Draft:Zoé Sagan

Zoé Sagan is the pseudonym of a French writer who presents herself as an artificial intelligence, active on social networks since 2018. Three books have been published under this name in 2020, 2021, and 2022. Her real identity is that of the former advertiser Aurélien Poirson-Atlan.

Literary and Media Career
Starting in 2018 on Facebook, Zoé Sagan published biting and satirical posts written in the first person, mocking and criticizing billionaires and personalities from the worlds of politics, fashion, media, and cinema. This character, an outrageous young woman claiming to "infiltrate" social events, began to spark curiosity within the Parisian media and cultural microcosm.

In 2019, Zoé Sagan contributed to a collection dedicated to the Yellow vests protests, published by Au diable vauvert, alongside authors such as Annie Ernaux, Nicolas Mathieu, François Bégaudeau, Denis Robert. According to France Culture, she "drenches all cultural circles with her radioactive posts ."

At the beginning of 2020, Au diable vauvert published her first novel, Ketamine, mentioned in L'Express and Technikart , which described her as a "kamikaze pamphleteer." According to GQ, "she follows in the direct line of the situationists ." Le Nouveau Magazine Littéraire compared her to a "trash Elena Ferrante ." Lucile Poulain, a commentator for RTBF, stated, "It's as if the conversations found in the novel Ketamine are taken from reality [...] It's better than Gossip Girl and House of Cards combined."

In parallel, she published a satirical series on Le Média, then directed by Denis Robert, about the French billionaire Bernard Arnault — CEO of LVMH — and his children, titled L'incroyable famille Arnault.

In February 2020, intimate videos of Benjamin Griveaux were made public by Russian artist Piotr Pavlenski on the website "pornopolitique.com." Zoé Sagan was the first to share the videos on her Facebook account. She claimed that the lawyer and revolutionary activist Juan Branco sent her the link, which he denied, stating he only put her in touch with Piotr Pavlenski. These videos, showing acts of masturbation, were sent in 2018 to Piotr Pavlenski's future partner, Alexandra de Taddeo, with whom Benjamin Griveaux had an extramarital affair. The politician announced his withdrawal from the Paris municipal elections the day after the videos were released. The Russian artist, a political refugee known for his shocking performances, explained his act as a denunciation of the "hypocrisy" of the LREM candidate, who had campaigned on "traditional family values." This episode rekindled media interest in Zoé Sagan. Various hypotheses about her real identity were then discussed in the press: Juan Branco acting under a pseudonym, or Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, a publicist and co-founder of the Apar.tv platform.

In 2021, Braquage [Data Noire] was published in the "Bouquins" collection by Éditions Robert Laffont, directed by Jean-Luc Barré.

In January 2022, Paris Match published a portrait of Aurélien Poirson-Atlan, who claimed to want to reveal Zoé Sagan's identity to protect himself from pressures and to return to reality after years of daily immersion in his digital persona. This former publicist stated he had received messages from several thousand people from all social backgrounds: "the lost, the romantics, the lewd, frustrated fashion insiders loaded with juicy anecdotes; admiring women, including the wife of the then-president of the National Assembly, confiding her loneliness; a Goncourt Prize winner, bewitched ."

After her involvement in the release of the Benjamin Griveaux videos, Zoé Sagan was approached by Ludovic Chaker, a close advisor to President Emmanuel Macron, who acknowledged "informal exchanges." Aurélien Poirson-Atlan was questioned by the police in 2021 after bragging about hacking the phone of Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.

The Paris Match article also mentioned Aurélien Poirson-Atlan's "mentor": a certain Steven Mark Klein, a figure of the 1980s New York underground scene, close to Keith Haring, an archivist of the fashion and art world, and a consultant for major brands. Klein committed suicide in 2021 at the age of 70.

Abandoned by her former publishers and struggling to sell her prose, considered "chaotic, obscure, and borderline conspiratorial," Zoé Sagan concluded her "infofiction" trilogy with her book Suspecte, published in 2022 by Magnus, a publisher reputed to be close to the far-right "identitarian" movement.

Besides Bernard Arnault and his children, her main targets include Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, Marlène Schiappa, Gabriel Attal, and Cyril Hanouna. Zoé Sagan addresses themes dear to the QAnon movement (elite pedocriminality and satanism) and attacked Rudy Reichstadt, founder of Conspiracy Watch, in 2023.

In 2024, she fueled the widely circulated conspiracy rumor that there is a blacklist of French personalities accused of sexual violence and spread false information accusing Julien Pain, the host of Vrai ou Faux on Franceinfo, of violence (mistaking him for someone with a similar name).