The reason for this book is explained by its author, journalist Philippe Carlin: “This book is a testimony on the backstage of the comedy of power, on the mysteries of high and low politics, a story of women and demimondaines, men of action and powdered facts, honest servants and faithless henchmen, real involved actors and puppet marionettes.”
The anecdotes are a guiding thread in the labyrinth of power dark as soot and crimson as the face of shame. It is a chronicle of ordinary betrayal. The betrayal of politicians among themselves and towards voters. The betrayal that contaminates those who surrender to the illusion of power and the futile promises of ephemeral authority” (page 8).
The next question is: Why and for whom did Philippe Carlin write this book, demonstrating personal courage and a highly improbable freedom of thought in a professional category that a film recently defined, not without reason, as “the watchdogs of power”?
“I have no grudge to bear against Christian Estrosi. I only tell the truth and have no objective other than the desire to share what I know and think, which many are unaware of. It is a choice of freedom.” We leave him full responsibility for his statements; time and circumstances will validate them or not.
It must be said that the content of the book is far less striking than its title and preamble: Of course, some episodes denounced by Philippe Carlin can (if proven) only lend themselves to criticism, nay disapproval… but not much more!
Estrosi City? In democracy, power belongs to voters and ballots. And when one is elected, one has the legitimacy of universal suffrage with everything that goes with it, including criticism!
Of course, we are not naive; there is politics and power, or the power of politics.
But what are we talking about?
Politics in its broader sense, that of civility or *Politikos*, indicating the general framework of an organized and developed society.
Or politics in the sense of *Politeia*, which concerns the structure and functioning (methodical, theoretical, and practical) of a community, society, or social group.
Or finally, in a much narrower acceptance, politics in the sense of *Politikè*, where the political art refers to the practice of power, as well as to the management of that same power.
Let us leave it to anthropologists to debate this subject.
Ultimately, what is new under the sun? States emerge and decline, but power itself never changes!
But no one fell from the sky, and everyone understands how history is just an “eternal recurrence,” as the philosopher Gianbattista Vico said. One only needs to read “Imperium” in which Robert Harris (former columnist and political editor in the English press before becoming a successful writer) “gives” the pen to M. Tullius Tyron (who was the Secretary and assistant of M. Tullius Cicero for 36 years) and makes him describe his political journey until his election to the consulship of Rome (63 BC).
For the record, Cicero was politically a “homo novus” (not having a consul among his ancestors) and thus considered distant from the Roman political tradition based on the power of the “patricians,” the noble families wielding senatorial power. Changing context and names, one would find an extraordinary relevance, albeit not surprising!
Or again, the pamphlet by Quintus Tullius Cicero, the younger brother, “De petitione consulatus,” a collection of letters and advice from Quintus Tullius Cicero, the younger brother of Marcus Tullius, addressed to his brother on the occasion of his consular electoral campaign.
Again, what relevance!!!
As for the collusion between the power holder and his loyal collaborators (faithful and loyal by definition and obligation), one can also refer to the reading of a letter of gratitude from Cicero to Tyron: “Innumerabilia tua sunt in me officia, forensia, urbana, provincialia, in re privata, in publica, in studiis, in litteris nostris. (Countless are the services you have rendered to me …)”
And, whether one likes it or not, can one fault Christian Estrosi if he has made this expression of Cicero to himself, his own:
‘Urbem, urbem cole et in ista luce vive!’ (At Rome, stay in Rome and live in this light!)
M. Tullius Tyron, secretary to Cicero, was also the inventor of shorthand, which allowed the complete and faithful recording of orators’ public speeches (Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology – W.L. Smith 1851).
