Word: french
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Sarkozy's initiatives don't receive a 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...
...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...
...Worse still, this isn't the first time Sarkozy has been accused of trying to claim a leftist hero as a representative of his own values. Two years ago, for example, he started an annual ritual that involves schoolchildren reading a patriotic letter written by French communist resistance fighter Guy Môquet before he was executed by the Nazis in 1941. During his 2007 presidential campaign, he also repeatedly quoted the seminal French socialist leader (and Panthéon resident) Jean Jaurès in an attempt to infer that the legendary leftist would have backed the positions...
...philosophical category, Camus never really said what camp he belonged to, meaning his legacy is open to lots of interpretation," Cusset says. "Camus was indeed one of the most famous figures and beloved writers in the postwar period, but Sarkozy's embrace of Camus seems to confirm the French motto that you need to be more consensual than brilliant to get into the Panthéon." (Read "Camus: Normal Virtues in Abnormal Times...