"The principles of the National Council of Resistance were the opposite of the current dominant ideology"

Maxime Tandonnet is an essayist and historian.

He is notably the author of

Georges Bidault, of the Resistance to French Algeria

The President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, announced the creation of a “National Council for Refoundation” bringing together “

.

This initiative referred explicitly to the National Council of Resistance (CNR), created in the spring of 1943 to bring together political parties and resistance movements and prepare for the liberation of France.

“

,” added the President of the Republic.

Chaired by Jean Moulin, prefect appointed by General de Gaulle to unify the networks of the clandestine struggle, the Council of the Resistance (CR), met for the first time in Paris on May 27, 1943 and launched an appeal whose author was Georges Bidault, 42, a history professor and former columnist for the Christian-Democratic newspaper

.

This motion condemned the "Vichy dictatorship" and supported the creation of a provisional government (in Algiers), "

”.

Following the arrest of Jean Moulin by the Gestapo in Caluire and his death under torture, a month later, the CR elected Georges Bidault, his faithful companion, to succeed him as president of this representative organization of the internal resistance, which took the name of CNR a few months later.

Nothing is more contrary to the spirit of the CNR than to make a recovery of it or to claim to imitate it.

Maxime Tandonnet

Admittedly, President Macron is not, far from it, the first French politician to refer to the CNR.

“

of it, ” declared François Mitterrand in a speech on March 14, 1994. On the Glières plateau, Nicolas Sarkozy returned to this same story several times.

On May 28, 2013, President Hollande, at the Buffon high school, claimed it in turn.

Honoring an institution that for more than a year embodied France in the fight against Nazi barbarism is the sacred duty of a President of the Republic.

However, nothing is more contrary to the spirit of the CNR than to make a recovery of it or to claim to imitate it.

First, the CNR was originally made up of sixteen men assembled for the Liberation of France.

Hunted by the Gestapo, they permanently risked torture, deportation and death.

Unlike resistance fighters from outside (in London or Algiers), members of the CNR were relentlessly pursued by Gestapo torturers.

Some, like Jean Moulin, have paid a high price for their commitment.

Georges Bidault himself miraculously escaped the many mousetraps that were set for him.

Courage was thus the first characteristic of the members of the CNR.

Any claim to imitate them while disregarding their sacrifice and their heroism, which have no possible equivalent today in France, is thus misinterpretation.

Entirely mobilized for the Liberation of France, the CNR was at the antipodes of electoral calculations.

Maxime Tandonnet

Second, their approach was disinterested on a personal level – since they risked their lives at all times – motivated by patriotism alone, unlike the current mediocre political grub.

Entirely mobilized for the Liberation of France, the CNR was at the antipodes of electoral calculations.

Moreover, with the exception of the forces that joined the collaboration, its composition covered almost the entire pre-war political spectrum, from the Communists (Vallon for the National Front, Mercier), to the right conservative (Jacques Debû Bridel) via the SFIO, the radicals, the Christian Democrats (Georges Bidault), the classic right (Democratic Alliance) and the major Resistance movements.

Certainly,

its economic and social sensitivity leaned to the left, but the composition of the CNR was ecumenical.

In this respect, the spirit of the CNR was a thousand leagues from the current spectacle politics, with its gurus, its duels, its provocations and its ineffectual narcissistic blows.

Thirdly, the CNR's political project was expressed in a charter of March 14, 1944, whose drafting was coordinated by Georges Bidault, the ideological foundation of the policies of the Liberation and reconstruction: massive nationalizations, universal family policy (family allowances), status of the civil service, creation of social security, restoration of parliamentary democracy (in opposition to the "Pétainist dictatorship") and freedoms.

However, as Arnaud Teyssier reminds us in

of June 4, the principles of the CNR were precisely the opposite of the current dominant ideology and the policies that emanate from it, in particular the weakening of public services, particularly schools and hospitals, the dismantling of state structures ( abolition of the prefectural and diplomatic corps) and the decline of national solidarity, to the benefit of a "start-up nation", which is expressed in particular in the rise in poverty.

Honor the CNR, yes, a thousand times yes.

Get it back, for whatever purpose, no, a thousand times no!

Georges Bidault, Resistance to French Algeria, ed.

Perrin, 2022, €23.50.

Perrin