Bono: ‘I believe in the integrity of the Americans and Russian people — they need facts'
'I can tell you I've slept on beaches close to here,' Bono says with a grin. 'I've woken up in the sun.'
But that doesn't mean the Cannes Film Festival is a particularly familiar experience for the U2 frontman.
He's here to premiere the Apple TV+ documentary Bono: Stories of Surrender, which captures his one-man stage show. Before coming, Bono's daughter, the actor Eve Hewson, gave him some advice.
'She said: 'Just get over yourself and bring it,'' Bono said. 'What do I have to bring? Bring yourself and your gratitude that you're a musician and they're allowing you into a festival that celebrates actors and storytellers of a different kind. I said: 'OK, I'll try to bring it.''
Shifts in geopolitical tectonics were much on Bono's mind. He has spent much of his activist life fighting for aid to Africa and combating HIV-Aids. US president Donald Trump's dismantling of USAid has reversed much of that.
'What's irrational is taking pleasure in the defacement of these institutions of mercy,' Bono said. 'Globalisation did very well for the world's poor,' he said.
'That and increased aid levels brought a billion people out of extreme poverty and halved childhood mortality — remarkable jumps for quality of life for human beings.
'But it's also fair to say certain communities really paid the price for that — here in Europe, in the United States.
'And I'm not sure those communities were credited enough for weathering storms that globalisation brought.'
He added: 'Nationalism is not what we need. We grew up in a very charged atmosphere in Ireland.
'It makes you suspicious of nationalism and those animal spirits that can be drummed up.
'This is me speaking about surrender, stories of surrender, at a time when the world has never been closer to a world war in my lifetime.'
The former punk also has views on Pope Leo XIV. 'The new pope, he does look like a pope,' he said. 'That's a good start. I just saw the other day his first piece and he was talking about stopping shouting, God might prefer whispers.
'I thought: 'Oh, this could be interesting.' I'm more of a shouter myself.
'I come from punk rock. But I'm learning to turn that shout into a whisper in this film to get to an intimacy.'
He added : 'There's a minister from Albania who said something that really stuck with me. She said: 'If you have a chance to hope, it's a moral duty because most people don't. So, yes, I feel we'll figure our way out of this. This is a scary moment.
'I think acknowledging that we can lose all we've gained is sobering but it may be course-changing. I just believe in people enough. I believe in Americans enough. I'm an Irish person, I can't tell people how to vote.
'I can tell you that a million children dying because their life support systems were pulled out of the wall, with glee, that's not the America that I recognise or understand.
'You're on the front lines of Europe here. America came in and saved the day. Ironically, so did Russia. More people died from Russia fighting the Nazis than everybody else.
'Now they tread on their own sacred memories by treading on the Ukrainians who also died on the front lines. I think part of that is that history didn't acknowledge it.
'I believe there is integrity in the Russian people. They need to change their leader, in my view. I believe there is integrity in the Americans. They will figure it out.
'Who was it who said: If you give Americans the facts, they will eventually make the right choice. Right now, they're not getting the facts. Think of it: a 70pc decline in HIV-Aids, Republican-led, Democratically followed though. The greatest health intervention in the history of medicine to fight HIV-Aids has been thrown away.'
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