared in the columns of Télé Star. “I don’t know what it’s for,” he also declared in the Belgian magazine Ciné Télé Revue.
The actor then responded on social media: “I don’t like what you do either, Mr. Michel Fugain, but I don’t feel obliged to harass you through the press since 2008.” Before adding: “He’s totally devastated…” Michel Fugain then added another layer in an interview with the Belgian magazine Télépro. “There’s no quarrel between him and me! From what I know and what I see, or what I’m shown, Benjamin Biolay is a guy who does everything. He’s an actor… And I, very stupidly, think that before doing a lot of things at once, you have to do one well! And in this case, as far as singing and promoting ‘French song’ are concerned, there’s still a bit of work to be done! He’s done some nice things, we agree, but the media space makes everything confuse. And I’m missing a little bit of energy in the image I receive musically. And I believe in energy. In one way or another, energy is life,” he declared at the time.
