NADINE Morano with Nicolas Sarkozy.
NADINE Morano with Nicolas Sarkozy.

MUCH unwillingly as it is, French politicians of the Left but also of the Right are at the moment furiously scratching their own (and each others’) backs and crying foul. The cause behind this abrasive malaise happens to be Nadine Morano, a Republican party activist and former minister under President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Morano, currently a member of the European parliament, was invited recently on a late night TV talk show. One of the inevitable questions put before her concerned the unprecedented influx of refugees. “Welcoming immigrants from war-torn regions is one thing,” she said calmly, “but France has no reason to sacrifice its own identity as we are after all a white-skinned civilisation with our own values and culture.”

This caused uproar not only in the Socialist circles but also within Morano’s own party. Given today’s pensée unique and global village ideologies that dominate all intellectual debates, one is not supposed to mention skin colour. Besides, with the regional elections due in December, the rightists and the leftists are both keen on not losing the sympathies of the immigrant voters.

So there was an avalanche of devastating criticism from both the camps. But apparently Morano had expected it and had kept at least two trump cards up her sleeve. She slammed them down one after the other during another interview: “Some time ago I happened to be on a visit to Yamoussoukro where I made a statement saying the Ivory Coast was a country of black-skinned people and that foreign countries had no right to intervene there. Not only had no one objected, my declaration was hailed as something very positive. Why should a similar affirmation about my own country become so controversial?”

Morano further explained that she was only alluding to what Gen Charles de Gaulle had said fifty-eight years ago. Then she quoted the French national hero’s own words: “This is a very good thing that there are yellow-skinned, black-skinned and brown-skinned people in France. Nevertheless they remain a small minority. Our majority consists of white-skinned Europeans with their Latin-Greek civilisation and Christian religion.” As could be expected, this added fuel to the fire. Many intellectuals of the Left came forward with the point of view that what Gen de Gaulle had said six decades ago cannot hold true today, as times change and yesterday’s values are no longer relevant.

But by now another intellectual circle has gathered behind Morano. Her supporters say if values really change with times, then all that Jesus Christ, Plato or Buddha, to take only a few examples, had taught thousands of years ago should be rendered null and void today. Taking account of this unexpected development, the Republican chief Sarkozy has so far refrained from making any direct criticism of Morano or even from citing her name. “All I have to say is that we need to control our vocabulary,” he remarked.

Republican parliamentarian and former Af-Pak ambassador Pierre Lellouche was more explicit: “She probably chose her words somewhat clumsily, but I think in her declaration Nadine Morano represents the opinion of a large majority of the French people.”

Last week she was in Moscow as the European Union’s representative at the International Security Forum. On return home Morano went directly to the village of Colombey-les-deux-Eglises to attend a religious ceremony at the tomb of Gen Charles de Gaulle.

Following a special meeting last Wednesday, Sarkozy disqualified Morano from Republican candidature in December’s elections. Invited during a television news broadcast the next day, she said she preferred losing her candidature to apologising. “I get thousands of messages every day from people of all classes congratulating me on having the courage to say what everyone is too afraid to admit,” she told the news presenter.

—The writer is a journalist based in Paris.

ZafMasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2015

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