The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, delivered this speech on September 4, 2020. I discussed it in a TelosScope post here, putting it in dialogue with President Trump’s Mount Rushmore speech of July 4. There has been interest on the part of some readers in a full translation of Macron’s text, so it is offered below.
The context: Macron is welcoming a group of newly naturalized citizens into the national community. Hence his double agenda: on the one hand, highlighting the diversity of France as an immigrant nation, while on the other insisting on the unity of French history, culture, language, and above all the Republic. This is a speech about the Republican values that Macron expects all French citizens to share and, what’s more, to uphold actively and vigorously. “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” have a standing in French political culture similar to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” from the American Declaration of Independence.
For Macron, however, citizenship is not only about rights but also about the responsibility to contribute to the Republic. One might therefore think of the speech as an effort to describe how to maintain a cohesive national identity in an era of mass migration and globalization or, more abstractly, to insist on the centripetal power of shared (national) identity against countervailing centrifugal forces of fragmentation and separation. From the perspective of the United States and the waning of shared cultural identity here, Macron’s underscoring the importance of the French national cultural heritage is remarkable. Could that happen here?
Another part of the context of the speech is its proximity to the American summer of Black Lives Matter demonstrations. Macron makes indirect reference to it by asserting that France—in implicit contrast to the United States—does not topple the statues of the past and that French citizens should identify with the long history of France, rather than just choose bits and pieces. Interestingly he suggests, echoing De Gaulle, that the Republican values predate even the Revolution of 1789, with deep roots reaching into the centuries of monarchy: citizens should embrace that past as well.
Particularly noteworthy from an American perspective is how Macron offers a full-throated defense of the police and other forces that preserve law and order by protecting and instilling republican values. The import of the speech is therefore diametrically opposed to proposals to abolish the police or the antifa-style graffiti proclaiming that ACAB=All Cops Are Bastards.
It is ironic and sad that Macron points explicitly to the role that teachers play in forming civic consciousness. Only six weeks after the Panthéon speech, France was shocked by the murder—the decapitation—of Samuel Paty, a high school teacher in Conflans, a suburb of Paris. Paty had been teaching about freedom of expression in France and showed, as a matter of the historical record, some of the Mohammed caricatures that motivated the 2015 Charlie Hebdo killings.[1] Paty’s pedagogy provoked local Islamists, leading to the murder, which was followed by other attacks, including the killing of three victims in a cathedral in Nice. The two events have been interpreted as indicating that France is under attack both because of its republican values (Paty) and because of its Catholicism (Nice Cathedral).
Since then France has witnessed a reemergence of the public debate over Islamism and violence. Macron has taken a strong position against “separatism,” by which is meant the development of separate communities, outside of republican values or even opposed to them. In the September 4 speech, Macron announces forthcoming legislation on separatism. Yet the subsequent events have radicalized the public discussion, while also generating toxic anti-French sentiment in parts of the Muslim world, notably in Turkey.
The Speech of the President of the Republic on the Occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic, in the Panthéon
Dear Matthew, Nora, Patricia, Catherine, and Anna: I know this is a moving and solemn moment for you and your families.
You are not only accomplishing a dream, becoming French, but you are doing it in a special place, our Panthéon, where great women and men are resting, honored by our country, now yours.[2] And what’s more, this naturalization ceremony is taking place on the very day that the Republic is celebrating its birthday.
That was September 4, 1870.
The Empire had just been defeated at Sedan,[3] when a young deputy, thirty-two years old, Léon Gambetta, answered the call of the people of Paris and proclaimed the Republic from the balcony of the Hotel de Ville. Léon Gambetta, whose words we just heard, was, like you, the son of immigrants, recently naturalized, French of mixed blood. It was he however who revived the Republic, this political regime in which we have been living for 150 years.
The country was nearly broken. It was the Republic, again, that saved it. There are many other Léon Gambettas, so many figures, who are French not because of their genealogy but the battles they waged, who have shaped our history. Marie Curie, born and raised in Poland. She received two Nobel Prizes and chose to serve France in the trenches as a simple nurse before opening two windows for women that had been shut to them until then: the chair of teaching at the Sorbonne and the bronze doors of the Panthéon. Josephine Baker, born an American, chose France to let her talents and energy glow. She loved her adopted homeland to the point of risking her life for it by joining the resistance.
So many destinies that became French through combat. And so many other heroes, French by birth, born far from the metropolis, have upheld our values and left their mark on the foundation of our republic. Félix Eboué, a descendant of slaves, answered General de Gaulle’s appeal of June 18. He was the first to plant the standard of Free France in Chad. Without this child of our Guyana who became a Companion of the Liberation and who also rests here in this place, the story of the forces of Free France would not be the same. And how could one not mention Gisèle Halimi, who passed away this summer. From her beloved Tunisia to our National Assembly: in courtrooms, in auditoria, in manifestos, she who was born Zeiza Taieb pleaded for the emancipation of peoples and took giant steps for the cause of women. A national homage will soon be given to her at the Invalides.
Léon Gambetta, Marie Curie, Félix Eboué, Josephine Baker, Gisèle Halimi: so many examples, so many other figures, whom we honor on this day of living in the Republic. So many destinies that you inherit today, Matthew, Nora, Patricia, Catherine, and Anna.
Because now it is your turn, your turn at the sides of all those children of the Republic by their birth and so many others with their diversity of origins: You who come from the United Kingdom, Algeria, Cameroon, Peru, and Lebanon to live your lives in the Republic. I am not talking about shaping your personal existences. You all already have careers, many of you have families here, but you are now taking on fully the trappings of a French citizen, by surpassing yourselves.
To become French: this means in effect accepting being more than an individual pursuing private interests, but a citizen contributing to the common good. It gives proof of a responsibility to one’s compatriots and the cultivation of a fully Republican virtue, with duties and rights. But always the duties first. Becoming French means having anchored in oneself the consciousness that the Republic is always fragile and precarious, and it must therefore be a battle at every dawn, a conquest of every day, a Republican patriotism every moment. The Republic is not a given, never completed, and I say that here today for our youth as well. It is a conquest. The Republic must always be protected or be reconquered.
Liberty first of all. “Liberty, liberty, beloved,” resounds “La Marseillaise.” To be French means first of all loving liberty passionately. De Gaulle evoked the two-thousand-year-old pact between France and the liberty of the world. Starting today, you are bound by that pact. In our Republic, liberty is a block. It is a liberty to participate in the choice of its leaders and therefore the right to vote, which is however inextricably tied to accepting the electoral decisions, the collective liberty of the people. It is the liberty of conscience, and in particular the secularism (laicité), this arrangement unique in the world that guarantees the freedom to believe or not to believe, and which is not separable from a liberty of expression that goes as far as the right to engage in blasphemy. And I say this at the moment when the trial of the assassinations of January 2015 is beginning.[4] Being French means defending the right to laugh, the right to deride, the right to mock and to caricature, of which Voltaire claimed that it is the source of all the other rights. Being French means always being on the side of the fighters for liberty. And all the more so, when renunciations flourish and censorship spreads.
Equality. Being French means recognizing in every woman and every man the same dignity. Being French means loving justice. The abolition of privileges and the Declaration of the Rights Man and the Citizen in 1789, universal suffrage for men and the abolition of slavery by Schoeler in 1848, the right of women to vote in 1944, lowering the age of majority to 18 in 1974, the prohibition of the death penalty in 1981. You are entering a beautiful and grand history, the history of the progress of equality of rights. You are also continuing the unfinished march toward concrete and effective equality. Péguy, Jaurès, Blum, Mendès France advocated the social republic, this simple but profound idea: every citizen, no matter where he lives or the background from which he comes, must be able to build a life through his work and effort. We are still far, very far from this ideal. How many children of France face discrimination because of the color of their skin or their name? How many doors are closed to young women or young men because they don’t come from good areas or were not born in a good location? Equality of opportunity is not yet effective today is our Republic. That is why it is more than ever a priority of my administration.
We will go further and more forcefully in the coming weeks to keep the Republican promise for real lives. But equality too is a block of responsibilities and rights. Equality before the law implies therefore that the Republic must always be superior to particularist rules. That is why there will never be in France a place for those, often in the name of a god, and sometimes with the support of foreign powers, who attempt to impose the laws of a group. No, because the Republic is indivisible and does not allow for any separatist adventure. A projected law to combat separatism will therefore be proposed this autumn.
Fraternity: Being French means viewing one’s compatriot as more than an equal or a challenge. Our nation is special because it developed a welfare state, a model of social protection that leaves no one by the way. Yet this system, unique in the world, only works thanks to bonds, always fragile, that unite our citizens, bonds of respect and civility that can be broken at any moment by violence and hatred. Therefore, in the Republic, the police, constables, magistrates, mayors, the elected representatives of the Republic, and more generally all those who fight against violence, racism, and anti-Semitism play a determining role and who, symmetrically, anyone who attacks them must be severely condemned: in terms of the law and never arbitrarily. Those who attack the forces of order or elected officials will not succeed. Bonds of solidarity and engagement. Our welfare state has shown, once again, in the face of the pandemic that we have just passed, its power to support every one in France, and we will remember for a long time the courage of our caregivers, the devotion of volunteers, and the support among neighbors that allowed us to face this severest of crises. But fraternity too is a block. It cannot thrive or continue unless everyone recognizes the other as deserving of help and companionship. It depends on every citizen, too, not simply on the state that gives rights. This is why general participation is decisive, and I cannot really consent to sacrifices for my compatriots unless I feel tied to them, not only by a social contract but by points of orientation, a culture, a common history, common values, a common destiny in which we all take part. That is the Republic.
Marc Bloch wrote that “France is the homeland from which I cannot uproot my heart. I have drunk at the sources of its culture. I have made its past my own. I only breathe well beneath its sky, and I have tried my turn at defending it the best I can.” All that is entering the French Republic. Loving our landscapes, our history, our culture, altogether, always. The Coronation of Kings at Reims as well as the Festival of the Federation in the Revolution—this is why the Republic does not topple statues and does not simply choose part of our history—because one never chooses just part of France—one chooses France. The Republic begins, as you have understood, long before the Republic itself because its values are rooted in our history. Becoming French means embracing it all, and it is also embracing a language that does not stop at our frontiers—you know this perfectly, but it has also been one of the cements of our nation.
“My country is the French language,” wrote Camus. Mastering French of course allows one to communicate, to exchange with compatriots, to understand our law, and this is why language is a prerequisite for naturalization. But mastering France is also a passport into a culture, a history greater than the size of five continents. It reaches the imagination of Hugo, Dumas, Zola, Malraux, Césaire, all of them are honored here in the Panthéon. It means accompanying the characters of Mauriac, who passed away fifty years ago, and all the writers whose grandeur does not only honor the spirit of France but universal genius as well. Mastering our language is also touching the soul of the nation, the form of eternal France. France is ultimately one of the rare countries that, with the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterets of 1539, was created and engendered by its language.[5] Our language formed our relationship to liberty and universalism. The Abbé Grégoire, who rests here as well—did he not say that French is the idiom of liberty? Our language is the cradle of the Republic, long before it was proclaimed by the Convention of 1792, because the Republic already took shape in the Renaissance in the texts of Bodin. It was affirmed by Condorcet and Rousseau and all the enlightenment thinkers. Our language is what holds our people and our history together. It is what enabled Charles Péguy to claim “the Republic, our Kingdom of France.” In France, truly everything begins with the words.
The Republic is a transmission. The Republic is a will, never completed, always to be reconquered. And if it has survived since the Revolution, it is because across the centuries, a vision for the ages has linked all the women and men who dreamed it, who made it real, who defended it sometimes in the most tragic hours of our history, and who renewed it in the European project. And today, on this anniversary, it is not joy that predominates but a form of lucid gravity, as we face the menaces that weigh on the Republic.
So, Matthew, Nora, Patricia, Catherine, Anna: it is up to you today to carry on the torch with so many others, to make the promise of the Republic thrive, in these stormy times. Pick up the torch and pass it on to our youth, represented by the students around you this morning. Our youth must protect this taste for Republican rituals, universal national service, and many other institutions as well. Our Republican school—it is its mission, and our teachers’, to reach this goal. Our youth of France, who I wish will love our Republic with an always intact passion. Do not think that these are only words: it is a full history. It is our destinies; I only spoke of some. Love it with a passion always renewed: measure each day as one that allows you to be free citizens. It is the Republic that made you born free, that allows you to learn, to be raised in liberty, to judge, to know and to construct your life freely. This is not a given everywhere. This was not always a given.
So: every time the flag falls, you must raise it again. Every time someone threatens it, you must defend it. For others before you have defended it. So let us all gather together: you who have just joined the national community, you who were born and grew up here, and all the children of the Republic.
Being French is never merely an identity. It is a citizenship. It is the rights inherent in it. It is also the responsibilities, that is, the adhesion to its values, one history, one language, one necessity to keep the Republic standing because it depends on everyone of us at every instant. It is a battle that begins every day anew. So, together, let us form this united France that can conquer everything. And because, with the strength of their spirit, some are joining the Republic today, and you will pick up the torch.
And so, yes, with confidence we will be able to continue to say for a long time: Long live the Republic! Long live France!
1. Charlie Hebdo is a satirical magazine in Paris. It published a set of caricature depictions of the Prophet Mohammed. In response, two brothers, Said and Chérif Kouachi, stormed the magazine offices on January 7, 2015, murdering 12 people and wounding 11 more.
2. The Panthéon is a monument in Paris that has served as a mausoleum for distinguished persons since the era of the French Revolution.
3. The Battle of Sedan, September 1–2, during the Franco-Prussian War led to the defeat of French forces and the capture of the French Emperor, Napoleon III. Gambetta’s proclamation of the Republic followed.
4. The Charlie Hebdo trials.
5. A law signed by King Francis I on August 10, 1539. Articles 110 and 111 establish that legal documents must be in the French language.
