Imagine that you entered the head of Emmanuel Macron. This is the proposal of the writer Marc Dugain in Tsunami.
No, he does not name the current President of the Republic as such. The narrator is a fictional president. After a foray into the world of start-upwhere he made a fortune with his best friend by launching a company that promises eternal youth, the man gets elected to the presidency, to the great astonishment of his wife Vanessa, who does not have much esteem for him.
This president has grand ideas. He is pushing a bill where young people will be funded for their use of screens. An idea that is not to displease the GAFAM who supported his campaign.
But his bill does not pass neither in the political class nor in the French population, which rises.
And this is where Dugain’s novel becomes completely unsettling. Written a little over a year ago, it describes almost word for word the current situation in France, in the wake of the pension law. Anger, demonstrations in the streets, police violence… political fiction at its best that will delight fans of French politics. In several respects, the personality of the president imagined by Dugain borrows many traits from Emmanuel Macron, but not only. The wife, Vanessa, who wants to keep her job as a journalist, recalls Valérie Trierweiler, ex-spouse of François Hollande. Other aspects of the president’s private life, which we will not reveal so as not to reveal punchesrecall François Mitterrand.
The president’s entourage rings true: political adviser, press attaché, council of ministers… one has the impression of truly being in the belly of the beast.
As the story progresses, this fictional president gets entangled in traps and problematic situations. Those who find politics cynical will be comforted by the ways he finds to get out of it.
Hard not to compare Tsunami with The Kremlin mage, that we loved. Dugain’s style is a little more bombastic than Da Empoli’s, but his novel remains a must-read for the summer.
Tsunami
Marc Dugain
Albin Michael
259 pages