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Laurent Cantet, film-maker who tackled diversity and class in France, dies aged 63


Director of Palme d’Or-winning film Entre les Murs (The Class) was much praised for humanism in projects

Laurent Cantet, the award-winning film-maker whose creations tackled some of the most complex issues of modern French society, including meritocracy, the education system, diversity and class struggle, has died aged 63 after an illness. The Class unpicked the subtle intellectual standoffs and conversations that take place behind a closed classroom door: failures and frustrations not just between teachers and pupils but also between a rigid education system and an unequal modern society’s view of young people. But Cantet, who was described by the Libération critic Didier Péron as a social film-maker in the vein of Ken Loach, told Le Croix that he turned down an invitation to meet the rightwing Sarkozy at the Elysée after the film came out.

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Laurent Cantet