La Grande Nation Speaks Out Loud and Clear

La Grande Nation Speaks Out Loud and Clear

Editorial, Context n°105, May 2007

In a way, one can be forgiven for thinking that 22 April, the date of the first round of the Presidential election in France, was the most important aspect of the election. The record voter turnout (84% of the electorate) attained the historic level of the first presidential election of the Fifth Republic in 1965 and marks a turning point in the continuous decline in participation up to the catastrophic outcome (for France, a country with a keen sense of civism) of 72% of the electorate in April 2002. The general assessment is to be found in this commentary by Jean-Marie Colombani of Le Monde: “There was a veritable democratic leap”. Or, in that published in the 23 April issue of The Independent:

“Altogether, this is a hugely reassuring result of a reassuring campaign. It is reassuring, first, because it means that French politics is back to normal after the aberration of five years ago.”

We offer a different interpretation: the turning point in the campaign was the moment that the general theme progressed to the reaffirmation of the nation’s identity; to the exaltation of the nation; to the affirmation of France’s sovereignty and independence. The record turnout suggests that there was a remarkable collectivization (in the positive sense of the term, not in the Marxist sense) of the voice of a nation. It is at this point that we can speak of a harmonization of the voice of a nation, as a national symphony – a sort of ‘national union’ built around the idea of ‘nation’. Thus, we are careful not to speak of ‘the people’. We shall not repeat the platitude ‘the people has spoken’, but chose rather to say: ‘the nation has spoken’. What counts today is the forcefully demonstrated unity of national purpose rather than the nation’s choice as shown by the second round of voting.

It is neither a message of optimism, nor “the political springtime” (as Renaud Dely opined in Libération), in the sense that we shall again be able to wallow in our delectable left-right editorials; rather, it is an energetic, almost vital, determination to confront the crisis that the world finds itself in the throes of. It is clearly an agonizing vote that does not allow us any ‘bluebird of happiness’ tomorrow, for today, the world no longer resounds with the song of the ‘bluebird of happiness’. Quite simply, everything that justifies collective existence is there, amid the heavy responsibility and the energy, to confront that crisis.

Again, according to Dely, this time rightly so in our view, the voters were “en quête de sens” – ‘looking for meaning’. By voting, they let the nation speak and they expressed the voice of the nation – this country that has been referred to historically as ‘La Grande Nation’. They reaffirmed everything that globalization rejects: the Nation, the State, the Nation State, national identity and everything that goes with it. After a confused and splintered campaign, the nation spoke out loud and clear: if it was necessary to go through the former to achieve the latter, so be it. The voters were “en quête de sens”, and they found meaning by rediscovering the soul of the nation.

We are not talking about the rebirth of nationalism, which no longer has its place in an era in which that doctrine has been largely discredited. We are talking about a renewal, a rebirth, of national identity in an immense battle – the great crisis of our civilization – between the forces of destruction, and the need for meaning. And that meaning finds its expression in structures that refuse to submit to the destructive influences that are being foisted upon them.

As for the candidates remaining in the arena, their interest is to have well understood the voice of the nation. But our conviction is that they have understood it – not so much because they are adroit and clairvoyant (even if they are, which is possible but remains to be seen), but because they have been carried away by the power of the voice of the nation. They have been carried away like wisps of straw.

More than ever, we are in a ‘Maistrien’ cycle (French Revolutionary historian Joseph de Maistre [end 18th-early 19th century], of French language and culture, but born in Savoy, an area that was torn between French and Italian dominance): men are swept along by events and those who would resist are eliminated. (Reread these sentences and, at the same time, disregard the political setting of the time to conjure up a powerful historical process:

« It has been noted – and rightly so – that the French Revolution drives men more than men drive the Revolution. This observation could not be more pertinent… […] The very traitors who appear to lead the Revolution, are involved only as simple instruments, and once they have the impudence of presuming to dominate it, they fall ignominiously. »)

Since we are no longer in the cruel time of the French Revolution, heads no longer roll and backbones are less rigid. Today’s French politician hearkens to the voice of the nation and is swept along by the event. It is an event of considerable moment.