From Charles Trenet to Jean Ferrat: two songs that are the head and tail of the French Republic

In early April, in an interview I gave to TeleSUR television network, � that was broadcast showing images of the demonstrations and riots on the streets of France against the deplorable CPE law (First Job Contract) � I praised the braveness of the French people, the only population in Europe still capable of resisting some of the most insolent attacks launched by neoliberalism. They had proven this last year, with the coup de gr�ce given via referendum to a European constitution project that pursued to install the capitalist economy as the sovereign protagonist, disguised under the fa�ade of western democracy. And they did so despite the endorsement of this unacceptable document � a brainchild of the political dinosaur Val�ry Giscard d'Estaing [1] � by both the ruling right in the Elysium and the political apparatus of the powerful French Socialist Party (PSF), the bourgeois "left".

It is important to recall that a few weeks before the French �no,� the Spanish people had swallowed that same pill without saying a word �in this case provided by the "left wing" bourgeois rulers of the Spanish Socialist Workers� Party (PSOE) [2]. The European constitutional project had been just accepted also by nine other countries of the EU (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia), either through referendum or by parliamentary decision.

Also during November and December, 2005, the Gallic country was global news, when the youths with no prospects, living in the ghettos surrounding each French city, discovered � maybe not intentionally � a new method of class struggle: to burn, night after night for many weeks, the "metaphoric" symbol of the western corporate capitalism, the automobile [3,4]. The CPE law � later imposed without any previous negotiation by acting Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin � in the French National Assembly, was precisely the cure that the government sought to heal the cause of those disturbances; a cure that, as it is usually said, was worse than the illness, because it enforced the labour precariousness using the parliament's power. Without that law, what is happening now is only a "tolerated" excess that the capitalist employers use to claim the right to subject millions of young and not so young people, to a state of continuous proletariatisation and uncertainty, depriving them of a job with prospect [5].

France, a nation that carries in its genes the memory of the images of that indescribable May, 1968, has given the world an example again in 2006, by winning this arm-wrestling against the up-to-now charismatic De Villepin, and smashing in a few weeks his unstoppable way to the top, which could have taken him to the presidential chair in the next 2007 elections [6].

The Dark Side of the French Republic

In a recent email to one of his mailing lists, the Belgian author Michel Collon expressed his surprise for the distorted opinions that the New York public has on France. In a documentary broadcast by the French-German television network Arte, the interviewees said things like �France is a socialist country,� �the French are always on vacation,� or �the young people demonstrating against the CPE hope that the government finds them a job, instead of looking for one themselves.� [7] �What is the illusory image that the American media are constructing of the French?� Collon wonders. To answer this question we have to take into account that the global media, not only from the US but from all over the world, are controlled by multinationals and have become the new missionaries of corporate capitalism [8,9]. Therefore, they transmit a fabricated image in favour of their own benefit, not the image of reality. The best way to guarantee that nothing changes in France is to present it before the opinion of the global audience as a country able to defeat neoliberal globalisation through street demonstrations, something that is rigorously false, but useful to improve the conscience of the antiglobal movement; meanwhile, the professional politicians and their corporate partners continue to crush the function of the social welfare state.

The Scream by Juan Kalvellido

Is it logical, then, to admire the French Republic as an institutional apparatus? I don�t think so. One thing is to be proud, as human beings, of the social braveness of the extra-parliamentarian left personalities, such as the union member Jos� Bov�; or proud of those millions of solidial French that don't hesitate to go out to the streets to protest. But another very different thing is to believe that, in practice, their actions are more valuable � although they largely are; I wish we, the other westerners, were like them � rather than a hot towel over the aching cancerous skin of a sick person, good to alleviate the suffering but nothing more, because the only real hope of a cure would be the surgical extirpation of the tumour. France, like almost all countries, is sick of capitalism and is not the defeat of the CPE law what will change the balance of the scale between rich and poor. In other words, laws and politicians are transitory, but the system remains. Dominique de Villepin would probably cry and scream today, bitterly regretting his failure in the Munchian way Kalvellido has painted, but tomorrow his chair will be occupied by another colleague, just as dreadful, and there will be no real variation at all.

The French Republic, as we all know, arose from a revolution whose main objective was to destroy feudalism in order to substitute it for the bourgeois regimen; this, unfortunately, cannot go unnoticed. It continues to be the same republic that re-established slavery in Haiti, � where it had been previously abolished � so that the little Caribbean country had to conquer its independence at the cost of blood. It continues to be the same republic that opposed the Commune, punished Dreyfus, collaborated with Nazism, fought a dirty war in Algeria, was dishonoured in Indochina [10], squashed May �68, struck against Greenpeace, exploded atomic bombs in the Pacific, still maintains a colonial army in Africa, and the same that recently joined the US in the shameless coup d'�tat against the Haitian constitutional president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. From any point of view slightly related to the principle of solidarity between human beings, the French Republic is an authentic ruin.

From Robespierre to Chirac manners have evolved, not the essence. The bourgeois revolutionaries didn't want to improve the world, but just the prerogatives for their social class. Neither does Chirac want to do so, nor even less Mitterrand, perfect representative of social democracy, which is a corruption of the socialist ideal that accepts capitalism and distorts the left concept, transforming it into a simple slogan to win useless elections. It is true that it will always be better to have a �Mitterrand� than a �Chirac,� but that�s all. The border dividing social injustice from the democratic redistribution of wealth was never in danger in France under either of them.

Charles Trenet's Nostalgia

As it usually happens, it is artists who have better captured the reality of the world where they lived or were born in. Bernal D�az del Castillo, Victor Hugo, S.M. Eisenstein and Pablo Picasso left us everlasting monuments that can be used to dialectically analyse the socio-economic conditions of their time. Nonetheless, I won't be referring in this essay to works considered �major� pieces by the giants of culture, but to two simple songs. Although both are apparently insignificant (who was the senseless person that labelled popular music as a minor form of art?), they express the perfect definition of the French Republic�s ideology as a power apparatus: the first one, Douce France, from the laudatory point of view of the bourgeoisie and the second, Ma France, from the revolutionary left.

Every text, whether cinematographic, pictorial or literary, �is� what it says, independently of who filmed it, painted it or wrote it. And, except for a pure accompanying anecdote, it is a fallacy to include data of the author's biography in its analysis. It is true that the great French chansonnier Charles Trenet (1913-2001) [11], author of La Mer and Douce France � two of the most famous songs of all time in France �, came from a well-to-do family; his father was a notary, so, little Charles could have access to education during a particularly dreadful time for the humble classes in France. Undoubtedly, this remarkable detail influenced the ideological bias of Douce France � as the reader can verify below � in which he nostalgically highlights his memories, but he doesn�t go any further. Not in vain it has been said that nostalgia, with the uncritical thinking it provides, is a right wing feeling. Written in 1943 during the Vichy government, everything in Douce France � the way to school, the landscapes, the houses, the horizon � is seen through rose-coloured glasses. And what to say about that terrible word, �unconsciousness,� that unconsciously escapes amid the verses as a Freudian slip? Let�s forget for a minute about Charles Trenet to focus on the �narrative voice� telling the story, the �communication device� which is, as a matter of fact, the one that speaks to the reader/listener. This is the voice of the French bourgeoisie: their happy words are located in the no-man's-land of narcissist self-satisfaction, uncovering the bourgeois congenital selfishness, their inability to feel compassion or rage in front of the social inequalities oozing from the capitalist pustule. The France described in the bars of Douce France is a wonderful land, the Garden of Eden, the hallucinating idea that the French Republic government has of itself, its egomania and empty rhetoric on human rights, democracy, liberty, equality and fraternity

Douce France by Charles Trenet [12]

Sweet France by Charles Trenet

Il revient � ma m�moire Des souvenirs familiers Je revois ma blouse noire Lorsque j'�tais �colier Sur le chemin de l'�cole Je chantais � pleine voix Des romances sans paroles Vieilles chansons d'autrefois   Douce France Cher pays de mon enfance Berc�e de tendre insouciance Je t'ai gard�e dans mon c�ur ! Mon village au clocher aux maisons sages O� les enfants de mon �ge Ont partag� mon bonheur Oui je t'aime Et je te donne ce po�me Oui je t'aime Dans la joie ou la douleur Douce France Cher pays de mon enfance Berc�e de tendre insouciance Je t'ai gard�e dans mon c�ur   J'ai connu des paysages Et des soleils merveilleux Au cours de lointains voyages Tout l�-bas sous d'autres cieux Mais combien je leur pr�f�re Mon ciel bleu mon horizon Ma grande route et ma rivi�re Ma prairie et ma maison.

Familiar memories Come to my mind I see my black student�s smock again On the way to school Singing rhymes without words, Old songs from the past, at the top of my voice   Sweet France Dear country of my childhood Rocked with tender unconsciousness You are in my heart My town, the steeple, the houses Where the children of my age shared my happiness Yes, I love you And I offer you this poem Yes, I love you In happiness and pain Sweet France Dear country of my childhood Rocked with tender unconsciousness You are in my heart   I have known wonderful Landscapes and suns During long trips Everything under other skies But I continue to prefer My blue sky, my horizon My road, my river My prairie and my house.

Jean Ferrat�s Inquisitive Eye

On the other side of the ideological spectrum is the song Ma France, music and lyrics by singer Jean Ferrat (1930- ) [13], written in 1969, after the failure of the French May �68. Ferrat is one of the living glories of the golden age of the chanson fran�aise, together with Charles Aznavour. He has had a much less international projection than Aznavour or than other celebrities such as Gilbert B�caud, Charles Trenet or �dith Piaf, probably because of his resolute commitment to the Marxist left.

Staunch and consistent internationalist, he has paid musical tributes to Antonio Machado, Federico Garc�a Lorca and has written the music for many poems of Louis Aragon and other poets from the left. He is the author of remarkable songs such as Cuba Si, Potemkine, La Montagne, A Santiago (Cuba�s) and of that wonderful song titled Nuit et brouillard on the victims of Nazism.

But let�s go back to Ma France, which Ferrat himself sings with his beautiful tender timbre. Same as in Douce France, the narrative voice doesn't hide at all the love for the country inspiring these verses (Je n'en finirai pas d'�crire ta chanson / Ma France), but there is no nostalgia, nor concealment for the dark side of its history. On the contrary, the bitter reality arises unexpectedly to question the professional politicians tarnishing the name of the republic (Cet air de libert� au-del� des fronti�res / Aux peuples �trangers qui donnaient le vertige / Et dont vous usurpez aujourd'hui le prestige) and to remind the reader/listener that a part of the French people still has a revolutionary memory (Elle r�pond toujours du nom de Robespierre / Ma France). Following such premises, the narrative voice takes sides and goes straight ahead to the party of the dispossessed � happily omitted in Douce France, as if they wouldn�t exist � of the children who worked in the mines, of the factory workers, of those who, as Marx pointed out, just have the strength of their own arms; and the apotheosis of the song is a poetic image of the rebellious France, the one emerging from the mines and descending from the mountains, the beautiful insurgent France. Jean Ferrat�s inquisitive eye doesn�t suffer from the guilty blindness affecting Trenet. He knows very well the reality of the French Republic, and these thirty-seven year old verses have not aged: anyone could have written them today.

Liberty Leading the People takes in water, anonymous found on the Net, after Delacroix

The Bourgeois Democracy as a Problem

The commendable spirit of fight of the French people, one of the most wonderful results of their Revolution, makes it harder for the bourgeois politicians in power to fool the masses if the lies they use are significant. That is one of the fundamental characteristics marking the difference between the French and the rest of their European neighbours, who are all easy prey for the sorcerer�s apprentices controlling the continental res publica. However, in a globalised world it is useless to win partial battles such as the one against the European constitution or against the CPE law, because these are just mere accidents in the journey of neoliberalism, which continues to be deeply entrenched in the government. At least by now, in this merciless war against popular freedoms, the enemy is winning, because the real problem � believe me � is the socio-economic order defended and represented by the bourgeois democracy in the West, from Helsinki to Buenos Aires. That order, unaffected to this date, acts like a straitjacket that blocks any advance towards socialism. The self-named left French and European parties� a self-denomination delightfully accepted by the global corporate media and that comes to reaffirm its falsehood � are, at the most, social democrats, only interested in enjoying the prerogatives of power.

As the 2007 presidential elections in France approach, and after the fall from favour of Dominique de Villepin, only two candidates are shaping up as capable of leading the competition: Nicolas Sarkozy representing the traditional right-wing (because the fascist National Front is never going to win) and S�gol�ne Royal for the moderate right, that is, for the French Socialist Party. The above-mentioned lady is the companion of Fran�ois Hollande, general secretary of the PSF. She is being the protagonist of a typical media campaign of public relations, something that for sure will take her to the investiture as candidate of the "left.� But even if she manages to become the first woman to occupy the position of President of the Republic, the social regime is not going to change, because in Europe in general, and particularly in France, are still to be born the Castros, Chavez�s, Marcos and Morales, those radiant suns from Latin America, the only place in the world, I have said so before, where there is still any hope left.

NOTES

[1] Val�ry Giscard d'Estaing (1926- ), president of the French Republic from 1974 to 1981.

[2] The abstention percentage in Spain was enormous, 57.68%. For more information.

[3] See Michel Collon, Banlieues: 10 questions

[4] See Manuel Talens, Lucha de clases en el patio trasero del pa�s de Robespierre (Class struggle in the backyard of Robespierre�s country)

[5] See Osvaldo Coggiola, Francia inaugura una nueva etapa pol�tica en Europa. Translated from Portuguese into Spanish by S. Segu� and Ulises Ju�rez Polanco. Revised by Caty R.

[6] Dominique de Villepin is a career diplomat with the look of a movie star, who has never been elected. In 2005, President Jacques Chirac chose him to substitute the less charismatic Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, in order to counteract the excellent percentages of acceptance of radical right winger Nicolas Sarkozy (whom Chirac hates in spite of him being a man of his party) for the coming 2007 presidential elections. In the current media-monopolised society, where image is worth more than ideas, everything was going great for De Villepin until he made the mistake of trying to impose the CPE law, a mistake that will probably crush his future political career.

[7] See Michel Collon, La imagen de los franceses. Translated from French into Spanish by Beatriz Morales Bastos.

[8] See Global Media: The New Missionaries of Global Capitalism, by Edward S. Herman & Robert W. McChesney, Continuum Intl Pub Group (Sd), 1997. Spanish edition: Los medios globales, los nuevos misioneros del capitalismo corporativo, Ediciones C�tedra, Madrid 1999 (translated by Manuel Talens).

[9] See Attacking the Monopoly of Information from the Digital Media, by Carlos Mart�nez. Translated from Spanish into English by Manuel Talens.

[10] I invite the reader to find and listen to a wonderful song written by Jean Ferrat in 1966, Pauvre Boris, dedicated to the musician and author Boris Vian that says �Voil� quinze ans qu�en Indochine la France se d�shonorait.�

[11] For a short biography of Charles Trenet in French

[12] Douce France

[13] For a short biography of Jean Ferrat in French

[14] Ma France

[15] Louis-Adolphe Thiers, first president of the French Third Republic. He is infamous for having bloodily suppressed the Commune of Paris insurrection when he was the prime minister.

[16] Celle de trente-six � soixante-huit chandelles. This verse of consonant rhyme (belle / chandelles) refers to two important dates of French left history during the 20th Century, 1936 and 1968. The first one was the year of L�on Blum�s Front Populaire victory in parliamentary elections, whereas the second one was the year of the French May insurrection. Ferrat introduces a play of words with chandelles, which is part of a French language boxing idiomatic expression voir les trente-six chandelles � literally �to see the thirty-six candles� � equivalent to the English language �to see stars� after a blow on the head. This ingenious rhetoric metabole permutation of both numbers allows the singer to metaphorically represent the failure of the 1968 students uprising at the hands of the French Republic�s repressive apparatus.

Translated from Spanish into English by B�rbara Maseda and revised by Mary Rizzo, with an illustration by Juan Kalvellido, all of them members of Tlaxcala (www.tlaxcala.es), the network of translators for linguistic diversity.

This essay can also be read in Spanish at Rebeli�n. It was translated into French by Paz G�mez and revised by Salim Lamrani.

 � Copyright 2006 by AxisofLogic.com(translation copyright)

About the author: Manuel Talens, Granada, Spain, is a novelist, translator and a well known political analyst on the Spanish-language electronic alternative media. He joined Axis of Logic as a regular columist earlier this year. You can read his bio and additional essays on Axis of Logic.