Bare Thoughts

"I'm not afraid of the word "moral".  Since May of 1968 in France you haven't been able to speak about morality.  It was a word that had disappeared from the political vocabulary.  Today, for the first time in decades, there has been moral discourse in the heart of a presidential campaign.  May of '68 had imposed intellectual and moral relativism on us all. The heirs of '68 had imposed the idea that everything is equal, that there's no difference between right and wrong, between true and false, between beauty and ugliness.  They have wanted to make us believe that the student is as important as the teacher, that you shouldn't give grades so that you won't "traumatize" bad students, that there are no differences of value and merit.  They've wanted to make us believe that the victim counts less than the criminal, and that you can't have such a thing as a hierarchy of values.  They've proclaimed that everything is permitted, that authority is over, that good manners are finished, that respect was done, and that there was no longer anything that was great, nothing that was sacred, nothing admirable, and also no rules, no norms, nothing that was untouchable.

Remember the slogan of May '68, painted on the walls of the Sorbonne: "Live without obligations and enjoy without commitments".  This is how the inheritance of May '68 has wiped out the school of thought of Jules Ferry in the French Left, which was a school that praised excellence, merit, respect, and civic duty; it was a school of thought that wanted to help children become adults, and not keep being big children, a school that wanted to instruct and not infatilise, because it was constructed by great followers of the Republique, who had the conviction that to be ignorant is not to be free. But the inheritance of May '68 has wiped out this school that transmitted a common culture and shared morality, a culture and morality thanks to which all Frenchmen could communicate, understand and live together.  The inheritance of May '68 has introduced cynicism in society and politics. It is precisely the values of May '68 that have promoted the derision of market capitalism, the cult of quick spending, short term benefit, and untried speculation.  In fact the questioning of all ethical landmarks and all moral values has contributed to the weakening of a moral capitalism and has laid the groundwork for a capitalism without scruples or ethics, led to the multi-million dollar lawsuits of large corporations, tax shelters, corporate abuses, the triumph of the spirit of the predator over the entrepeneur, the speculators over the workers.

The heirs of May '68 have degraded the moral level of politics.  All of these politicians that vindicate the results of May '68 love to impose controls on others that never seem to apply to themselves, they want to impose behaviours, rules, and sacrifices on everyone else that they would never impose on themselves.  Their slogan is "do what I say, not what I do".  This is the Left that is the heir of May '68, that is in every level of politics, the media, the bureaucracy, and the economy of France.  The left that has developed a taste for power and privilege.  The left that doesn't love the nation, because it doesn't want to share with the nation.  It doesn't love the Republic because it doesn't love true Equality.  They pretend to defend the public sector, but you'll never see them on a bus.  They "love" public education so much that they send all their children to private schools.  They claim to love the marginalized, but they take great cares not have to live among them.  They always find excuses for the violent, so long as the violent stay in their own neighbourhoods, where the Left never goes.  It is that Left that makes great speeches about the general good, but they are utterly corrupted by patronage and corporate interests. They sign petitions and manifestos when an illegal occupation (strike) is broken, but they would never accept such an occupation in their own properties. They dedicate their time to decide what is right for everyone else, without thinking that any rules apply to themselves.  In the end it is this Left, that has chosen the way of May '68 rather than Jules Ferry, that condemns all of France to a stagnation whose principle victims will be the working class, the most humble, and the poor.

It is the Left that since May '68 has renounced merit and effort, has stopped any real discourse with the working class, or even any empathy with the conditions of the workers, or love for the workers; because the value of work isn't part of their values. Their ideology is no longer that of Jaures or Blum, which respected the working class;  now the ideology of the Left is the forced division of labour, the 35 hour work week, and the welfare state. The crisis of the working class in France is above all a moral crisis, and in this the consequences of May '68 have an enormous responsibility to bear.  I want to reform the value of work, I want to restore the worker to a central place in French society.

The inheritance of May '68 has weakened the authority of the State.  These heirs of those who in May '68 shouted "CRS=SS" have systematically taken up the cause of violent mobs, rioters and looters against the police. We've seen this after the incidents in Gare du Nord.  In place of condemning the violent mobs and supporting the forces of public order and the hard work they had to do, they could think of nothing better than that slogan that deserves to be inscribed in the annals of the Republic: "Its disturbing to note that there is a rift between the police and the youth". As if the vandals of Gare du Nord represented the whole of French youth!  As if the police were the ones who were acting badly, and not the mobs! As if the mobs had destroyed everything and looted business to express a revolt against some injustice!  As if the fact of their youth was an excuse for everything!  As if society was always to blame, and the criminals were always innocent.  These are the heirs of May '68, who denigrate the national identity, who encourage hatred of the family, of society, of the state, of the nation, of the Republic.

These elections will be about knowing of the inheritance of May '68 should be perpetuated, or if it should be gotten rid of once and for all.  I want to turn the page on May '68.  But it has to be more than just words.  Its not enough to be satisfied with hanging flags off balconies on the 14th of July and singing the Marselleise in place of the Internationale at the rallies of the Socialist Party. You cannot claim to want order and then consistently take up sides against the police.  Its not possible to keep denouncing "provocation" and the "police state" each time the police try to ensure that the laws of the nation are respected.  You cannot say that you are in favour of the value of work, and at the same time universalize the 35 hour work week, keep burdening the people with excessive taxation, and encouraging a mentality of dependence on welfare, on the State paying people not to work. You cannot say that you wish to put up barriers to the breaking up of illegal occupations of workplaces and at the same time reject any suggestion of a sales tax which would allow the economic protection against a flood of foreign imports.  Its not possible to proclaim great principles and then neglect to ground them in any reality!
I propose to the French people that we truly break from the spirit, the behaviours, and the ideas of May '68, and above all with the cynicism of May '68.  I propose to the French people that we restore morality, authority, work, and love of country to politics. I propose to rebuild a truly effective French state that will, as such, overrule the feudalism, corporativism and special intrests that currently dominate it.  I propose to restore a single and indivisible French state that is capable of standing against all collectivisms and separatisms. I propose that we rebuild a nation that is sure of itself.

By systematically putting rights before responsibilities, the heirs of May '68 have weakened the concept of citizenship.  By denigrating the law, the state, and the nation, the heirs of '68 have favoured the rise of individual irresponsibility.  They've incited people to think only of themselves and not feel any concern for the wellbeing of their neighbour.  I believe in individual liberty, and that individual liberty must be balanced with civic duty; in a citizenship that must consist of rights but also of duties.  I want to create new Rights, real rights and not just virtual rights.  I want a real right to a home, to a roof over one's head.  A real right to the care of children, the education of disadvantaged children, and the Right to care for the elderly.  I want a right to a opportunities for young people beyond the age of 18, and to lifelong education.  I want a right to public care for orphans, for those who have no families, for the sick who cannot get support because of their illnesses.  I want the right to a job transition program for those who's workplace is on strike.

But I also want these rights to be balanced with responsibilities.  The ideology of '68 will have died only when society dares to remember its responsibilities, when French politicians dare to proclaim that, in the Republic, Responsibilities are the other side of Rights.  When that day arrives we will finally see the great moral and intellectual reformation that France desperately needs once more.  Then we can begin to reconstruct, on these new foundations, that Fraternal Republic that has always been the unfulfilled dream, always desired but never fully realized since the time that France first developed consciousness of its existence as a nation.  Because France is not a race, not an ethnicity, not even a territory; France is an unstoppable ideal pursued by a great people that, since its beginning, has believed in the power of its ideas, its capacity to transform the world and bring happiness to humankind.

I want to tell the French people: full work opportunities, growth, the rise of purchasing power, the renewed worth of work, the restoration of morality to capitalism, all of this is necessary and it is possible!  But these are nothing more than means that must be put to work toward a certain ideal of Man, an ideal of Society wheere everyone can have a place, where the dignity each and every person will be recognized and respected."