As disliked by conservatives as he is appreciated by young people and progressives, the man who until recently called himself 'Father Matthieu' has decided to hang up his cassock. He explains the reasons behind his decision to Le Monde.
The first time Le Monde met him, he was wearing a Roman collar and a small silver cross pinned to his jacket pocket, and went by the name "Father Matthieu." A year later, he was dressed in a hoodie, gray jeans and sneakers, his hair lightly tousled with gel and sporting stubble. At 39, he reclaimed his birth name, Matthieu Jasseron, after leaving the priesthood last summer. Just before our mid-November meeting at a Parisian café, he lit up a cigarette on the sidewalk, a little nervously. France's best-known priest, with a million and a half followers on various social media sites, has shocked the Catholic world with his "spiritual coming out."
In a 45-minute video posted on October 20, Jasseron explained, against a bucolic backdrop, why he threw in the towel. It had nothing to do with the motives usually invoked by his peers, said the parish priest for Joigny, in north-central France. "It's not about a chick, a guy, sanctions, scandals, sex, excommunication or anything like that, it runs much deeper," he said, in the direct, no-nonsense style that made him a TikTok sensation.