Word: camus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...reaction from the progressive members of his government, he uses that as proof that his policies are not as right wing as his political opponents claim. "Sarkozy cites Jean Jaurès here to better apply National Front [a far-right French party] ideas there, and his choice of Camus for the Panthéon is also clearly rooted in a purely political logic rather than an intellectual one," says François Cusset, a historian and philosophy expert who teaches American studies at the University of Paris-Nanterre...
Given the Panthéon's function as the final repose for France's greatest heroes, it's perhaps not surprising that efforts are now afoot to relocate the ashes of writer and philosopher Albert Camus to a site beneath the 18th century Paris building's cupola. But rather than earning plaudits from intellectuals and ordinary French people alike, the move to honor the man some call France's most influential postwar thinker is sparking controversy. Some pundits and historians say that Camus' legacy is being exploited for political gain, while others argue that glorification of the philosopher...
...President Nicolas Sarkozy said last week that he wanted to add Camus to the giants of French history who are buried at the Panthéon - figures like Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Emile Zola and Louis Pasteur - as a way of revering an author whose defense of the downtrodden and veneration of the individual over the oppressive forces of society earned him fame and respect around the globe. But the announcement outraged Camus' son, Jean, who saw a motivation of a different sort - an attempt by Sarkozy to "requisition" the legacy of a ferociously independent thinker...
...only one against making the writer of The Stranger and The Rebel a quasi saint of the French state. Several leading French intellectuals and Camus experts have denounced what they claim is Sarkozy's effort to associate himself with a politically engaged writer who would doubtless oppose his leadership were he alive today. "I don't think Albert Camus has any need of Sarkozy, I think Sarkozy has greater need of some intellectual sparkle," Camus biographer Olivier Todd told France Inter radio on Saturday. "This is a gimmick - it's part of his technique of hijacking the intellectual milieu...
...except invoke that memory so that people everywhere who say the 21st century is a century of new beginnings, filled with promise and infinite hope, and at times profound gratitude to all those who believe in our task, which is to improve the human condition. A great man, Camus, wrote at the end of his marvelous novel, The Plague: "After all," he said, "after the tragedy, never the rest...there is more in the human being to celebrate than to denigrate." Even that can be found as truth - painful as it is - in Buchenwald. Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing...