29 September 2016
Own Gaul
It won’t do you any good, Sarko.
by Richard Pooley
“You must accept that your ancestors are the Gauls.” This was the message ten days ago from ex-French President Nicolas Sarkozy to those immigrants who wished to become French citizens. He was immediately mocked by politicians and commentators from across the political spectrum. Najat Vallaud–Belkacem, France’s Education Minister, reminded Sarkozy that “there are also Romans, Normans, Celts, Niçois, Corsicans, Arabs, Italians, Spanish. That’s France.” She could have added many, many more – e.g. Catalan, Basque, Breton, Flemish, Portuguese, Polish, Ivorians, Senegalese, Vietnamese, and, yes, English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish. The tribes of France are numerous.* Vallaud-Belkacem is herself French-Moroccan (and perhaps a future Socialist party candidate for the presidency; she will be Francois Hollande’s campaign manager should he decide to seek re-election). What makes Sarkozy’s statement even odder is that his own ancestors are certainly not Gauls. His father emigrated from Hungary to France. His mother was born in France but her origins were Greek and Jewish.
Who were these Gauls that Sarkozy thinks future Syrian or Afghani-born French citizens should regard as their forebears? And why is he making such silly remarks?
The Gauls were Celtic tribes who occupied much of what are now France, Belgium, Switzerland, southern Germany and Austria from the 5th Century BC. The area of ‘Gaul’, famously described by its conqueror Julius Caesar as “divided into three parts”, extended northwards beyond the borders of modern France. So, should we regard the Bretons to be the true ancestors of today’s French people? After all, they’re Celts, aren’t they? Oh no, wait a minute, didn’t the Bretons come over from Cornwall to escape those Germanic Anglo-Saxons after the Romans left Britain? Ah, yes, but surely René Goscinny (whose parents were Polish Jews) and Alberto Uderzo (whose parents were Italian) placed Astérix’s village in Brittany because this was the Gaulish heartland? Actually, no. Goscinny left it to his illustrator to decide and Uderzo loved Brittany. Well, how did the Romans regard the Gauls? The Roman historian and soldier Ammianus Marcellinus described them in the late 4th Century AD as:
“… of a lofty stature, with a fair and ruddy complexion: terrible from the sternness of their eyes, very quarrelsome, and of great pride and insolence. A whole troop of foreigners would not be able to withstand a single Gaul if he called his wife to his assistance; she is usually very strong and with blue eyes…”
Oh dear, Sarkozy; “of a lofty stature” does not seem to have come down to you from your supposed ancestors. Maybe the description of the Gaulish wife is more to your liking. But then again your wife, Carla Gilberta Bruni, was born in Italy, the product of an affair between her Italian mother and her Brazilian father.
The Gaul as the ur-Frenchman was an invention of France’s historians, politicians and educationalists during the middle to late nineteenth century. Napoleon III wanted to finish the job started by his uncle, Napoléon Bonaparte (christened Napoleone di Buonapartea, his first language was Corsican, an Italian dialect): to create a nation state called ‘France’ in which everyone spoke the same language and learned a common history. In the 20th Century, right-wing French nationalists have perpetuated the notion that only those with Gaulish ancestors can truly be called French. Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain, hero to all French people during the First World War, traitor to many (but certainly not all) during the Second, promulgated it. So too has Jean-Marie Le Pen, father of Marine Le Pen, the leader of the far right Front National.
Perhaps Sarkozy has been influenced by the name of his political hero, Charles de Gaulle. The surname makes it unsurprising that de Gaulle’s father came from a long line of Normans and Burgundians (but weren’t those Normans called that because they were men from the North, i.e. Vikings?). Yet de Gaulle’s mother’s ancestors included Scots, Irish, Flemish and Germans.
It’s the growing popularity of the Front National and Marine Le Pen which explains why Sarkozy is spouting this nonsense about immigrants accepting Gauls as their ancestors. A poll last Thursday confirmed what has been predicted for nearly a year: she will win the first round in the French presidential election next April with 25-28% of the vote. The poll also reinforced what continues to be the opinion of the French media and every French person I have asked: she won’t win the second round and become president. Whoever comes second in the first round will be swept to power in the second by a combination of his genuine supporters (it will definitely be ‘his’) and the ‘Anyone but Le Pen’ brigade.
The person who appears most likely to be that successful second round candidate is the Republican Party’s Alain Juppé, the 70-year old former prime minister (1995-1997) and current mayor of Bordeaux (1995-2004, 2006 – now). In a poll conducted on 15/16 September, Juppé was viewed favourably by 39% of voters of all persuasions. His two main rivals in the Republican Party, the 61-year old Sarkozy and 62-year old Francois Fillon (another former prime minister), each got an approval rating of 23% from all the voters sampled. The hapless Francois Hollande got just 16%, by the way. Among those respondents who declared themselves to be on the right, Juppé scored 69% and Sarkozy 64%.
There are seven candidates who will contest the Republican Party’s primary on 20 and 27 November to decide who will be their standard bearer. This is the first primary it (and its previous incarnation, the UMP) has ever held. Juppé, Sarkozy and Fillon are the clear favourites. Anti-Corbyn members of the British Labour Party may wish to stop reading at this point though. The primary is open to any French voter who pays 2€ and signs a document which says they share the Republican Party’s values. Already there are reports of Socialists and Front National supporters paying less than the price of a coffee (well, a Parisian one) in order to join in the fun. They, no doubt, will vote for whoever will pose the least danger to their man (probably) or woman (definitely) respectively.
Sarkozy seems to think that he needs to distance himself from the more moderate Juppé if he is to have any chance of winning the primary. So, he is trying to appeal to the nationalist, anti-immigrant sentiments of far right voters. But I believe he has misjudged them. First, why would they vote for a paler version of Le Pen and why would they vote for someone who in their eyes is an immigrant? Secondly, they don’t give a damn about their supposed 2000-year old ancestors. They simply want to stop any more non-white Muslims coming into France and would love to see a lot of their non-white Muslim fellow citizens kicked out as well. They think that only Le Pen and the Front National will make this happen.
I don’t have to go far to see how unmoved the French are by the myth of their Gaulish ancestry. I live just two kilometres from the site of the Gauls’ last stand in 51 BC against Julius Caesar and his Roman legions. The French government recently declared that the Battle of Uxellodonum took place on and around the cliff-sided puy which rises to the west of our village, much to the chagrin of two other villages in southern France who had advanced their cases for decades. The mayor of our village managed to find enough money to build a large car park close to the spring on which the besieged Gauls relied for their water supply and which Caesar successfully blocked. Signs appeared advertising this major event in French history. Local museums displayed Roman and Gaulish finds from archaeological excavations. And nobody came.
The only car I have ever seen in the car park is ours. But then, Mr Sarkozy, perhaps this Englishman is looking for his roots. After all, my surname probably means that I have ancestors who were French chicken farmers. But were they Gauls? At least, Mr Sarkozy, I am of a lofty stature and have fair hair. And my English wife is indeed very strong (though her eyes are not blue). And we know that some of her ancestors were French Huguenots.
It’s all so confusing, this ancestry lark.
*read chapters two and three of The Discovery of France by British historian and keen cyclist Graham Robb for a quirky but fascinating description of these tribes.
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