"How will a France without a past or a memory be able to meet the challenges facing it?"

Alexandre Thébault, co-founder of

La Pépinière Citoyenne

What is France called?

Once again, the Arc de Triomphe is at the forefront of the media scene: the French flag usually adorned with the monumental arch has been replaced by the European flag.

The emerging controversy unfortunately extends a year 2021 which ended with an accumulation of similar episodes.

Let's report the most convincing facts:

The mayor of Rouen intends to unbolt the equestrian statue of the emperor, Saint-Michel is ordered to leave his pedestal in Sables d'Olonne when France Insoumise, passing through Nantes, wishes to withdraw King Louis XVI from Place Foch, reactivating thus a monarcho-republican struggle that one thought belonged to the past.

The battle for history and national identity which is already flooding the public debate foreshadows what will be the hotspot of the presidential campaign.

Alexandre thébault

What to say about this former Minister of the Republic sharing, under the tinsel of virtue, the pain she feels when she meets the eyes of the late Colbert?

More recently still, L'Obs headlined its front page “

These weak but recurring signals should alert us since the promoters of cancel culture seem to be unleashed all over the place, largely revealing the French evil that is eating away at us: our identity poses a problem.

Obviously, the battle for history and national identity which is already flooding public debate presages what will be the hotspot of the presidential campaign.

Besides, isn't the very term identity suspect in the eyes of a certain elite who consider borders to be outmoded because they are hindering?

Why don't we adhere to the federalist and globalist fever advocated by those who see only benefits?

Why not bow to world history in which must dissolve the national narrative, become rancid because it is not inclusive?

The history of France is now shameful.

It is necessarily guilty and seems only to be read through the prism of permanent repentance.

It is now permissible to judge our ancestors, too bad if we append an anachronism and a hazardous teleology.

Let's rewrite the past, deconstruct the founding myths, break the chain of Time, end with our great national figures.

After all, why recognize yourself as "son and daughter of" when fathers and mothers do not deserve to be honored?

Let us be nomadic, uprooted, disinherited.

Only immanence will set us free.

Read also De Voogd: "Political correctness is akin to a form of cultural suicide"

But the promotion of this new French art of living, naive, immature and of rare ingratitude, carries terrible threats for our common future. We measure every day the deleterious consequences engendered by this path: the emergence of a society made up of individuals who are no longer one, juxtaposing themselves according to their categorial interests. The liquefaction of our benchmarks and our common identity undoubtedly leads to fear of the other to ultimately engender withdrawal and withdrawal - This is how our beautiful universalist and humanist dream turns into a community nightmare, into factions. corporatist where the exception becomes the rule, where minority demands supplant the desire to carry out a collective project, beneficial to the greatest number,concerned with the most vulnerable and respectful of the common good.

In short, since we reject the donor, the transplant no longer takes.

Distraught, all we have to do is attend the most tragic spectacle: the archipelago of France, so finely described by Jérôme Fourquet in his eponymous work.

However,

proclaimed the late Ernest Renan in his admirable speech at the Sorbonne in 1882.

This is precisely where the shoe pinches.

How can a France with amnesia, without a past or a memory, be able to meet the challenges facing it, foremost among which is the migratory crisis that we are experiencing?

How will we be able to welcome and integrate these foreigners who knock on the doors of the nation of France every day if we are no longer able to offer them the best of ourselves?

There is a universal truth: we only give what we have.

Our History, founded on adhesion and consent, is it not precisely the most precious of the presents that we can offer?

This thousand-year-old legacy, far from being the stifling straitjacket that is portrayed to us, is it not therefore the best of the ramparts to stem the cultural dispossession felt by so many French people?

At a time when our country is living a pivotal moment and determining for its future, let us meditate on the words of a Spanish naval officer of the 18th century:

French identity is not relative but can be characterized.

It is made up of invariable pillars which have withstood the great ruptures in our history.

Alexandre thébault

But to love France, you still have to know her. Contrary to what preachers of the new France and of world history advocate, our country, which they present to us in the guise of an endless equation and of nameless complexity, has a body and a soul. The reality is tenacious and the facts are tangible: the French identity is not relative but characterizable. It is made up of invariable pillars which have withstood the great ruptures in our history. From Geneviève to the allegorical figure of Marianne, including of course the virgin of Orleans, France has endowed itself with a strong and centralized State enjoying a prominent place in the concert of the nations of Europe that it has also largely built.France is that nation which succeeded in secularizing its institutions while assuming its eminently Christian roots so that all French people, whether they believe in God or that they do not believe in him, are united around the tricolor. Basing its legitimacy on law and justice, France is finally this assimilating country which has offered itself to the world as much as it has imposed on it, of course. But moreover, this aspiration is the basis of its vocation to the Universal, whose motto is constantly recalled on the frontispiece of our town halls.is offered to the world as much as it is imposed on it, of course. But moreover, this aspiration is the basis of its vocation to the Universal, whose motto is constantly recalled on the frontispiece of our town halls.is offered to the world as much as it is imposed on it, of course. But moreover, this aspiration is the basis of its vocation to the Universal, whose motto is constantly recalled on the frontispiece of our town halls.

It is precisely this face that we will unveil on January 8 at the Collège des Bernardins during a conference where many academics, historians, sociologists and personalities will answer this crucial question: What is France the name of?

Because on the answer offered depends the future of our homeland.

List of speakers at the January 8 Symposium:

Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Former Minister

Franck Ferrand, essayist and audiovisual host

Claire Koç, essayist and journalist

Laurent Avezou, Historian

Rémi Brague, Philosopher

Armel Pécheul, lawyer and professor of law

Patrice Gueniffey, Historian

Raphaël Doan, Normalien and Enarque

Guillaume Cuchet, Historian

Hervé Gaymard, Former Minister

Valérie Toureille, Historian

Antoine Arjakovsky, Historian

Jean-Baptiste Arnaud, priest and theologian

Jean-Noël Dumont, philosopher