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Paris
At
midnight, the Puy du Fou castle bursts into flames to the great surprise
of the fourteen thousand spectators.
Up
to that point, they had been witnessing the quintain festival, including
chivalry tournaments and barnyard dances, the arrival of Francis I and
daily country life, court sumptuousness and hard work, the nobles and
the lower classes, jugglers, fire-eaters, courtly love and kisses in
the barn... But the culminating point is this: the revolution first,
then the war, the “whites” with the red Vendée heart sewn on their breast
and the “bleus” of the “hellish columns” sent by Paris to restore a
lugubrious order, the silence of annihilation, the quiet which follows
death...Slashes of light show up the protagonists of heroic deeds that
are now two hundred years old, but that are felt here as if they had
taken place yesterday; Rochejacquelin, Chatélineau, Charette... mythical
generals of an unfortunate but exemplary, and in its way victorious,
resistence.
Puy
du Fou is the reign of Philippe de Villiers.
In
republican and gauchiste France, which had just pulled through the year
1968, he had the impudent idea of honourably representing one of the
most bloody and psychologically repressed pages in the history of his
country.
He
was 27 years old when he first came across this dilapidated castle,
which had been burnt down in January 1794 by the “bleus” of General
Boucret. The moment he saw it, he was struck by this idea. He did not
want a traditional show, with professional actors, royalties and proceeds
to be shared, and cast jealousies and leading ladies’ whims to be put
up with.
He
wanted the whole country to sponsor the project, investing its own time
and money to build a memorial to the past through a loving gesture towards
the present. “Have dreams, and you will make them come true” was is
password.
Now,
after twenty years, we can say that he has succeeded in his project:
a non-profit association, with 2,600 members, three hundred thousand
spectators a year, a theme Grand Parc ranging from water games to falcon
flights, rebuilt rural villages and medieval towns.
Today
Philippe de Villiers is 50 years old, he is the viscount in French politics,
and there are quite a few people wondering what he is going for. He
was Giscard d’Estaing’s protégé, he then worked with Chirac, whom he
left to represent the opposing party at Maastricht in the early 90s,
he clashed, not too long ago, with Charles Pasqua, with whom he had
founded last autumn the RPF party, taking up the vice president position.
The
political right wing in France is a heap of ruins, and Jacques Chirac,
the “president halved” by a cohabitation with the socialist of which
he was the unfortunate leader, has neither the strength nor the standing
to put his hand to it and build something that may be expected to last.
“Le Miraculé” (a word used to designate a person saved through a miracle)
is the title of his most recent biography, which has only just been
published.
He
reigns but he does not govern. De Villiers represents the provinces,
a certain part of the provinces, bon chic bon genre, “loden-colliers
de perles à la sortie de la messe”, as he personally jokingly defined
them, a country which is a bit like a prison for him, and which he would
like to escape from.
Elected
in a region whose capital, Nantes, heads the list of the towns offering
the most agreeable lifestyle, he has available the vision of what France
could become if a politician succeeded in embodying both its modernity
and tradition, its awareness of its roots and entrepreneurial ability,
its love for life and environment protection policy.
Patrice
de Plunkett was a Mauras follower when he was 20 years old, he was among
the promoters of the Nouvelle Droite when he was 30, and editor in chief
of the Figaro magazine when he was 40. The title of his last book is
“Donne envie de faire la révolution (Plon)”: “Right- and left-wing intermingle”
- he says - “outwardly, we have built a false Europe for the markets,
to whom we have sacrificed national sovereignty; internally a false
democracy, confiscated by the “experts”.
We
need to regain our freedom to act, recover the weapon of true politics
and reopen a door to History. If we do not react, the world will be
unliveable”. A way of thinking which goes hand in hand with that of
José Bové, the leader of the Confédération Paysanne, which is at present
on trial because of the dismantling of a Mc Donald’s outlet last summer.
Ideological schools which are distant in theory unite in identifying
the enemy.
Underneath
a cosmopolitan and intellectual Paris, multiethnic and proud of having
no roots, with its fast and frantic lifestyle, based on the network
and on the free market, where the rich and poor differential is progressively
widening, and where solidarity “doesn’t live here any more”, is in fact
the boiling magma of dissatisfaction and resentment: disgust for wheeler-dealer
politics (political party and trade union activists only represent 1%
of the whole electorate), disaffection towards the state, with a record
abstention rate and at the same time desire to have a say in the matter.
You
can perceive this in the yearning to recover flavours, scents, values,
a lifestyle and an evolution standard where economy is not the only
purpose or raison d’être.
It
is misleading, as well as banal, to hastily explain all this as a nostalgic
attitude.
Modernity
had brought about a more or less conscious break with ties and customs,
and hence an uprooting of the sense of individuality; post-modernity
experiences an equally more or less conscious desire for community areas
in which to meet. “Les trente glorieuses” is the title of an essay which
represented a landmark in France in the late 70s: it nostalgically related
the country life in the inter-war years, as celebrated at the time by
Pagnol’s or Giono’s novels, and by Tavernier’s films... “Les trente
piteuses” was the late 90s answer: in analysing two fictitious villages,
Madère and Cassac, the author, the historian and economist Nicolas Baverez,
described the former as closed, archaic and poorly educated, and the
latter as rich, well-read and clean.
But
in fact the two villages are the same one, that is the real village
of Douelle, which he had researched into in the post-war period and
had again studied thirty years later.... The progress as regards living
conditions was exemplary and nobody would retrace his steps, but, as
Baverez pointed out, “Douelle was probably happier in its misery than
it now is in its abundance. The fabric of society is worn; trust, the
basic ingredient in today’s society, is threatened.”. What France is
seeking deep down is reconciliation between Madère andCassac, between
the ancient and the modern world, between conservation and revolutionary
forces. It is aware of the fact that the tools made available by technology
have, as such, reached a point beyond which the benefits decrease and
costs increase and is therefore seeking to understand how it can combine
the highest standard of living, from a consumer point of view, with
quality in terms of needs, certainties and hopes. In rewording Lenin’s
thought, de Villiers talks about “Tradition plus the computer”, modernity
at the disposal of aesthetics and ethics.
Nantes,
with its publishing houses, its ability to be a capital and maintain
a home environment at the same time, its high-tech service industry,
the proliferation of handicraft, of agricultural production and of tourism
reinvention and safeguard in the whole of Vendée, provides a cross-section
of a civil, political and social perspective in which profit as an end
in itself, the reckless depletion of resources, the prevalence of global
interests over local aspects mark time and are unable to alter a balance
which is complex and fragile, but acceptable for the time being.
But
it is on this path that, in the near future, hidden France will be able
to triumphantly come out into the open.
(Traduzione:
Interpres sas - Giussano)
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