Solène Delinger 11:58 a.m., June 20, 2022, modified at 11:58 a.m., June 20, 2022

The Stones are celebrating their sixtieth birthday.

For the occasion, France 5 pays tribute to the group with "Doc Stupéfiant", which explores the rockers' relationship with France.

It is in France that they created in abundance but also plunged into all the excesses.

Invited to "Culture Médias", the directors of the documentary Raphaëlle Baillot and Elise le Bivic look back on these crazy years with a black point: the machismo and misogyny of the artists. 

Were the Stones macho?

On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the British rock band, "Doc Stupéfiant", broadcast this Monday evening on France 5 at 9 p.m., looks back on the highlights of the rockers' careers in France.

From the chaotic concert in the Salle Vallier, in Marseille, in 1966, to the recording of

Exile on Main Street

, their album written under the influence in a villa on the Côte d'Azur, passing by the mythical marriage of Mick Jagger to Saint-Tropez, the British rock band lived through crazy French years.

Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll

And it was in France that they also plunged into all excesses, becoming the embodiment of "sex, drugs and rock'n'roll", with an assumed misogyny in the background.

Invited to

Culture Médias

to talk about their documentary on the Stones, journalists Raphaëlle Baillot and Elise le Bivic confirm that "misogynist bluster" was indeed part of their story. 

>> Find Philippe Vandel and Culture-Médias every day from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

A manly display

Raphaëlle Baillot points out that there are, in their songs, "lyrics that are excessively sexist" and gives a particularly edifying example of the "virile display" used by the Stones.

"In 1975, the Stones were doing concerts in which Mick Jagger rode a giant penis. We had to show that we were there, that we had big penises, that we rode them and that it was important", explains- she at the microphone of Philippe Vandel. 

Louis Bertignanc, guitarist of Telephone, who knew the Stones well and who had notably shared a studio with them, had himself pointed the finger at the machismo of British rockers.

"When we recorded at the Pathé studio, there were always two or three pretty girls, who were sitting on the sofa at the entrance to the studio. They were hoping that Jagger would come and talk to them or ask them to sleep with him or possibly to marry them. He saw me ogling the girls. And he said to me 'You take them for goddesses but I can tell you that they are whores'. There was perhaps a little macho side all the same", recalls -he. 

Nadine Expert refutes these accusations 

Another story from Nadine Expert, who also knew the Rolling Stones well: "At one point, I was asked this question about the behavior of the Rolling Stones towards women. But all the members of the Stones that I've seen in the studio, there was no problem with me anyway, disrespect or anything like that. Ever."