The director of the French Academy: "Vargas Llosa has helped French culture more than many French writers"

There are a few hours left for the great event of the cultural and social winter in Paris: Mario Vargas Llosa's entry into the French Academy.

Calm reigns at the headquarters of the institution founded by Richelieu in 1635.

Paris is half paralyzed by the strike against the pension reform.

The metro does not work, there are closed shops.

At 93, and

(she, who does not believe in inclusive language, insists on using the masculine for the position) of the Academy since the turn of the century, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse neither goes on strike nor considers retiring.

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"When you do what interests you, I don't see why you worry," he said on Tuesday in a conversation with EL PAÍS in his official apartment at the Academy.

"Look, sir, this is not an issue that concerns me."

Carrère d'Encausse has one of the appointments on Thursday that will undoubtedly mark his tenure as

.

The reception ceremony of the Spanish-Peruvian Vargas Llosa, who will occupy the 18th seat, is an unusual moment for the

an unusual audacity in an institution that is often accused of stagnation and an allergy to modernization.

For the first time, an author who has not written any of his works in the French language will become

That is, in one of the 40 members of the conclave in charge of "defending the French language" and preserving its "immortality".

The table of Hélène Carrère d'Encausse.Levy Yann (Yann Levy)

An inconsistency?

"Nowhere is it written that to enter the French Academy you have to write in French," replies Carrère d'Encausse when he is mentioned the doubts raised by the choice of the author of

and

"People don't know what they're talking about."

Faced with the criticisms that were published in the French press for the liberal political positions of the new academic, the head of the Academy responds: “He has led his life as he has considered it.

We are not the Soviet Union.

It is not mandatory to have a doctrine.

They were very curious criticisms, but not very pertinent ”.

Vargas Llosa, argues the

"is a universal spirit, a spirit that has no limits."

He had read his work before his election last year, but they did not know each other personally.

And he fascinated her.

“It's just like he imagined it: warm, open,” he describes.

“He is what we at the Academy call a man of good company.

That is the essential thing: to be courteous, civil”.

Carrère d'Encausse —a prestigious historian of Russia and the Soviet Union, a member of the European Parliament for the French right in the 1990s, mother of the writer Emmanuel Carrère— highlights the symbiosis of Vargas Llosa with France, the country where he lived in the 1960s, and with the French culture, decisive in his literary formation, to explain his enthronement as

(the name given to the members of the Academy).

“I don't know anyone who speaks as highly of Flaubert as he does,” she says.

And she clinches: “he has helped French culture more than many French writers”.

The 'perpetual secretary' Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, in her office.Levy Yann (Yann Levy)

The process towards

which will conclude on February 9 with the ceremony under the dome of the Institut de France, follows a strict ritual.

Last Thursday, the

Vargas Llosa read his speech in praise of the previous holder of the 18th seat, the philosopher Michel Serres (1930-2019).

The academic Daniel Rondeau, in turn, read the reply.

Vargas Llosa took possession of his chair.

He received a coin with the inscription of the academic motto: "To immortality."

He had to discuss the word attributed to him:

, sherry.

This Wednesday,

He will give you the required sword.

And the next day she will finally appear at the ceremony in the traditional green dress with ornamental embroidery.

Carrère d'Encausse is aware that, along with Vargas Llosa, another person will attract the spotlight on Thursday under the dome of the

Conti, on the banks of the Seine: Juan Carlos I, King Emeritus of Spain, resident of Abu Dhabi since he last summer In 2020, he left Spain to prevent scandals from damaging the Crown.

The author of

explained to El PAÍS two weeks ago that he had invited him for a "very simple" reason: "To the extent that kings can have friends, I am a friend of his."

"He's the guest of Mario Vargas Llosa, and he's doing very well," approves Carrère d'Encausse.

“He will be here, like all the guests.

He has been king of Spain.

We are not going to treat him as if he is the janitor, he will be treated according to his rank.

We owe this to Spain.

He is the father of the current king ”.

The figure of the emeritus king brings to the memory of

an episode from the 1990s: the failed entry into the Academy of another Spaniard, the deportee in Buchenwald, a communist militant in hiding, minister with Felipe González and writer Jorge Semprún (1923 -2011).

Semprún "always explained how extraordinary the king's role had been in Spain's access to the rule of law," he recalls.

And here the historian speaks: "It is the image we have of him, what history will remember: this extraordinary transformation of Spain, peaceful, and that has made Spain an immense democratic country in Europe that the whole world admires."

And the scandals of the Crown?

"This is what is called the secondary aspects of history."

King Juan Carlos and Mario Vargas Llosa, in 2010. Gorka Lejarcegi

On Semprún, Carrère d'Encausse explains the misunderstanding why he was left out of the Academy, and its meaning now: “There was a misunderstanding that made Jorge Semprún not want to present himself.

He believed that he was blamed for his communist past, or something like that.

I was very close to him, and he told me: 'Despite our friendship, I prefer not to introduce myself.'

It's a shame.

He has been missed at the Academy.

In a certain way it was Spain that was arriving.

In a certain way, Vargas Llosa comes to correct this absence, which we have felt”.

And he's a Nobel, too.

Since François Mauriac died in 1970 there had been none under the leadership.

"It's not just a question of being a Nobel Prize winner, but of being this Nobel Prize winner," says Carrère d'Encausse.

"The Nobel prize can cover any commodity."

And after Vargas Llosa, who?

“

this is not for me to say: I am neutral”, he affirms.

But a few months ago he declared that he would like to see the explosive novelist Michel Houellebecq become

.

"Yes, I keep it," he confirms.

“But for now he's on his stuff.

He takes care of his books.

The day he wants to come will be welcome.

I find him to be an absolutely great writer.

It's my personal opinion."

Would he be of good company?

"I don't know, I don't know him.

I've seen it twice.

I hope so.

For now he is not a candidate ”.

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