2023-05-09 11:30:00
TRIBUNE/OPINION – If for the media, commemorative time is first of all that of the editorial opportunity made up of beautiful images and special editions, the eventful rebound on the calendar constitutes for the politician the tactical opportunity to sculpt a stature, to pass messages and recovering History on its own with a capital H, with its symbols and evocative forces.
Bicentenary of the French Revolution, centenary of the armistice, homage to Joan of Arc, appeal of June 18, fiftieth anniversary of the death of General de Gaulle: the politician, past master in the recovery easy, likes to play with dates, places and the memory of great men just as he skilfully knows how to juggle songs (“Ode to Joy”, “Marseille” or “Song of the Partisans”), the speeches and the minutes of silence. It is like this: to be effective, the marketing of memories and tributes, protean by nature, must awaken all the senses of the consumer-citizen!
In the era of a multi-crisis world, there is therefore only the past that unites, the past that builds consensus, the past that unites, the past that federates, the past that unites around a figure and a national narrative. Incapable of projecting himself into the future and of embodying a long-term vision specific to the statesman, the modern politician, subject to the diktat of the present and its immediacy, can therefore only rely on the men of the past, such as de Gaulle or Jean Moulin, to make a nation. Look no further, there aren’t many more.
At a time of almost total distrust of politics, the commemoration, beyond its marketing aspect, has therefore imposed itself, like major sporting events, as the last political event that can still bring people together at a time of permanent cleavage: the last political event that can still offer the population, a society of the spectacle obliges, the moment of communion, the beautiful images and the dose of emotions that it expects.
The 80th anniversary of the death of the great Jean Moulin, whose eternal roots are in the small and proud village of Montmorin (05), does not escape marketing hijacking or this quest for communion. To refer to Jean Moulin is to refer to hope and the spirit of resistance, the assurance above all of not splitting. Also, it means associating France with a type of leader that no longer exists today. Like General de Gaulle, Jean Moulin remains the yardstick of French politics.
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