On Eurozone coins, Germany is represented by a heraldic eagle, a medieval symbol inherited from the Holy Roman Empire.
Ireland is represented by its Gaelic harp.
Spain, by its kings.
France, by Marianne.
She will now be represented by Simone Veil, Joséphine Baker and Marie Curie.
“Three exceptional women,”
says Monnaie de Paris.
Sources of daily inspiration for everyone.”
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Numismatics is a fascinating science, and its study teaches us that this decision is an authentic anomaly in the usual choice of iconography.
The question here is not that of the merits of these personalities, but of the political will which drives such a decision.
Until now and since the establishment of the Republic, France has never featured, on its coins, any person who existed.
Why such a change in doctrine, when Marianne already embodied femininity?
Part of the answer is obvious: showing France a feminist and anti-racist face with the faces of women, two of whom were activists for these causes.
The number of people that it is possible to put forward on euros issued by the Banque de France is limited: why exclude other, more unifying symbols?
Why automatically eliminate any masculine personality?
No other European power would have dreamed of drawing its symbols from the members of relatively recent governments, especially to embody a centuries-old nation.
Whether we like it or not, the figures of Marie Curie and Joséphine Baker, as consensual and appreciated as they are, are not what the Paris currency calls “
daily sources of inspiration for all
”.
Concerning Simone Veil, no other European power would have thought of drawing its symbols from the members of relatively recent governments,
especially
to embody a centuries-old nation.
The broken record of memorialism
This systematic short-termism prevents us from seeing further than the events of the 20th century, and echoes what the historian François Hartog calls “presentism”: a relationship with history in which the duty to remember and a confinement in the present.
What results from this pales in comparison to the immemorial symbols used by our European neighbors on their coins.
This initiative adds to the feeling that progressive memorialism goes in circles and rehashes the same figures, Simone Veil and Joséphine Baker being regularly in the spotlight and even having been pantheonized in recent years.
Minting money (to a extent defined by the ECB) symbolically constitutes one of the last prerogatives of public power in the European Union.
The Banque de France has decided to apply this tool to develop a brand image of France as a progressive nation par excellence.
Simone Veil, Marie Curie and Joséphine Baker find themselves, despite themselves, transformed into the muse of a sort of vast
rebranding
of France.
The imperative to dust off this old country seems to have become more and more necessary in recent years, and everything happens as if our leaders had the priority of being applauded by the progressive Anglo-Saxon press.
Everything happens as if our leaders had the priority of being applauded by the progressive Anglo-Saxon press.
Another example has emerged in recent weeks with the constitutionalization of abortion, echoing the turmoil that has driven domestic politics in the United States.
France seems to be deploying “feminist diplomacy” (to use the terms claimed by the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs) with internal policy tools.
It dreams of itself as a new showcase for international progressivism.
A cumbersome heritage
These processes resemble vast “publicity stunts”, which are carried out at the expense of more unifying symbols, and of broader scope.
However, the potential vectors of unity are before our eyes, provided we admit, for example, that the cross of the Invalides (erased from the official poster of the Olympic Games) is not a controversial object and does not infringe to secularism.
Why not draw on existing monuments, celebrating the rebirth of Notre-Dame, or in our collective imagination, with mythological characters like Hercules, who was already on franc coins?
A national identity is the fruit of long centuries of maturation.
Summarizing it to a few decades of feminism and anti-racism is more than simplistic.
Not to mention that it is a shame to want to be progressive by minting coins… in the contactless era.