When he finally put an end to the false suspense he had maintained for weeks and announced, Tuesday, November 30, his candidacy for the presidential election, Eric Zemmour recalled at length his vision of France. Our country is the one “of Joan of Arc and Louis XIV, the country of Bonaparte and General de Gaulle, (…) the country of Victor Hugo and Chateaubriand, the country of Pascal and Descartes, (…) the country of Pasteur and Lavoisier, the land of Voltaire and Rousseau “. Like in his books France has not said its last word (ed. Rubempre) and The French Suicide (ed. Albin Michel), the writer and far-right columnist a drawn in its candidacy announcement a France on the decline, but with a glorious past, whose combative and eternal nation is populated by heroes.
Eric Zemmour is part of the tradition of “national novel”, a way of telling history, born under the Third Republic, which has recourse to important dates, deeds and the life of great men for anify the French nation and exalt its patriotism. This “national novel” – also sometimes called “national narrative”, when it prides itself on a greater historical truth – was then criticized at the end of the twentieth century by historians pointing out its inaccuracy, its linearity and the absence in its pages of less glorious hours.
The mobilization of history and its actors is not new in politics. “It is the peculiarity of power to use a great historical narrative to legitimize itself”, emphasizes to franceinfo Nicolas Offenstadt, historian and co-founder of the Committee for vigilance in the face of public uses of history. And to mention, among other examples, “the idealized narrative of workers’ struggles” set up, in its time, by the Soviet Union.
The generation of politicians who made history “a way of thinking” has nevertheless given way, in the 21st century, to a political class which reinterprets it as a “mythology” or stage it by resorting to “to the first person”, notes the historian Christophe Prochasson, author of What do they owe to history? (Bayard ed., 2012). In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy was thus the first to make the “national novel” a central argument of his presidential campaign, advised by Henri Guaino and Patrick Buisson, emphasizes Nicolas Offenstadt in The bling-bling story. The return of the national novel (ed. Stock, 2009). At the time, Nicolas Sarkozy evokes “our ancestors the Gauls”. He is also at the origin of a ministry where the notion of national identity appears (the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Codevelopment) and of a museum project of the history of France (the House of the history of France), which was abandoned by the left in 2012.
Following him, François Fillon and Bruno Le Maire, notably during the right-wing primary of 2016, Robert Ménard or now Eric Zemmour all also have recourse to the “national novel”, sometimes even believing that it should be taught at school, as recalled The Obs. In the same vein, Xavier Bertrand, candidate for the nomination of the right for 2022, believes in The world, in June, that Emmanuel Macron participated in the “deconstruction of history” and goes against “national cohesion” through its policy of recognizing the wrongs of France on colonization and slavery.
How to explain this comeback? Since the 1980s, we have observed “an intense reinvestment in the national”, argues historian Anne-Marie Thiesse in The history of France in museum, published in the journal Political reasons in 2010. “The economic, financial and social changes of globalization (…) heighten fears about the future, especially as the collapse of revolutionary and reformist ideologies no longer allows us to think of it as a resolution of the present evils”, she writes.
“The nation-state, whose power is declining sharply as a result of these changes, appears as a refuge, protection, bastion of resistance to hostile forces.”
Anne-Marie Thiesse, historianin “The history of France in a museum”
A reexamination of dark periods in French history – slavery and colonization, the Algerian war … – with the adoption of so-called “memorial” laws, also participates in the revival to the right and the far right of a glorious “national novel” in the face of what is perceived as a culture of “repentance”.
If the recourse to the “national novel” is more traditionally used on the right and on the extreme right, it is because “the exaltation of the fatherland and the nation, to the detriment of social struggles, tensions in the social body and minority narratives, flows more easily into the conservative right”, emphasizes Nicolas Offenstadt.
However, it is far from being the only one to use it. To the left, Yannick Jadot, ecological presidential candidate, refuses to take inspiration from it, believing that “France is not a museum”, report The Express. But Jean-Luc Mélenchon regularly mobilizes the French Revolution, Victor Hugo and Jean Jaurès in his speeches.
If the “national novel” is also popular among politicians, it is first and foremost because it is very useful for describing a world view. “A program is a political proposal, a response to the problems of time, advances Alexis Corbière, spokesperson for Jean-Luc Mélenchon and former professor of history and geography. A presidential campaign (…) goes through ideas, but also (…) by moments of great debate and explanation around the future in which we are inscribed, therefore necessarily based on history. “
“Making choices about what we want to promote and pass on our history is a way of projecting ourselves into the future.”
Alexis Corbière, spokesperson for Jean-Luc Mélenchonto franceinfo
Same observation in the opposite camp, where Matthieu Louves, one of the spokespersons of the Friends of Eric Zemmour association, ensures: “Of course there will be [dans la campagne] concrete measures on purchasing power or ecology. But Eric Zemmour wants above all to bring a vision of the future, of society and of the world, he does not want to be a candidate manager. ”
In this case, using the “national novel” works as a “comforting”, analysis Sébastien Ledoux, researcher in contemporary history at the University of Paris I and specialist in memory issues: “It’s a speech comfort for the voters, who will be sensitive to this imaginary of a positive French history. And it makes it possible to create a historical wall around oneself which designates the ‘us’ and the ‘them’ which threatens us ” and against which to act. This speech also allows Eric Zemmour “to differentiate themselves from Marine Le Pen’s speech, by making the latter vulgar”, since the candidate of the National Assembly for the presidential election hardly employs – except the figure of Joan of Arc – references to history, believes media sociologist Isabelle Veyrat-Masson.
Conversely, the “national novel” of the left by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, which wants to be more progressive and more inclusive than that of the right or the extreme right, makes it possible to offer “an alternative” to that of Eric Zemmour, “by insisting on the phenomenon of interbreeding” as a historical process which made it possible to create current French culture – what Jean-Luc Mélenchon calls, by borrowing the concept from the Martinican poet Edouard Glissant, “creolization”. He revolves around “historical references which put forward popular figures, where the people are on the move, such as the French Revolution or the Commune. This history legitimizes the personal role that Jean-Luc Mélenchon wishes to have, that of spokesperson for the people”, says Sébastien Ledoux.
In addition to exhibiting a vision of the world, the figures invoked by political leaders allow them to benefit from the popularity of these historical figures, underlines Nicolas Offenstadt. Including when their positions are not, however, a priori, compatible. Nicolas Sarkozy thus summons Guy Môquet without evoking his communism, Robert Ménard pays homage to Jean Jaurès by forgetting his socialism and the whole of the political class of the center to the extreme right claims de Gaulle. “THE‘extreme right values itself by being part of the legacy of figures much more consensual than it, to then radicalize the legacy “, also underlines the historian.
Besides Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Eric Zemmour, Emmanuel Macron also uses the “national novel”, to “reconcile memories”, according to the ambition he himself has drawn. An obligation to “play collectively” linked to his presidential function, which obliges him to “embody national continuity”, emphasizes Nicolas Offenstadt. But who also responds to a political strategy: that of neither right nor left, but against the extreme right, recognize an advisor to the president. Emmanuel Macron has thus “encamped a history of France of individual illustrious figures, from Joan of Arc to Bonaparte, in a very clear strategy of occupying the land at law, emphasizes Sébastien Ledoux. And at the same time, he did a work on the memories, in particular that on the war in Algeria “, with the recognition of the responsibility of the State in the death of Maurice Audin or in the assassination of Ali Boumendjel. Lately he has also warned against those who “manipulate our history”, in a pike directed against Eric Zemmour, reports The Parisian.
Does this use of history in political discourse work with voters? Difficult to say, according to experts interviewed by franceinfo. Historian Nicolas Offenstadt nevertheless notes that by linking current issues to those of the past, “as if there was an exclusive Resistance, from that of the Second World War to the resistance against Islam”, is “extremely efficient” for the present since that to him “gives meaning”. Eric Zemmour “plays on the anguish of cultural insecurity, adds Sébastien Ledoux. He tells voters: ‘Your very existence is at stake.’ So clearly, we are not dealing with a problem of wage increases. “
The “national novel” in politics is in any case not without consequences, worry historians. “While there is considerable visibility from a number of people who are telling historical untruths, it becomes difficult for historians to counter romantic visions of history and succeed in making their voices heard, for a simple reason for hearing “, laments Sébastien Ledoux. Especially when certain candidates, like Eric Zemmour in the Figaro in 2013, assume that they want to make history “a political weapon”.