Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and ...

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Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III because here lays the frontiers of the Sarkozism’ frankness. The “legende noire” as put by Hugo (1863) in which the emperor’s memory faded away still makes of Bonapartism a highly taboo word in the Paris political circles. Yet, if you leave these cozy salons and have a walk in the French streets, you might notice among some strikers’ flyers and banners slogans like “Stoppons Napoleon IV avant son coup d’état!” or “Sarkoleon, 2012 sera ton Sedan” 2 . If you want to have a newspaper pause in a coffee shop, you might find either in the editorial or political sections articles correlating Sarkozy’s policy to Napoleon III’s one, brightened up with anachronistic photo montages of the French president with a Napoleonic hat, Second Empire style. Are all these parallelisms simply the latest fancy discovery of journalists in perpetual search for audacious and striking sentencing? Are these French citizens abused by their Unions representatives in their perception of the very power that makes them invade the French streets? As a matter of fact, an academic response will be as crystal clear as uncompromising: the Sarkozism is undeniably rooted in the Bonapartist legacy of the French Right wing family. Hence, this research project established outstanding resemblances between the governance, Sarkozy style, and the way Napoleon III ruled France; thus far with acknowledging the limiting factors linked to the social, cultural, economic, and overall disparities of the Second Empire’s France and the contemporary one in order to adjust the academic lens of a Napoleon III/Sarkozy comparison. This being said and academically established, the time has come to broaden the analytical perspective to examine Neo-Bonapartism in contemporary French politics. ***** 2 Confer the references section of the website where these flyers and banners are to be presented. A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 100
Neo-Bonapartism? A parallel between Nicolas Sarkozy and Napoleon III What is Neo-Bonapartism in contemporary French politics? If it is true that it was Nicolas Sarkozy that pushed the farthest the reapprochment of the French Right wing with the Bonapartist side of the political spectrum under the Fifth Republic system, his political and historical significance stops here. In few words, it is not the personage that is worth examining any furthest, but rather what he stands for, and what his transforming from president of the French Republic into president of France reveals of the recent developments of the French politics, thus of the society these very politics frame and evolve within. In even fewer words, it is France in herself that should be examined. Bonapartism is not a pop-up political phenomenon that invades the political sphere in an overnight process, but rather a slowly-developing occurrence that roots its foundations in the social uneasiness, in the economic unrest, in the religious and cultural malaises. Here lies the force de frappe of Bonapartism. Its entire political dynamic requires the sine qua non collective aspiration of change to create the conditions necessary to its good functioning, to its deep-rootedness in the political framework. Call it change or simply political reactionnarism, the raison d’etre of this federative ideology capitalizes upon a formidable mass aspiration movement. In fact, even if all the French citizens did not vote for the candidate Sarkozy in 2007, they all agreed on the necessity of shaking up things, of healing a French system in shreds. Such a collectively and powerfully shared desire expressed itself even earlier, before the Sarkozist access to power, in the 2002 presidential race, embodied by the Le Pen seiure of a second ballot ticket. Decades of both lukewarm Right and Left policies left a bitter- tasting assessment: the French system was on its knees, be it economically, socially, or culturally. Change thus was the expression of the political radicalization of France: at this point, A website dedicated to this project is available starting Dec 7 th 2010 at: http://www.aui.ma/personal/~Y.Assaoui/ 101
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