Noël Godin

Method

Godin insisted he was non-violent and was careful to use only soft pies (purchased from local bakeries) made of cream and sponge cake that would not physically hurt his victims.^[6][7][8] His actions were accompanied by the cry "Gloup! Gloup!", after Georges Le Gloupier, a fictional character he adopted as an alter ego.^[9][3] He said his humor could be traced back to Bugs Bunny, Wile E. Coyote, the Marx Brothers, Norman Wisdom, and the radical "yippies" of the Youth International Party.^{[2][6][8][10]} Godin tended not to pick Belgian victims, as he insisted that few would notice if he did. He remarked, "The first five seconds after the delivery of a pie offer a stark revelation of a victim's real character."^[1]

A supporter of anarchist causes,^[6][11] Godin targeted figures representing elites whom the public had turned against.^[2] He said the essence of his technique was to push the pie into the target's face rather than throw it, which he credited for rarely missing.^[9] Godin maintained that no amount of security could keep a target safe from the cream.^[9][3]

Targets

Godin's first pie stunt was in 1969, when he threw a pie in the face of the French novelist Marguerite Duras, rationalising the move by stating, "She has a kind of intelligence and cleverness that serves only her own vanity".^[1] He went on to offer justifications for pieing other celebrities such as "pomposity" and "choosing to function in the service of the capitalist status quo".^[1]

He pied choreographer Maurice Béjart^[1] in 1969,^[2][7] which was followed by the Belgian minister Édouard Poullet [fr] (1987)^[12], the filmmaker Jean Delannoy (1988)^[12], the novelist Vladimir Volkoff (1993)^[12], the head of Antenne 2 network Jean-Pierre Elkabbach (1994),^[12] the French minister Philippe Douste-Blazy (1995)^[12], the hosts Pascal Sevran (1995) and Benjamin Castaldi (2001)^[12], the producer Daniel Toscan du Plantier (1996)^[12], the Quebec politicians Bernard Landry (2000) and Jean Charest (2003),^[12] the rapper Doc Gynéco (2007)^[12], and the former archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels André-Joseph Léonard (2011 and 2013)^[12][3].

Over the years he targeted Patrick Bruel^[13] and journalists Patrick Poivre d'Arvor^[13] (pied in 1996^[12]) and Alain Bévérini [fr], whom he pied in 1993.^[12]

He also targeted popular events; he pied Hélène Rollès in the middle of a concert in Brussels in 1995,^[12] and in 1999 the audience of the Belgian violinist competition called the Queen Elisabeth Competition.^[12] At the Cannes Film Festival, he pied directors Marco Ferreri in 1976^[12] and Jean-Luc Godard in 1985, who reacted with humor.^[12]

These mostly isolated occasions were in sharp contrast to Bernard-Henri Lévy, whom he and his accomplices targeted on at least eight occasions as a favourite victim.^[7][14] Lévy's violent reactions^[12] to the pieings became the subject of numerous instances of ridicule and parody, including Benoît Poelvoorde's Les Carnets de Monsieur Manatane^[12] and Renaud's dedicated song in 2012.^[12] Godin believed Lévy to be arrogant, considering Lévy's statements claiming to be "the most gifted writer of my generation"; Lévy's frequent boasts of reasonableness and tolerance were repeatedly challenged by media footage of himself covered in cream during a visit to Liège, trying to strangle Godin and shouting, "Get up, or I'll kick your head in".^[1] Godin remarked on Lévy:

He takes himself monstrously seriously [...] He is totally in love with himself to the most spectacular degree of imbecility.^[1]

Godin's campaign over the years became so effective that whenever Lévy's puppet on the satirical French television show Les Guignols de l'info began to speak, it was silenced by a cream tart.^[1] Godin promised to leave the philosopher alone only if he sang a silly song after the next attack.^[1]

In 1997, he instructed his accomplices to target the then future French president Nicolas Sarkozy, himself standing aside for fear of being recognised.^[15] Remarking upon the stunt, he said:

It has now been thirty-three years since I undertook a pastry crusade, in homage to the comedian Alphonse Allais, against personalities who take themselves very, very, very seriously^[15]

Noël Godin had been convicted by the criminal court for throwing a cream pie at the former French Socialist minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement in March of the same year.^[16][15]

A year later, in 1998, Godin gained global attention when his group ambushed Microsoft CEO Bill Gates in Brussels, pelting the software magnate with pies.^[17][6] After bombarding Gates, Godin allegedly said, "My work here is done."^[11] Godin said he and his accomplices had drunk Trappist beer for courage beforehand, and called Gates an ideal target for placing his wealth and power at the service of governments.^[9]

In a 2005 interview with Het Nieuwsblad, Godin named Pope Benedict XVI, Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi as figures he still hoped to pie.^[9]

In September 2023, outside the European Commission in Brussels, he claimed to have pelted Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary with a pie.^[13]