Alexandre Chauveau, edited by Gauthier Delomez / Photo credits: JAIME ABECASIS COLLECTION / PHOTO12 VIA AFP
modified to
06:42, August 16, 2023
On the occasion of the centenary of the death of Maurice Barrès, the deputy Les Républicains Jean-Louis Thiériot returned in a column published in the “Figaro Magazine” on the place that the writer occupied in French intellectual life. His article sparked outraged reactions on the left.
Is the deputy of Seine-et-Marne Jean-Louis Thériot right to write a column on Maurice Barrès, on the occasion of the centenary of the death of this writer? No, answers the left. Even if in this article published in the Figaro Magazinethe elected Les Républicains recalls from the first lines the anti-Semitic positions taken by this nationalist writer during the Dreyfus affair, the left accuses him of rehabilitating him.
This is the case of Hadrien Clouet, deputy La France insoumise, for whom the anti-Dreyfusism of Barrès disqualifies him as an author and politician. “Any author who inspires French-style fascism is disqualified as a politician”, he argues first at the microphone of Europe 1. And to assert: “It is an object of history, but in no case a political model, we cannot set him up as an exemplary personality who should inspire us.”
Barres’ mea culpa
In this forum, Jean-Louis Thiériot returns to the place that the writer occupied in French intellectual life. With Europe 1, he evokes a paper with a historical vocation and invites us to “take Barrès in its entirety”. “Barrès made anti-Semitic, despicable and unforgivable remarks at the time of the Dreyfus affair, and this is a major stain on his work, which means that we read him less today”, he explains.
The elected official defends his choice to dedicate a platform to him: “He was the great writer, he had a national funeral, and especially in 1917, he wrote ‘The various political families of France’, which is a mea culpa in which he explains that all those who constitute France constitute it well, including the Jews.
Finally, Jean-Louis Thiériot recalls the influence of the work of Maurice Barrès on historical figures such as De Gaulle, Mauriac, or even Malraux who described him as the greatest writer of his youth.