A madman in the White House
A madman in the White House? Yes, but it’s not what you think. President from 1913 to 1921 – during the First World War, therefore – Woodrow Wilson went down to posterity as the man who came to the aid of France in 1917, the promoter of reconciliation in 1918 and the Nobel Prize winner for peace 1919. In fact, the Princeton graduate laid down the principles of the League of Nations (SDN), supposed to guarantee perpetual tranquility to the world. A man of reason? Not sure.
In a hair-raising investigative book, the historian Patrick Weil evokes the personality borderline and contradictory of the Democratic president, who ended his mandate with an about-face: this “unbalanced person” torpedoed the United States’ membership in the League of Nations, the ancestor of the UN. In doing so, he also destroyed the “guarantees treaty” which should have been the first transatlantic alliance in history – he had committed to helping France in the event of German aggression, before renouncing. The Wilson case inspired a study by the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Long forgotten, this work was found in 2014 in the archives of Yale University by Patrick Weil and serves as the basis for this intellectual thriller. Reissued in pocket format (and augmented by a preface), the work was released in bookstores just before the 2024 American presidential election. Any resemblance between the hero of the book and a distant successor… Axel Gyldén
A madman in the White House, by Patrick Weil. Odile Jacob (Pockets), 512 p., €12.50.
The Emperor and the Red Billionaires
Has Xi Jinping broken the engine of Chinese growth? After decades of frenetic development, the world’s second-largest economy is experiencing a worrying slowdown. Not content with having put his country under lockdown during the Covid epidemic, the all-powerful Chinese president attacked those who, in barely two generations, sometimes extricating themselves from poverty, have built empires : Jack Ma (Alibaba), Pony Ma (Tencent), Ren Zhengfei (Huawei), Zhang Yiming, who founded TikTok, or even the queen of botox Zhao Yang. In a fascinating and fully updated essay, Christine Ockrent tells us about the rise of these relentless entrepreneurs in the euphoria of the 1990s and 2000s, then their fall from grace. Stories full of anecdotes that illustrate the transformations of China.
In the name of a new, more egalitarian ideology – 1% of the richest Chinese controlled more than a third of the national wealth -, but above all because in his eyes they challenged his power, the “red emperor” placed under his control cuts off the giants of technology, industry, commerce and real estate. Without fear of weakening their empires. “Since then, their leaders have bowed down, resigned or disappeared for a while,” recalls the author. Xi Jinping, who dreams of overtaking the United States, has chosen to subdue the red billionaires, paralyzing China. A risky decision, as Donald Trump, soon to return, has joined forces with Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. Cyrille Pluyette
The Emperor and the red billionaires, by Christine Ockrent. Humensis/Alpha (Essays), 248 p., €8.
New ideas for Europe
From his trip to the 27 member states, Enrico Letta brought back a wealth of “new ideas for Europe”, which he presents in an invigorating book, which is more of a logbook than a political essay. For the former President of the Italian Council, Europe is imperfect, but nonetheless “irreplaceable”. It must still find its place in the geopolitical chaos that is coming – and avoid being subjugated by Russia, China or Trump’s America. Or all three at once.
Last April, during the presentation in Brussels of his report on the future of the internal market, the president of the Jacques-Delors Institute already warned of the risks of the Old Continent falling away. Here he extends his reflection with a laudable goal: to reinvent the European project, battered by successive crises (Covid, immigration, Ukraine). Defense, innovation, financing the energy and digital transitions… so many chapters full of concrete proposals. An example? “In the United States, a telecoms operator has on average 107 million customers, he explains. In Europe, it’s 5 million. To change scale, let’s go from 27 markets to just one and limit the number of ‘operators to 18 instead of 80!’ Will the next European Commission be up to the task of meeting all these challenges? Enrico Letta believes so. Its leader, Ursula von der Leyen, recently reappointed, is “much stronger than we think”, he assures. She has five years to prove him right. Charles Haquet
New ideas for Europe, by Enrico Letta. Odile Jacob, 231 p., €22.90.
Bouake. The last cold case of Françafrique
Revisiting the history of the Ivorian crisis twenty years later is disconcerting: all the ingredients of the French rout in Africa were already there. The ambiguities of military interventionism; resentment towards the former colonial power; the presence, in ambush, of mercenaries from the former USSR, big brothers of Wagner’s thugs. On November 6, 2004, two Belarusian pilots accompanied Ivorian soldiers aboard two Sukhoi-25 planes. The aircraft fired on the French military camp in Bouaké, killing nine French soldiers. In Bouake. The last cold case of Françafrique, journalist Thomas Hofnung reveals the underside of the fiasco following this raid. That day, the Ivorian army led a reconquest operation against the rebels who held the northern half of the country. The offensive is secretly endorsed by France, although it is supposed to play a role of interposition between the loyalists and the insurgents.
Against all expectations, the Descartes school, which houses the French soldiers, is targeted. The response of the French army – the destruction of the entire Ivorian fleet – unleashes the “Young Patriots” loyal to Laurent Gbagbo, who attack the French community. Supported by exclusive testimonies, this book sheds light on the mechanics of lying at the highest level of the French State and shows why, to this day, the lessons of this tragedy have not been learned. A necessary story about this episode that heralded the French shipwreck in Africa. Charlotte Lalanne
Bouake. The last cold case of Françafrique, by Thomas Hofnung. Fayard, 250 p., €20.90.
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