2023-12-31 17:40:03
La Croix: You have studied history, you tell it today in a podcast… How does the past accompany you on a daily basis?
Philippe Collin : When current events or the political horizon are a source of worry or even anxiety, history is valuable. I lean on her. Take for example On a human scale, by Léon Blum. He wrote this book in 1942, while he was imprisoned in the extremely distressing castle of Bourassol, France was collapsed and occupied, Pétain collaborated with Hitler, the Jews of Europe were exterminated… It was the worst moment . And Léon Blum writes a book full of hope in which he has this extraordinary sentence: “I don’t work for the present, but in the present. »
In this terrible context, he manages to look to the future, to believe in man. Because there will be a better tomorrow, and we must already think about it. This work demonstrates that in the heart of a world war, we can still have faith. And I find that extremely calming. History has this virtue.
Is it also an escape from the troubles of the present?
P. C. : Sometimes, working on the past means living a little in the past. When you immerse yourself in the archives for a whole day, it’s easy to imagine yourself living in 1936, in 1949, why not in 1812. It protects you from the outside world, because you completely disconnect from current events. It’s a little selfish, it’s a bubble that takes me out of the collective, but it’s a brief breath before joining it again. It gives me energy to face the present, and hope too. Because to delve into the past is to realize that the march of history is not only heading towards the abyss, it is not only tragic. In tragedy, lines of hope systematically emerge.
To what “lines of hope” are you referring to?
P. C. : Recently, my team and I worked on the journey of five resistance fighters – Simonne Mathieu, Lucie Aubrac, Mila Racine, Geneviève de Gaulle and Renée Davelly. When we look at their history, and more generally at the history of the Resistance, we observe that this movement came out of nowhere. At the time, no eminent person launched a call for resistance: no intellectual, no major politician, not the Church, no one in the army… And despite everything, in this old country that is France, people unknown to the battalion – including Charles de Gaulle, who was then only a second-rate general – found in the depths of their soul patriotic reasons, such an attachment to the values of a republic collapsed that they enter into resistance.
In a country that is 90% marshalist – because the population is afraid – there are people who say “This is unacceptable, I cannot sit idly by”. It exists. And I think there will always be people who will stand up against injustice. Even in the darkness there will be something, a spark. It makes me think of the “small kindness”.
What is “small kindness”?
P. C. : This is an idea that the journalist and writer Vassili Grossman develops in “Life and Destiny”. A gesture of kindness which goes beyond ideologies, which is made without any publicity, without witnesses, without thought. It’s a greatness of soul. And for Grossman this private kindness, from one human to another, is eternal. She finds a way even in the worst times.
“It is the kindness of an old woman, who, on the side of the road, gives a piece of bread to a passing convict, it is the kindness of a soldier who hands his flask to a wounded enemy (…). The secret of the immortality of goodness is in its powerlessness. She is invincible. The more senseless it is, the more absurd it is, powerless, the greater it is», writes Grossman. This gesture saves us from everything. He always wins in the end. I love small kindness, I believe deeply in that.
Is there an act of “small kindness” that you have witnessed that inspires you?
P. C. : There have been others since, but the one that comes to mind and strikes me the most is old. I was around ten years old, I was in a street in Brest with my father and my brother when a homeless man was violently hit by a car in front of us. It was winter, my father approached the unfortunate man, he took off his warm coat to cover the man who had been hit on the road. It really struck me at the time. My father made this gesture without calculation, just motivated by a “little kindness”.
The past definitely holds an important place in your life. What about the future?
P. C. : Digging into the past is only of interest if you use it to look forward. The future is what keeps me from despair. And among the things that project me into the future is the rock band The Doors, who I listen to at least once a week – if not every day. So yes, it’s part of the past (the group has been disbanded since 1973, two years after the death of its singer Jim Morrison, Editor’s note), but in my opinion, their music is combined with the future, it is a transcendent group, which embodies the after. When I listen to the Doors, I’m immortal, at least for 3 minutes and 17 seconds.
In the spring, you participated in the show “Backseat”, broadcast on Twitch, to promote your podcasts. More recently, you were the guest of the streamer Rivenzi on the same platform, popular with those under 35. Why do you want to address this youth?
P. C. : Because the future and the hope are there. Structurally, biologically. As we get older, we tend to become gentrified – and that’s normal. We are less alert, less vigilant, less agile too. So it’s not surprising that the spark is often born from youth. Look at the resistance fighters we were talking about earlier: they were between 25 and 30 years old when they joined up.
So I find it normal to also meet this generation. And I’m not saying that to be demagogy. I don’t make podcasts specifically for young people. I make them for everyone, including them. I feel good with this youth, even if it impresses me. I always wonder if I’m addressing them correctly. I put my heart into it, I tell them that I am counting on them for the “small kindness”.
With your podcasts, you say you want “illuminating the present in the light of the past”. What does that mean ?
P. C. : I wish to give access to a form of inheritance that would have been entrusted to me and which is beyond me, I believe. I have stepchildren who I care deeply about, but I don’t have any children. So the idea of transmission is very close to my heart. I make podcasts to transmit shared, humanist, republican values to as many people as possible. To pass on knowledge that affects relationships with others and society, insight that can be transmitted via the telling of history. The present has its emergencies, and a history lesson would not be enough to change it. But the past can offer a new perspective, a context, a nuance, an insight. Hope also nestles there: in the light of the past.
——
Léon Blum for traveling companion
Between Philippe Collin and Léon Blum, the passion does not weaken it has lasted for over 20 years. The meeting took place in 1993: Léon Blum had been dead for 43 years, Philippe Collin was 18. The second was just starting his law studies in Brest and was responsible, for his very first presentation of the year, for working on the first. “All I know about him at the time is: President of the Council in 1936, reform of 40 hours of work and paid leave, popular front, Jewish, remembers the journalist. So I worked a lot, and I discovered this incredible guy with a rather incredible destiny. » A discovery that he made in particular through the book “On a Human Scale”, which he found “striking”.
Many years later, in 2022, he will deliver a 9-hour audio series dedicated to the politician to make a living “lost heritage”. A long series so acclaimed that he transposed it into a book a few months later in “Blum, a heroic life » (co-edition Albin Michel/France Inter, 2023). And on stage! Last June 9 and 10, in Montpellier, in an extraordinary theatrical object lasting 10 hours. And it’s not over: from spring 2024, he will take his “republican hero” on tour on stage in Belfort, Nice, Marseille, Chalon-sur-Saône…
#deeply #small #kindness