Ode to France, “country of my favorite ideas”

[This article was published on March 30, 2025 and republished on September 14 as part of our Open Days.]

For half a century I have lived in this country, “the true paradise on Earth by the grace of God,” according to Heinrich Heine [1797-1856]. This inhabitant of Düsseldorf [and Paris] called himself a “German Frenchman” and was the most French of Germans. Heine had gone to the part of France that became my second home, Brittany , “to collect beautiful folk songs,” but what he found “were people burning with enthusiasm for the Revolution” …

I have never seen “my France” as I do now: in complete disarray—and above all, troubled by its own disarray. It is like the fear of fear in those of us who are prone to neurosis; it is more serious than any concrete fear and constantly engenders new fears. The raw reality that France is facing is already harsh. The old reflexes, the old instincts, the capers, the tricks that have always helped are no longer of any use. French sentiment, which is so wonderfully formed in the deepest convictions, is eaten away by disarray.

To be clear: I am biased, passionately biased. I do not look at this country with a cool head; this is not an editorial. I venerate France, with my head but above all with my heart. Since my youth, I have been desperately “French,” like so many other Germans, especially those of my late-boomer generation (I was born in 1966) who, through their birth in western Germany, came across people—parents, teachers, early protectors—who had experienced war against this “sworn enemy,” but who were also inspired by a deep thirst for this neighbor: Camus, Sartre, Beauvoir, Foucault, Jacques Brel, Godard, or Jacques Tati.

For me, France was very early on the land of ideas, and even a mine of ideas. When you are a “French German,” you idealize France. Of course, this is a mistake, and yet it is a good thing. An admirer perhaps sees the essential, perhaps has a clearer vision.

The vast group of "French Germans" has existed since the beginning of the ^19th century: Börne, Büchner, Heine, Wagner, Herwegh, Marx, Liszt had been driven to cross the Rhine by German despotism – the policy was harsh. "Rather freedom with the French than servitude with the Prussians" was the solution.

Many of my favorite authors, composers, painters, artists, thinkers, and philosophers come from France. The same goes for my favorite dishes and flavors—which are always rooted in the earth, the sea, and the terroir *—and my favorite wines and spirits. But above all, my favorite ideas come from France. Those of the Enlightenment, of modern democracy, of the republic, of equality, of secularism, of the “union of European peoples.”

Let us read the speech given by Victor Hugo at the opening of the Congress of Friends of Universal Peace in Paris in 1849: “A day will come when France, you Russia, you Italy, you England, you Germany, all of you, nations of the continent, without losing your distinct qualities and your glorious individuality, you will merge closely into a higher unity, and you will constitute the European brotherhood.”

There are, however, two ideas that form the basis of everything else: liberty and a radical universalism. Both emerged in France and both are, as we shall see, more relevant than ever. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 26 August 1789 is certainly the most impressive manifestation of this . This text constitutes the finest imaginable distillation of French humanism, yet resolutely global, “for this Declaration of the Rights of Man, on which all our political science is based,” Heine considers, “did not originate in France, where it was certainly most gloriously proclaimed, but in Heaven: in the eternal homeland of Reason.”

It is a code of Reason, into which various contradictions have crept – as is the case in concrete terms with everything historical. Indeed, although these provisions postulate equal rights for all, they concentrate on a white, bourgeois, male elite.

Today, we must fundamentally purge this text of any particularism or Eurocentrism, not to put universalism aside, as so many forces of darkness would like, but to strengthen it, to make it truly universal. This means for Western democracies in this year 2025: tackling extreme economic and social inequalities, the scale of which is approaching those of the ^19th century – in France, as in all Western democracies. History has taught us that the tensions caused by such drastic inequalities do not lead to a luminous revolution of Reason but to authoritarian catastrophes.

The inequality of living conditions strikes us as a sad caricature in the French capital. Paris is now only a dream for the very well-off; for the rest, that is to say, most people, it is a suburban nightmare. * This observation can easily be transposed, on a slightly different scale, to cities like Lyon, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Nice, as well as to all the beautiful corners and coasts of the country.

The beach *? The privilege of a private beach has certainly not existed since the Revolution, but it is not necessary: ​​money governs the social separation between campsites , relegated far inland, and the beautiful homes on the coast much more effectively than pre-revolutionary property law. If the beach was one of France's utopian classless places – like the Café Central * of small towns – where the mayor's family spent a day alongside those of the baker, the shoemaker, and the schoolteacher, this is now a thing of the past on some coasts.

As I said, for thirty years now, Brittany has warmly welcomed me for a few months in a small village near Concarneau, the “blue city,” where my commissioner Dupin * solves all his cases. My parents also live in a French village, even smaller than mine, far to the south, half an hour from Perpignan. Deep France*.

This is where France lives, and it doesn't understand what's happening to it right now. When I go to see my parents there, I can't help but think of a quote from my great history teacher. I went to a German bilingual school, and my history teacher was French, in a stern black turtleneck sweater, a Gauloise without filters, an existentialist, of course. One day when we were debating the post-war order, she proudly declared that if you looked at life in the communes, France was organized in a socialist way, like the GDR.

Along the Rebenty, a furiously romantic river [a tributary of the Aude], we find eight of these tiny picturesque villages like the one my parents live in, dense forests teeming with wild boars; a few kilometers further, the Cathar castles; to the south, the mountains, we are quickly at 3,000 meters; the most beautiful beaches of the Mediterranean are 40 minutes away. Let's take a look at the quasi-socialism that my teacher once spoke of. What do we see?

All these tiny communities have their own town hall *, with a flag, the elected mayor and a female assistant inside, a small town car, and a road worker * who looks after the streets and also acts as the village caretaker. The mayor invites all the residents at least four times a year – at the beginning and end of summer, for the end of the First World War, and for New Year's. There is good food and drink, paid for by the town, stories are told, and discussions always last until the early hours of the morning.

Located on the edge of the mountain, my parents' village, with only 52 inhabitants, is connected to very high-speed Internet ; the school bus comes every day from Quillan, 20 kilometers away, for two children. The town has three apartments, which are inhabited by people "from the North" looking for work; the rent is paid by the state. If a resident has an infected wound, someone comes the next day from the medical center a few kilometers away to take a blood test. If there is cause for concern and the person cannot travel on their own, the state takes them to the center.

The town hall * has a small library with books and DVDs, plus a wardrobe. There is also another room that any of the 52 residents can use for this or that, for example, a private party – free of charge. You can go to Perpignan by bus for one euro and return for another euro, 65 kilometers each way. The roads are in excellent condition. You can set your watch to the high-speed trains (TGV)* that arrive in Perpignan, a real dream for poor Germans.