Do we like them?

Do we like Mylène Farmer?

Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean harm record and real, long-running good, but she gives few interviews, so there's less on record than for most stars.

Mylène Farmer is back, and it's a big one. Égrégore is her thirteenth studio album, and fans were offered a one-night cinema screening of the new songs with visuals before it landed. The first single, "C'est à qui le tour", came with a clip directed by Julia Ducournau.

She's famously private, and in her own audio message at the preview she described the artist-audience bond as "L'artiste lance l'étincelle, le public l'embrase." That's about as chatty as she gets. It also means there's a lot less on the record about her than about most pop stars, and we've said so rather than guess.

The harm check comes up clean. In 2012 she said on TF1 she had no reason to oppose same-sex marriage, and told Têtu she preferred a gay marriage to a sad one. She also said that if orphans could join a warm home, that was progress. We found no remarks against trans people, women, migrants or the planet, and no dodgy company she keeps.

She has also stood up to the far right. In 1995 a lookalike sang her songs at Jean-Marie Le Pen's campaign rallies. She told France 2 she was appalled he had used her image to mislead people, and she filed a complaint against him, which Purebreak says she won.

The good stuff is real and long-running. She has backed the fight against AIDS since 1987, and in 2024 she lent her voice to Sidaction's 30th-anniversary campaign clip. Sidaction's communications director said her rare public word amplified the message.

When the 2023 riots forced the cancellation of her two Stade de France shows, her statement was short and warm: "Immense tristesse. Je vous aime". Nothing nasty came up in how she treats fans or colleagues. That's thin evidence either way, so we've scored her a pass rather than a distinction.