The far -right candidate speaks a lot of the past.And it is not a thin asset at a time when the various political currents speak little about it and when Macron, with his "at the same time", tries to make disappear the stories and the memories of the right and the left, and, in fact, to put an end to the latter, with the unconscious help of a left in full debacle.
Zemmour has seen that today's political campaigns are lacking in stories, and the stories is first of all history.But, if it is true that political leaders generally take what suits them in the transcription of the past, Zemmour, he does not hesitate to disguise it.And his choice fell on the Vichy regime, we will see why.But, it is first to explain the manipulation of the story operated by the far -right candidate.
In a recent book, the historian Laurent Joly accurately analyzes.It is a work of "public utility", which demonstrates how Éric Zemmour disguises history by operating "oversights" that transform the past as he pleases [1].All this to build his thesis of Pétain, defender of the French Jews.This takes up the old far right theory that the "Verdun winner" was, by his presence at the head of the French state and his politics, a shield againstNOTazism.This fanciful theory was the axis of the defense of the Marshal during his trial in 1945.However, she does not stand up and was definitively destroyed by the American historian Robert Paxton in his work on Vichy, published for the first time in 1972 [2].That this role was devolved to a historian who is not French, but American, is no coincidence.We know how difficult French memory integration of what was difficult, as is still complicated the full recognition of the memory of the Algerian War.
Paxton showed well how Vichy, far from being a shield, actively collaborated.We know the formula of Pierre Laval, wishing "the victory of Germany".Regarding the Jews, there was even an anti-Semitic policy going in front of the German desires.Marrus and Paxton's work on Vichy and the Jews shows it abundantly [3].In the summer of 1940, before theNOTazi occupants took anti-Jewish measures, the Vichy regime implemented an anti-Semitic problematic.Two signals were provided in the summer of 1940, the first being, from July 22, a law allowing the revision of naturalizations granted since 1927: essentially xenophobic law, but, when you examine its results, it appears highly anti-Jewish: 40% of naturalizations abolished are for Jews, who however represented only 5 % of cases that can be examined [4].A month later, on August 27, the merchant law of 1939 was abolished, which punished the defamations in the press "towards a group of people who belong by their origin to a breed or a determined religion" [5].
In these two decisions, we can perceive the premises of the status of Jews of October 3, 1940, fundamental text allowing the beginning of the exclusion of social life Jews.We know today that no request from the occupation authorities obliged to adopt this document.A writing by Pétain, found by Serge Klarsfeld and published in October 2010, indicates that the Marshal then pronounced himself to worsen the status [6].In addition, a few days later, the abolition of the Crémieux decree of 1870, withdrew to the Jews of Algeria French nationality, confirming, if necessary, the inanity of the theory of "shield".
Subsequently, the government of Vichy was to react after the first German roundups which concerned the French Jews, trying to offer to theNOTazis the infamous bargain that Zemmour presents as carried out.But the German authorities signaled to Laval that they intended to deport the Jews, whatever their origins.Vichy nevertheless lent the competition of his police in the rounds of summer 1942, including that of the HIV Vel.The manager of the Gestapo Theodor Dannecker wrote in Berlin on July 6, 1942:
"President Laval proposed, on the occasion of the deportation of Jewish families from the unoccupied area, also to deport children under the age of sixteen.»[7]
A very strange shield in truth!Moreover, in the conclusion of their work, the two historians, Marrus and Paxton, one Canadian, the other American, derives from their research the following reflection:
"We judge that the final report of the Shoah in France was seriously weighed down by actions of the Vichy regime and a certain number of French citizens hostile to the Jews.»[8]
However, if it is difficult to appreciate exactly what was known to the "final solution" executed by theNOTazis, information allowed, in 1942, to glimpse what was happening.In a letter to Laval, based on this information, the Central Consistory explained at the end of August 1942:
"It is not in order to use deportees as labor that the government claims them, but with the well-stopped intention to exterminate them ruthlessly and methodically.»[9]
Zemmour sur Vichy's rantings have an essential political role, as Laurent Joly rightly points out:
"Revising the history of dark years is an essential element of the cultural revolution which he intends to impose in the spirits in order to make his program accept.This is all the singularity of his profile as a doctrinaire engaged in politics.[10]
And its program is the union of the lines including the extreme right, hated since 1944.
But, beyond the pronounced taste of Eric Zemmour for provocation, which allowed him to sell many copies of his books, it is advisable to think about the political objective sought, which is based on two postulates.
The refusal of "repentance"
The first postulate, posted for years by the far -right polemicist, does not belong to him.This is the refusal of "repentance".Nicolas Sarkozy, head of good drifts of the right, was the zealous promoter.He expressed it in 2005 on the debate on a law of February 23, 2005.On the occasion of a text on the repatriages of Algeria, the right had two amendments adopted the law with the following expression:
“School programs recognize in particular the positive role of the French overseas presence, especially inNOTorth Africa.[11]
A keen debate ensued, with strong reactions inNOTorth Africa, Martinique and Guadeloupe.Historians, the Association of History and Geography Professors (APHG) was indignant at this reactionary revision of history.If the controversial passage of the law was finally canceled,NOTicolas Sarkozy, then Minister of the Interior, but also potential candidate for the succession of Jacques Chirac forcefully defended this interpretation of colonization:
"This permanent repentance, which should be apologized for the history of France, sometimes touches the borders of ridicule".
He added :
"A certain number of parliamentarians wanted to say that there have been teachers who have literate, that there were doctors who treated and that historians had to do their job [12]".
Sarkozy theorized about a story, that of France, that it was not advisable to "revisit".However, this vision of a history fixed forever is contrary to the work of historians, whose interest is precisely to revisit the past according to the developments of the discipline, new discoveries, but also of the concerns of the present.HistorianNOTicolas Offenstadt, vice-president of the vigilance committee in the face of public uses of history (CVUH), a collective of historians created at the time of the controversy over the law of February 23, 2005, expresses it very clearly:
"Anti-repetition is a reading grid to rethink the history of France.NOT.Sarkozy wants to build a global vision of the history of France, erasing all its roughness, leaving in the shadows the complexity of events, the power relations, the social struggles that forged them.This makes it possible to bring national identity back to an essence, even though it is under permanent construction "[13].
Another theme concerns, for a part of the right, this "repentance" hated: the question of slavery.Regarding the memory of what was slavery, the Taubira law of 2001 was an advance, materialized by a day, that of May 10, which commemorates this terrible past. Élu en mai 2007, le nouveau présidentNOTicolas Sarkozy se doit d’être présent à la cérémonie officielle.But his supporters take the opportunity to relaunch his fight against the famous "repentance", like Yves Jego:
"The important presence of M.Sarkozy to commemorate the abolition of slavery, is completely symbolic of the spirit he wants to give to his presidency.For him, there is only one story of France that you have to know how to look without sinking into repentance: you can commemorate without flogging [14] ".
Rama Yade, who will be one of the figures of the new government thus reflects Sarkozy thought:
"If we hate France, we deny ourselves as French [15]".
Éric Zemmour of course takes up these themes, but he adds a third part, which the right hesitated to approach since the Second World War, the question of Vichy and Pétain.
The union of the lines and the extremes right
For this union, Éric Zemmour needs to manipulate the story of Vichy, but he also attacks another moment of the past, the Dreyfus affair.Its allusions on this subject have been less noticed than those concerning the Second World War, they are no less falsifications.On September 29, 2020, he declared on the Cnews set:
"Many were ready to say Dreyfus innocent, even if it is disturbed this story too.[16] "
He even tries to make believe that the passionate fights around the case are not linked to the fact that Dreyfus is Jewish, but that he is Alsatian: the question of anti -Semitism would therefore not arise!All this is a fabric of lies.Questioning Dreyfus's innocence has become a rarity.But it was a long time a marker of the right, a right whose thinkers were for a long time Maurras and Barrès, inspiring its various currents.
This is what Zemmour is trying: gather the lines on the Maurrassian bases, which were theirs before the Second World War.To do this, he considers that we must assume the whole story of the twentieth century where Marine Le Pen tries to "dedicate himself" by putting aside the episodes that embarrass, even by adopting the point of view of historians on these moments.Here are two opposite strategies there.Beyond the audiences partly different from the two candidates, it is a fundamental opposition.
This difference is also manifested in speeches, that of Zemmour being head -on hostile to migrants, especially when they are Muslims.
In the Zemmourian story, an essential place is devoted to those who, according to him, threatened the unity of the country.We saw him for the Jews, he also attacks, in the Maurrassian tradition, to the Protestants, Minoring Saint-Barthélemy and referring to Richelieu crushing the Hugenots.
But he identifies the enemy of today with a clarity which was that of Jean-Marie Le Pen (remember posters with the minaret, the veil ...), but which is not found in the current propaganda of the rallynational. Le 11 septembre 2021, dans l’émission « On est en direct », après une longue diatribe contre l’islam, à la question de Léa Salamé : « Si vous êtes élu président, un Français n’a pas le droit d’appeler son fils Mohamed ? », Zemmour répond sans hésitation «NOTon ».A few days later, he will explain that he should not name his child Kevin or Jordan [17].But, everyone understood what is the population targeted by this abject proposal.
Islam, not the jihadists, not the terrorists who claim it, but Islam as such is according to him a threat to French society.And all this refers to the supposed incompatibility of this religion with the traditions of Catholic France.Behind this "analysis" of Zemmour, points out the notion of "great replacement".Coming from the rantings of Renaud Camus, this "theory", which aims to make believe that migrants are taking the place of European populations, less demographically dynamic, has already killed, in Christchurch (New Zealand) in particular, where Muslimswere murdered.A sophistication of this position considers that the Jews organize this "great replacement".It should be noted that Bardella, of the national rally, resumed the term to his account so as not to be overwhelmed on his right.And that even Pécresse spoke about it, before retracting.
There is no doubt: those who are targeted by the extreme right have "names difficult to pronounce", as Aragon says that the resistance fighters of the red poster, Jews, Armenians, Spanish, Italians ... this refers toThe memory of the Second World War.
For Zemmour, it would be necessary to congratulate Vichy for having, to save the French Jews (which, as we have seen, is an illusion) sacrificed those who came from elsewhere.Beyond the assertive need to rehabilitate Pétain to allow the unity of the lines including the extreme right, its falsification of the story aims to prepare the hunt for migrants, to the Muslims that he calls for his wishes.
We can clearly see the link between today and the memory of the Shoah.However, this memory imposed itself only in the 1980s (see the work of Annette Wieviorka, Deportation and Genocide.Between memory and oblivion, Paris, Plon, 1992).In the 2000s, she found herself taken under the fire of the memorial competition.Building on the carpet by Dieudonné, this competition, (never sketched by Christiane Taubira, promoter of the memory of slavery in 2001), was destructive of solidarity between victims of racisms.
The natives of the Republic developed the theory of "decolonial reading of the Shoah", taken up by certain intellectuals.Theorization which only leads to putting the Jewish genocide into perspective, and therefore Nazism, and what is the intentions of its promoters.The best known spokesperson in indigenism, Houria Bouteldja, went far in her 2016 work, the Whites, the Jews and we.Towards a policy of revolutionary love.She congratulates Jean Genet because he was delighted with the French debacle in 1940 against the German army;She insists a little further:
"What I like about Genet is that he doesn't care about Hitler [18]".
This theme returns several times, thus indicating his obsessions, as in this sentence:
"For the South, the Shoah, is - if I dare say - less than" a detail "... This story is not mine in truth [19]".
It is the questioning of the universality of the lessons of the Shoah, that the progressives had put forward since the Second World War to act against all racisms.
Zemmour's candidacy reminds us, not only the inanity of this memorial competition, but also its dangers.To defend the memory of the genocide of the Jews, its exceptional character is to protect the most threatened minorities today.Those who practice competition from memories, essentially by poorly understood anti -Zionism, concealing anti -Semitism with difficulty, only facilitate the work of the extreme right.
Éric Zemmour will probably not be the next president, and it even seems that he will not be in the second round of the presidential election.But the seeds he has sown during the campaign will not be dispersed in the trash in history.The question of the union of the lines reconciling with their extreme risk of continuing, especially after the foreseeable failure of the candidacy of Valérie Pécresse. Une nouvelle droite dure, néo-pétainiste, pourrait alors devenir un danger plus perturbant encore pour les progressistes que le Front ou le RassemblementNOTational.NOTous n’en avons pas fini avec la mémoire de Vichy et ses conséquences politiques.
Robert Hirsch is a trade unionist, author of the left and the Jews, the water edge, January 2022.
