Word: panth
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...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...
...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 he was championing. (Read "A French Debate over Guy Môquet...
...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...
...region, where he was buried following his death in a car crash in 1960, his twin sister Catherine, who has managed her father's estate, is divided on the issue. Catherine appears to be less politicized in her thinking and has said that her father's place in the Panthéon could "be a symbol for those for whom life is very hard" - a reference to Albert Camus' underprivileged youth in colonial Algeria. (See pictures of Paris expanding...