The Empire, hidden obsession with François Mitterrand | EUROtoday

On Apr 9, 2025

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FRançois Mitterrand didn’t deny something, neither what he had been, nor what France had been. He acknowledged the errors made whereas contemptuous occasions. “Walking his way” was his expression; It was additionally a maxim of life. How, furthermore, his temperament appeared like that of France, this nation whose first expertise is to outlive, perpetuate, proceed. And who, due to this fact, eliminates from his physique every thing that would jeopardize this mission: to final no matter it prices.

In his newest e book, François Mitterrand, the final emperor*the historian Pascal Blanchard brings collectively the perfect historians to reread, by way of unpublished archives, the lifetime of the primary president on the left of the V^e Republic. With a prism, that of colonization, and decolonization. How does François Mitterrand, from a Catholic and conservative household, a civil servant of Vichy, a supporter of the French Empire in Africa and French Algeria, turned the champion of Third World and the hero of the left?

For Pascal Blanchard, and that won’t shock anybody, there is no such thing as a doubt: the Empire has by no means left Mitterrand’s creativeness. The colonies had been the situation of energy; Losing them would give France to the rank of secondary energy. Mitterrand was, on this regard, consultant of a era born at the start of the XX^e A century used to conceiving the geography of the nation as imperial. After all, when he noticed a map, France, it was additionally Africa, Asia, of the islands.

“The spirit of Empire”

Whatever we consider an ethical standpoint, the info had been there; And this colonial notion of the nation was shared by an awesome majority. In 1935-1936, Mussolini invaded Ethiopia. In Europe, the query divides. Should we condemn an act of warfare or assist European imperialism within the title of the triumph of its civilization? François Mitterrand doesn’t hesitate: will probably be Ethiopian Italy, not for the style of wickedness, however by that of coherence. How to justify the French Empire and its civilizing mission whereas denying comparable rights and ambition to Italy?

The logic could also be relentless, it’s true that, in a biography, it’s unnameable. The future president crosses the IV^e Republic within the left middle, occupies an unimaginable variety of ministries and made colonies its specialty. He distinguished himself as a reformer and a liberal, which, with out being exemplary, was already not so dangerous for the time. With a transparent technique: to withdraw as rapidly as doable from Asia – the defeat of Diên Biên Phu proves him proper – with the intention to focus assets and vitality on Africa.

He campaigned in favor of higher equal rights between Europeans and Africans, the one doable strategy to the sustainability of the Empire and simply achievement of the mental promise of an allegedly civilizing work. During the Algerian War, Minister of Justice, he was very severity by refusing to pardon a substantial variety of demise row. All this, he’ll discuss it much less and fewer and, by dint of discourse, rhetorical and avoidance convolutions, France will finally overlook that it existed. “Living is changing,” wrote Théophile Gautier.

François Mitterrand had, to make use of the formulation of the English historian Robert Gildea, “the spirit of Empire”. There isn’t any should be born within the XX^e century to have such a conviction. Since the Italian Wars of Louis XII within the XV^e A century, France conceived imperialism as an mental undertaking, and never solely as a navy aggression. As such, we are going to reappear the great works of Didier Le Fur on the Renaissance. Through wars, she doesn’t submit, she releases. In the title of the immanent justice of the monarchy first, of the human rights then, of its civilizing mission lastly.

De Gaulle was one step forward

The phrases of the equation change, the formulation stays. This is what distinguished us from one other college of thought, that of Machiavelli, below which politics was solely a technique motivated by the seek for energy, which was sufficient for itself. This cynicism in precept was not for us. France justifies energy and its public energy by its preferrred of justice and fairness. This rhetoric has, after all, its share of hypocrisy, however, by dint of being transmitted and repeated, it has turn into a temperament as a lot as a manner of being and doing. From there, our repute as a pretentious nation.

François Mitterrand, colonialist and imperialist? Probably. A time, not less than. But it’s also French, even when it’s not nice to listen to and that it doesn’t justify something. This can also be the explanation why de Gaulle didn’t conquer. The common didn’t solely have genius and a standing, he additionally had one step forward of a era. François Mitterrand, like others, was hypnotized by geography, when De Gaulle understood that it was essential to return to historical past.

To uncover

The kangaroo of the day

Answer

France doesn’t draw its energy from its borders, they finally diverse so much, however from its function on the dimensions of the world. His repute couldn’t undergo any longer from a monstrous warfare in Algeria. His picture, that’s to say every thing, would have left tarnished. The genius was that. Mitterrand will even have twenty years later. And, if France has forgotten its most disagreeable share so rapidly, it’s also in all probability as a result of it needed to overlook itself.

* Pascal Blanchard and Nicolas Bancel, “François Mitterrand, the last emperor, from colonization to Françafrique”, Paris, Philippe Rey, 2005.

https://www.lepoint.fr/debats/l-empire-obsession-cachee-de-francois-mitterrand-08-04-2025-2586871_2.php