French Inauguration

One does one's best to try to ignore the political antics on the southern side of the Channel but even I managed to take on board something of the Presidential inauguration of M.Macron in Paris

There was the depressing sight of him in a lounge suit rather than the white tie of past inaugurations and the comdedy provided by the BBC when its website referred to the President being presented with a "necklace" which had belonged to Napoleon. What they actually meant but were either too ignorant themselves to know or assumed their public were too ignorant to understand was the Grand Master's Collar of the Legion of Honour...

I came across a set of quotations from M. Macron which are taken from a book by Eric Fottorrino Macron Par Macron which is based around interviews with the new President.

The first to be quoted, and the one that caught my eye is as follows:

“In French politics, this absence is the presence of a King, a King whom, fundamentally, I don’t think the French people wanted dead,” said Macron. “The Revolution dug a deep emotional abyss, one that was imaginary and shared: the King is no more!” According to Macron, since the Revolution France has tried to fill this void, most notably with Napoleon and then Charles de Gaulle, which was only partially successful. “The rest of the time,” said Macron, “French democracy does not manage to fill this void.”

Well we know what the answer is to that do n't we?

There is more from the book at  http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/emmanuel-macron-policies-beliefs-philosophy

All in all, let's face it - no match for le Sacre at Reims.

Vive Le Roi!

France - Ancient and Modern

Earlier today a friend sent me a version of this map illustrating the election results in the first round of the latest French political beauty contest.

 Results of the first round by department
     Emmanuel Macron      Marine Le Pen      François Fillon
     Jean-Luc Mélenchon

Image: Wikipedia

As my friend pointed out it bears a not inconsiderable resemblance to a map of twelfth century France indicating the extent of the Angevin Empire under King Henry II and King Richard I.

Here, to compare and contrast with it, is the result from 2012 ( with a larger scale map of Paris transposed onto Switzerland)

Image:coffeespoons.me

In this case France looks not entirely dissimilar to the arrangements made by the Treaty of Bretigny-Calais concluded in 1361 between King John II and King Edward III. There's even a hint of the Avignon Papal state in the Rhone valley. Another similarity might be to the aims, but not the reality south of the Loire, of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance after 1419

The survival of regional political allegiances across departmental boundaries and across the centuries is striking.

Both maps also point to a nation deeply divided both socially and culturally and also geographically. However one may also enquire as to what is new therein for France, but the fracture within the north, of the Ile de France and its neighbouring regions, the heartland of the Capetian monarchy, and the foundation of French unity, should attract notice and concern.