In both form and content, the speech delivered had the exact same pedigree as those honoring the other great figures Macron had celebrated there since June 2017. An almost caricatural illustration of this was provided by the national tribute to Claude Lanzmann, held on Thursday, Jin the Court of Honor at the Invalides. Each finely turned phrase follows on from the previous finely turned phrase, and despite the carefully calibrated additions of “I wished” or “I firmly believe that”, the reader cannot detect any personal intervention by the person delivering the speech. Reading the thirty or so above-mentioned speeches in succession – a largely artificial exercise in that each focuses on a single target – generates a feeling of lassitude. While the president’s office is careful to point out at the head of each speech transcript on its website: “seul le prononcé fait foi” (that is to say, “speaker’s notes, may differ from delivered version”), one may legitimately wonder who is actually speaking when the president gives a speech. Macron, however, did not pass up the opportunity to appear alongside the rock star’s white coffin in front of the Église de la Madeleine – after having celebrated, the day before, at the Invalides, the writer who had instructed not to place his (many) decorations and Academician’s sword on the flag draping his coffin, just a black pen. General de Gaulle gave no eulogy for either Piaf or Cocteau, the latter having been acquainted with the corridors of Vichy and Nazi power under the Occupation. Then on Decem– in a rerun of October 11, 1963, when within the space of a few hours Édith Piaf and Jean Cocteau both passed away – France lost its most famous singer, Johnny Hallyday, followed by the most telegenic member of the Académie française, Jean d’Ormesson. Though all three were public figures, their careers made them unlikely candidates for this type of ceremony in this type of place. It seems that a policy to nationalize “great men” (and “great women”) is being ushered in before our eyes, as instanced by the military honors paid to Simone Veil in the Court of Honor at the Invalides a few days after her death in July 2017, to Jean d’Ormesson in December of the same year, and then to Claude Lanzmann in July 2018. Or else honoring the deceased, for Macron is prodigious in his funeral eulogies. Lastly, there are Macron’s speeches honoring specific living individuals, those appointed – by a power vested solely in the French president – to one of the two existing top-level ranks (or “dignities”, Grand-Officier and Grand-Croix) in the two remaining orders of merit, namely the Legion of Honor and the National Order of Merit 2. To this already long list could be added his speeches on such fundamental subjects as the catholic religion and secularity (the so-called “Bernardins speech”), and the future of the EU construction process (at the Charlemagne prize-giving ceremony in Aachen). Other topics pertain more to the occasion attended, be they political (the seventh congress of the French Association of Mayors (the AMF), the annual dinner of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (the CRIJ) and of its counterpart the French Council of Muslim Worship (the CFCM), speeches to the two houses of parliament in joint sitting at Versailles in July 20) diplomatic (official visits, regular bilateral meetings with heads of European governments, the UN General Assembly, the EU Ambassadors Conference) or cultural (the opening of the Frankfurt book fair, and on two occasions speeches about Francophonie and the French language, topics Macron holds dear). They include directly historical topics, such as Oradour-sur-Glane, the Vel d’Hiv Roundup, the First World War, and the figures of Clemenceau and Maréchal de Lattre when visiting the Vendée. The range of subjects is noteworthy, as if virtually every speech provided Macron with an opportunity to distil his vision of history. I was thus able to assemble a corpus of thirty or so texts, from the new president’s first official words to his address when Simone and Antoine Veil’s ashes were transferred to the Panthéon on July 1, 2018. All Macron’s speeches since his inauguration on are readily available on the presidency website.
One source initially seemed indispensable.
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