The French love dates, and consider their epic as a series of days of glory or anger, of triumphs or disasters. Black and white stones mark the long calendar, like notes on a staff, and from this score emerges a national anthem as poignant as it is proud, where the adagio equals the allegro. Numerologists will therefore make their favorites of the year 2015, which they will place on the shelf next to the year of Waterloo or the vintage of Agincourt, unless they compare it to the death of Louis XIV or the crusade against the Albigensians…
As for historians, they will include January 11 of this year in the series of great tricolor gatherings, inaugurated by the Feast of the Federation, July 14, 1790: that day, for the French, it was already a “to make a people”.
United around the same sadness and the same anger
However, it was another story of France that was written on Sunday, far from the headlines. A History where we speak of movement more than of event, a History which is less an affair of the crowd than of the soul. January 11, 2015 is an unprecedented incarnation of the country, a surprising collective sculpture. Without any instructions, the same atmospheres flourished across the territory, serene and empathetic, suddenly illuminated by bursts of applause and calm Marseillaise. When millions of citizens, spontaneous and selfless, stand up in the same way, it is called a national identity.
What French people have we all been capable of being, during a walk? What France have we formed, half sun and half frost? How can we prevent it from evaporating with grief? How can we prevent it from disappearing under the dust of everyday life, briefly swept away by the breath of violence and which is already falling?
This nation united around the same sadness and anger, and yet devoid of despair and hatred, seems both strange and familiar. Familiar, because it is the eternal France, that of upheavals and solidarity, that which transcends its disagreements to say no to the enemies of freedom. Strange, because we hadn’t seen this France for a long time.
The country of gloom and selfishness, the country of rejection of others and corporatism, the country of disdain and decline: this is what it had become, through clichés or fatalistic attempts, but also due to collective abandonment. January 11, 2015 shows that another France is available, that it is there, right next to us, relegated to the sidelines by our defeatism and our voluntary depression. No need for a French resurrection, because France is alive: we have adorned it with a gag, not with a shroud!
A global rallying cry
Since January 7, foreigners have sent us the most touching proofs of our vitality and our importance. Let France be struck, and the free world will tremble. In addition to the compassion that arises each time a democracy is attacked, there is additional emotion when it comes to our country. Because every citizen of every region on this earth feels indebted, one to Voltaire, the other to Hugo, the third to Zola or Aragon. Because human rights have a cradle, and it is here. “Je suis Charlie”, this global rallying cry, is that of Gavroche and Marianne, of Jean Valjean and La Fayette, it is the cry of Captain Dreyfus and General de Gaulle.
When History reminds it that it is universal, France is often frightened and prefers to flee its rediscovered greatness to slip into discreet resignation. In 2003, after showing the world the impasse of the war in Iraq, it failed to orchestrate another geopolitics. This time, it cannot fail in its mission and must hold its place, at the forefront of the fight against Islamism. Still dazzled by the light of mourning and pride, we have known since Sunday that it is not a problem of means, but of collective will.