Over the past twenty-five years, French singer-songwriter Renaud has emerged as his country's leading exponent of chanson sociale, a rich and diverse tradition of popular song which has helped to rally, educate and galvanise dispossessed groups in French society since the first half of the nineteenth century. Renaud became well-known in the second half of the 1970s by singing about zonards (delinquent youths) from the housing estates of suburban Paris. Since then, he has tackled a range of themes, from military service and heroin addiction to the destruction of the environment and capitalist imperialism in the Third World. His repertoire includes love songs, chansons idiotes (a comical, risqué genre), traditional chansons réalistes from the Belle Epoque and interwar years, and songs by his idol, Georges Brassens.…
