Ever since we started the debates around the French citizenship of people
suspected of wrongful acts and around the evictions of Roma people, we have
seen criticisms multiplying, comparing these acts to the tragedies that
occurred in France since the takeover of Marshal Pétain: the questioning of
the citizenship of the offenders was compared with that of foreign Jews in
1940 and compared the current expulsion of some Gypsies with the raids which
touched them then, at the same time as the Jews.
We even saw the bishop of Toulouse, Monseigneur Le Gall, read from the
pulpit the letter written in August 1942 by his predecessor, the magnificent
Cardinal Saliège, calling to protect the Jews.
No matter what we think of the merits of these decisions (which I find on my
part perfectly reprehensible in terms of both content and form, at a time
when instead we should strengthen national unity and European solidarity),
there is nothing more out of place than to dare the comparison with what
happened in the 40s.
First because, obviously, the dangers faced by the Roma people returned so
brutally, in their country of origin, member of the European Union, have
nothing to do with the fate of those who, were raided from 1940 to 1945, and
were going on a journey towards death. And those who are at risk of losing
the citizenship are in fact taking no risk of this kind, because of the
jurisprudence of the Constitutional Council.
Second, because use of such a comparison reveals some unhealthy desire to
relive, better than we did at the time, the events of the time: the Church
was not as brave, as a whole, in opposing Vichy, as would want us to believe
the current bishop of Toulouse, and it will not expiate its sins of the past
by making a mistake about today’s fight. More generally, those who use this
vocabulary are trying to slip without risks in the garb of the rare
resistant at the time.
Finally, because they show an inability to think of the new and
reprehensible nature of these events: these people are not deported or
threatened with losing their citizenship in the name of a murderous
intention, but with a diversionary tactic of a power trying to talk about
something other than the economic and social crisis, and to show that, on
this subject at least, they still controls events.
Moreover, the phenomenon is not French only : Steve Schwarzman, founder and
CEO of the American Investment Fund Blackstone, has recently allowed himself
to compare the attempt to tax the astronomical salaries of the managers of
investment funds…to an invasion of Poland by Hitler!
Our world is so difficult to understand that many are content to relate to
anachronistic metaphors. For lack of anything better. For lack of anything
worse. For lack of understanding the world. Let all take heed: by dint of
denying reality, it will end up looking like its caricature.