Salvador Dalí, aged 65, emerges from the underpass of the Bastille Métro station on the rue de Lyon with an anteater

Salvador Dalí, aged 65, emerges from the underpass of the Bastille Métro station on the rue de Lyon with an anteater. The anteater is not his: the animal was provided for the photo shoot by the Jardin des Plantes.

Very well. But have you never wondered by what right, exactly? Who permitted an eccentric millionaire to use, for the upkeep of his own image, an animal that owes him nothing whatever? Did the administration of the Jardin des Plantes permit it? Their press attaché? And did nobody think to ask the anteater whether it cared to endure the terror of a journey into the city centre in a cage, or to take part in a shoot lasting several hours for Paris Match? No, no and no.

The animal is, naturally, terrified. A length of rope has been tied round its neck, a complete stranger is tugging at it, all around stands a crowd of gawpers, there is noise, and the surroundings are utterly unfamiliar. The creature cannot fathom what it has done to deserve all this, it who is, after all, a life prisoner of its enclosure.

In what way is the world-famous artist better than those lifestyle bloggers who stage photo shoots with innocent wild animals to draw attention to their own persons? Let him dress up as an anteater himself. Whence this unshakeable conviction that any defenceless object in the universe may become one's accessory?

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Salvador Dalí, aged 65, emerges from the underpass of the Bastille Métro station on the rue de Lyon with an anteater

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