Hollande's Speech - Another View

Even though I posted an analysis (by a French-Israeli writer) of François Hollande's July 22 speech on the Vel d'Hiv Raid several days ago, I cannot resist posting a second one, by Catholic writer Guillaume de Thieulloy, that appears at Les 4 Vérités. Please skip over it if you find the topic tedious at this point. In this critique, the author emphasizes that the French president went out of his way not only to reproach France, but to exonerate Nazi Germany:

It was predictable: for once, during the commemoration of the Vel d'Hiv raid, François Hollande preferred to distance himself from François Mitterand and to follow Jacques Chirac. Unfortunately, his decision proceeded from a notion that is particularly harmful to France: repentance. According to the president, "this crime was committed in France by France." No one can deny it was committed in France. But we had to wait until 1995 to realize that it was committed by France.

Note: 1995 was the year Jacques Chirac apologized for the Vel d'Hiv raid.

General de Gaulle, who was in a good position to have precise ideas on the history of the period, and who never passed for someone indulgent towards Vichy, believed the opposite. We must decide: either Vichy was France, in which case the Resistance was a terrorist rebellion; or Vichy was not France, in which case how could France be guilty of the Vel d'Hiv raid?

Furthermore, François Hollande, not one to be embarrassed by the principle of non-contradiction, declared in the next breath that it was also "a crime against France."

Most of all, studying the meaning of this speech leaves one flabbergasted: nowhere does he speak of Nazism, nowhere does he speak of the Occupation. The only reference to the historical situation is for the purpose of exonerating Germany: "The truth is that not one German soldier, not one, was mobilized for the operation."

To speak of the deportation of Jews, to speak of Paris in July 1942, and to be ostensibly ignorant of the fact that Paris was occupied, is something even Jacques Chirac did not do! But it is true that, if François Hollande had broached the historical question, he would have been reminded, perhaps, that barely a year before the Vel d'Hiv raid, his Communist allies were still supporting the German-Soviet pact, and this had led them to desert and sabotage French arms.

Perhaps he would have had to point out that Prime Minister Laval, who had returned to power in April 1942 under pressure from the Germans, was one of his own kind - a Radical-Socialist parliamentarian. He might have even recalled that the lists of Jewish names drawn up by the French police, that he mentions in his speech, had been drawn up by the Popular Front before 1942, and even before 1939…

Note: The Popular Front was an alliance of left-wing movements including the French Communist Party, that won the 1936 legislative elections. Below, a photo of beaming Socialist strikers in Paris in 1936 looking ahead to the Utopia of Social Justice.

In short, he would have been forced to acknowledge that this history is not black and white. And that the Left is in no position to give moral lessons on the period, as it has done for decades, by using, of all things! the Communist vulgate on the subject.

Note: By "Communist vulgate" I assume he means the Communist doctrines of Karl Marx.

Perhaps it is of some use to remember that historians are not always in agreement on the degree of awareness of the public authorities, in France and abroad, regarding the extermination of the Jews in 1942. Now, it is one thing to send people to a labor camp and quite another to send them to an extermination camp. And there are sound reasons for believing that in July 1942, the French authorities did not know the final destination of the Jews arrested during the Vel d'Hiv raid…

Using history for partisan purposes has always deeply disturbed me. Especially in cases like this one where the subject - the dignity of the human being - is one on which the Left seems to have claimed the monopoly for itself.

But, with antisemitism, this partisan use of history is serving essentially political ends in early 21st century France: to ostracize some on the Right, suspected (...) of being sympathizers with National-Socialism simply because they are anti-Communist and do not care to howl with the wolves in denouncing, unconditionally, the French State. Let me make this clear: you can blame the French State for many things, but not if you pretend to forget that it was governing an occupied France…

For the most part, as far as I can tell, antisemitism in France today does not derive from Charles Maurras! The schools the president spoke of, where the holocaust cannot be taught, are not inspired by Lefebvre!

Note: Maurras (1868-1952) (photo, left), was an author and political thinker of unusual complexity. Often accused of being an antisemite, he also virulently opposed Hitler. His antisemitism was founded on his desire for France to be French, and not multi-ethnic. See Wikipedia.

I'm not sure which Lefebvre the author is referring to, since there are many in French history. Possibly Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X. If anyone can enlighten me on this matter, please do.

What the author means is that if François Hollande apologizing for antisemitism, or the absence of the holocaust from school curricula today, it has nothing to do with the monarchists, anti-Communists or traditionalists of the past. Quite the contrary…

No. Antisemitism in France today is primarily linked to the rise of Islam and the schools in question are ghetto schools where children of immigrants are more than 80% of the population.

And François Hollande owes his victory, in great measure, to the immigrants.

In these conditions, he can very well denounce the antisemitism of yesteryear as much as he likes, but I absolutely cannot see how he can fight against the antisemitism of today!

The photo below, from 2009, shows a Paris riot in which gangs of "youth" attack one person on the ground. Hollande has little to say about such unpleasant realities, since it is largely Socialist policies that have created them. Nor does he denounce the world-wide collusion between Islam and the Socialist/Feminist/Communist/Globalist/Immigrationist complex. As a Socialist, he must live in the past, the only other option being to face today's reality.

The author of this article, Guillaume de Thieulloy has made other comments worth posting. The following, from French Wikipedia, date from 2010:

"Immigration must stop, at least for a generation. That implies dissuasive sanctions against illegal immigration. That implies as well a stop to legal immigration: by rescinding the laws on family reunification and reserving welfare subsidies for the French. Nor should anyone pull out the old argument about the absence of a connection between immigration and crime. Everybody knows there is a connection, even if, in the absence of statistics, it cannot be stated in black and white. When you speak about crime, the French people do not understand you to be referring to the number of radar checks on the highway, but to the fight against immigration…"

"So long as we don't admit that there is nothing shocking in the French dictating their customs to newcomers, so long as we don't admit that it is normal for Christianity, whose influence is everywhere in our country, to be treated differently from Islam, we will not pull ourselves out of this impasse."

Note: I disagree that immigration should stop for a generation. That is only about 20 years, barely enough time to assimilate those willing to be assimilated. Then what? Start the massive immigration all over?

Update: July 30 - This post has been slightly edited from the original version. The changes were all of an editorial nature and do not involve any change in basic meaning.