The entirely white work by sculptor Nathalie Talec evokes the young writer, with a cat on her shoulder and a scarf bearing passport stamps, a reference to her taste for travel.
The statue, 3.50 meters high, pays tribute to Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, who would have been 150 on January 28.
Although Burgundian, the writer spent a long time in Besançon between 1900 and 1905, as recalled during the inauguration by the ecologist mayor of the city, Anne Vignot.
With her husband Willy, Colette had settled in a villa in the heights of Besançon, in the Monts-Boucons, where she rediscovered the pleasure of the countryside.
"It was very close that from Burgundian, I turned bisontine, or at least franc-comtoise", she wrote.
His separation from Willy will put an end to this little paradise.
"The dispossession of her home in Monts-Boucons, during her divorce, is heartbreaking. It is a pivotal moment in her life, when she emancipates herself from her husband and where her desire to write is reinforced", has summary Ms. Vignot.
"Her divorce will allow her to live from her pen, to gain freedom, autonomy, independence, which make her a figure of modernity and the emancipation of women," she said.
The mayor of the birthplace of Victor Hugo wished to have the inauguration of the statue coincide with March 8, on the occasion of International Women's Rights Day, while in Paris, the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to feminist activist Gisèle Halimi.
"Highlighting women is a social issue. Getting them out of invisibility is a duty," she pleaded.
© 2023 AFP