The exercise promised to be perilous. Its scope was therefore limited. The State’s relentless logic, which knows how to take all the usual precautions in this area. The “great national debate,” according to the expression used on Thursday evening by the President of the General Council Eric Ciotti, eventually turned into a neighborhood committee. A debate held in secret, with prior information barely visible: a five-line news brief in “Nice Matin.” At the University or with local shopkeepers, few seemed informed about the existence of this meeting. Few cared, for that matter. Cause or consequence, the attendance barely exceeded the two hundred and twenty seats of the cozy auditorium at the MAMAC in Nice. Was the Acropolis hall or the amphitheater at CUM likely to appear deserted? Or more difficult to control? And this, despite the police cordon stationed outside and the surveillance carried out by the vigilant DCRI officials inside?
Media discretion, a restricted setting, filtered entries, a tight schedule: the national identity was discussed in just under two hours: the imposing closing of the Episcopal Synod at the Nikaïa, the long annual CRIF evening on the theme “what does it mean to be a French Jew?” or the full day of study devoted to the place of Muslims in France by the young Mosaic Federation did significantly better. Not to mention the introductory speeches provoking the palpable impatience of the audience, during which Prefect Francis Lamy and Eric Ciotti shared roles but remained united by the same goal: to buy time.
The Prefect prudently limited himself to the technical role of organizer. At the risk of suggesting a feeling of aloofness, that of a State which condescends, from the height of its centralizing Jacobinism, to reflection. Quite far from the “nobility” of a subject mentioned by Nicolas Sarkozy, which, on the contrary, required an additional touch of soul. We should not, however, blame the State representative, caught between the presidential injunction—to organize this debate no matter what—and the prohibition of a political perimeter sanctuarized by the department’s leaders. We have known for some time the statutory fragility of the prefecture.
The President of the General Council, on the other hand, did not hesitate to venture into political territory. If not electoral. A clever mix of a speech that knows how to prod and immediately defuse, eliciting a reassuring and cathartic sense of being heard even before speaking. A speech that slaloms between two sensitive pitfalls: “there is no French race,” Eric Ciotti hammered. “France is a land of blending and mixing,” he added, before continuing: “but those who want to become French must first respect the laws of the republic.” The initial murmurs were followed by lively applause. Intelligence in the service of persuasion. An art in itself.
A debate that Francis Lamy legitimately wished to be “republican,” in the “respect for different ideas,” with the “limit” being the “laws of the republic”: the speakers were implicitly asked to be brief and concise, to master their passion, to avoid slips and extremism. But when Marianne is asked to undergo psychoanalysis, to use the words of the President of the Senate, should she also be forbidden from violently unloading her emotions, if not her sufferings, and be required to have passed through Sciences Po or Ena?
In the public’s interventions, alternating barely contained emotion and sharp outburst, much was said about the “Marseillaise” and the flag, the latter being a symbol often absent from public buildings: “one is not French only on November 11 and May 8,” explained an applauded young high school student. With, implicitly, the recurring expression of unspeakable fears and deep frustrations. And, in the background, the issue of Islam often reduced to the serious threats contained in its most radical version. To the “eternal France” defended by one responded the “cry of injustice” from another. Ultimately, a need for listening and recognition of both, a goal made uncertain by forced and strained sociological changes: one person received strong support from the audience when denouncing the “violation of popular sovereignty” of the February 2008 vote—the Parliament approved a reduced version of the Lisbon Treaty rejected by referendum in 2005—but faced general condemnation when calling for France’s exit from NATO and the EU. The same for a rabbi who dared to question the role of women in the workforce.
Did the “mosaic of nationalities” of Nice, mentioned by Eric Ciotti that evening, manage to speak with itself? Let’s hope so. When two people engage in verbal invectives instead of throwing stones, it’s already a great leap forward for humanity, Sigmund Freud ironically suggested.
