2023-09-14 12:00:10
Journalist Jacques Julliard, with Michel Rocard and Bernard-Henri Lévy, in Paris, May 17, 1994. JEAN-MICHEL TURPIN / GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES
Historian, journalist, essayist, original figure of the “second left”, as they said in the 20th century: Wednesday September 13, in the Saint-Gilles church in Bourg-la-Reine, in Hauts-de-Seine, were celebrated the funeral of Jacques Julliard. To understand the extent to which the character, who died on September 8, recounts the partisan disarray of the time, it was enough to observe the parade of arrivals, around 150 intellectuals and politicians.
Manuel Valls, former socialist prime minister, was accompanied by media philosophers Pascal Bruckner and Alain Finkielkraut, left-wing defectors. Hervé Gaymard, former Gaullist minister of Jacques Chirac, came alone, like Alain Minc, former advisor to Nicolas Sarkozy and the business community. Jean-Michel Blanquer, former minister of Emmanuel Macron, slayer of what he calls “wokism” and representative of a Macronie which has contributed to distorting all the benchmarks, said hello to everyone.
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The editorial director of FigaroAlexis Brézet, came in person, accompanied by Eugénie Bastié, a former Talker which deals with the Ideas pages in the right-wing daily. “Was Jacques always left-wing? Certainly…, he whispers. In any case, he was a great spirit who is missing in the Figaro. » It is in its pages that the deceased took refuge after a reluctant departure from “his” home, from the end of the 1960s to 2010, The new observer. As surprised as it was delighted, the right was quick to get their hands on this iconic pen of left-wing journalism. Arnaud Montebourg, ex-socialist minister, laughs. He feels lonely at this funeral: “Jacques guided my first steps. But we wonder who, on the left, is still capable of coming to Julliard’s funeral…”
To each his own version
In the church, everyone finds themselves on the same benches, but not the slightest sign of complicity, a strong mutual indifference which speaks, in its own way, of the complicated, humanly contrasting itinerary of the deceased. Didn’t this former champion of anti-colonialism, a reasoned left and reformist unionism sign in Marianne, in October 2021, an editorial titled: “Good use of Eric Zemmour”? Jacques Julliard had recognized certain merits of the candidate for the presidential election, openly far-right, including that of wanting “take back control of our immigration policy”.
The first words spoken in front of the coffin sum up the difficulty of the exercise. “Jacques Julliard said that in his inner court, there was 50% for social democracy, 25% for the conservative streak and 25% for anarchist sentiment”, describes Christophe Prochasson, president of the School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences. Julliard, he continues, delighted in“unexpected, unpredictable alliances. (…) Unclassifiable, he was never satisfied with the comfort of labels.” At the end of the ceremony, he confided with the same diplomacy that“we must above all not lock up” his friend. “It was all about him. He felt deeply French, patriotic, with all the contradictions that “being French” means. »
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