J- 2

[chani]

I will post about Nihous, Royal and Sarkozy later, but I want to add something about our previous flyers.

As

sister_luck pointed out it was very populist, showing Le Pen as an action man (despite his age!) with a carnassial smile. In his handwritten motto, Le Pen wrote "Vive la Vie, Vive la République Vive la France" in that order. I checked out and he's the only one who used the word "la vie". I think it's interesting. What does that mean?

I believe it's a wink to the traditionalist (pro-life) Catholics who, according to the polls, would tend to vote for Sarkozy. Le Pen had to use a card that other candidates from the right didn't dare to use. He can no longer rely only on his infamous "La France aux Français" and the nationalist speech about immigration because De Villiers AND Sarkozy took up that field too (Sarkozy even stole his motto "La France tu l'aimes ou tu la quittes!"). 

So "La Vie" appears on the poster just as sacred as "La République" or "La France" (the use of la République is to reassure people of course). It's a simple message, 3 truths, 3 unchanging values. Le Pen is assuming a pro-life profile by using the word on his poster. A year ago his daughter said that abortion was a horror but seemed to have given up the idea of repealing the Loi Veil. Le Pen backed her up. Now he says that if he's President he will hold a referendum on abrogating abortion.

Of course the same candidate is also asking for the return of death penalty in France while the law that bannished it in 1981 is now part of our Constitution ! "Vive la Vie" has obviously its limits...

So I can't help posting extracts from the famous speech of a Republican who asked for the repeal of death penalty in May 1791...

 

« La nouvelle ayant été portée à Athènes que des citoyens avaient été condamnés à mort dans la ville d'Argos, on courut dans les temples, et on conjura les dieux de détourner des Athéniens des pensées si cruelles et si funestes. Je viens prier non les dieux, mais les législateurs, qui doivent être les organes et les interprètes des lois éternelles que la Divinité a dictées aux hommes, d'effacer du code des Français les lois de sang qui commandent des meurtres juridiques, et que repoussent leurs mœurs et leur constitution nouvelle. Je veux leur prouver, 1° que la peine de mort est essentiellement injuste ; 2° qu'elle n'est pas la plus réprimante des peines, et qu'elle multiplie les crimes beaucoup plus qu'elle ne les prévient.

Hors de la société civile, qu'un ennemi acharné vienne attaquer mes jours, ou que, repoussé vingt fois, il revienne encore ravager le champ que mes mains ont cultivé, puisque je ne puis opposer que mes forces individuelles aux siennes, il faut que je périsse ou que je le tue ; et la loi de la défense naturelle me justifie et m'approuve. Mais dans la société, quand la force de tous est armée contre un seul, quel principe de justice peut l'autoriser à lui donner la mort ? quelle nécessité peut l'en absoudre ? Un vainqueur qui fait mourir ses ennemis captifs est appelé barbare ! Un homme fait qui égorge un enfant qu'il peut désarmer et punir, paraît un monstre ! Un accusé que la société condamne n'est tout au plus pour elle qu'un ennemi vaincu et impuissant ; il est devant elle plus faible qu'un enfant devant un homme fait."

(...)

 "Écoutez la voix de la justice et de la raison ; elle vous crie que les jugements humains ne sont jamais assez certains pour que la société puisse donner la mort à un homme condamné par d'autres hommes sujets à l'erreur. Eussiez-vous imaginé l'ordre judiciaire le plus parfait, eussiez-vous trouvé les juges les plus intègres et les plus éclairés, il restera toujours quelque place à l'erreur ou à la prévention. Pourquoi vous Interdire le moyen de les réparer ? pourquoi vous condamner à l'impuissance de tendre une main secourable à l'innocence opprimée ? Qu'importent ces stériles regrets, ces réparations illusoires que vous accordez à une ombre vaine, à une cendre insensible ! elles sont les tristes témoignages de la barbare témérité de vos lois pénales. Ravir à l'homme la possibilité d'expier son forfait par son repentir ou par des actes de vertu, lui fermer impitoyablement tout retour à la vertu, l'estime de soi-même, se hâter de le faire descendre, pour ainsi dire, dans le tombeau encore tout couvert de la tache récente de son crime, est à mes yeux le plus horrible raffinement de la cruauté.

Le premier devoir du législateur est de former et de conserver les mœurs publiques, source de toute liberté, source de tout bonheur social. Lorsque, pour courir à un but particulier, il s'écarte de ce but général et essentiel, il commet la plus grossière et la plus funeste des erreurs ; il faut donc que la loi présente toujours au peuple le modèle le plus pur de la justice et de la raison. Si, à la place de cette sévérité puissante, calme, modérée qui doit les caractériser, elles mettent la colère et la vengeance ; si elles font couler le sang humain, qu'elles peuvent épargner et qu'elles n'ont pas le droit de répandre ; si elles étaient aux yeux du peuple des scènes cruelles et des cadavres meurtris par des tortures, alors elles altèrent dans le cœur des citoyens les idées du juste et de l'injuste, elles font germer au sein de la société des préjugés féroces qui en produisent d'autres à leur tour. L'homme n'est plus pour l'homme un objet si sacré : on a une idée moins grande de sa dignité quand l'autorité publique se joue de sa vie. L'idée du meurtre inspire bien moins d'effroi lorsque la loi-même en donne l'exemple et le spectacle ; l'horreur du crime diminue dès qu'elle ne le punit plus que par un autre crime. Gardez-vous bien de confondre l'efficacité des peines avec l'excès de la sévérité : l'un est absolument opposé à l'autre. Tout seconde les lois modérées ; tout conspire contre les lois cruelles.

On a observé que dans les pays libres, les crimes étaient plus rares et les lois pénales plus douces. Toutes les idées se tiennent. Les pays libres sont ceux où les droits de l'homme sont respectés, et où, par conséquent, les lois sont justes. Partout ou elles offensent l'humanité par un excès de rigueur, c'est une preuve que la dignité de l'homme n'y est pas connue, que celle du citoyen n'existe pas : c'est une preuve que le législateur n'est qu'un maître qui commande à des esclaves, et qui les châtie impitoyablement suivant sa fantaisie. Je conclus à ce que la peine de mort soit abrogée. »


Maximilien Robespierre, Discours devant l'Assemblée, 30 mai 1791.

Récupérée de « http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Discours_sur_la_peine_de_mort_%28Robespierre%2C_1791%29 »

Comments

[jamalov29.livejournal.com]

"Vive la vie " a ses limites , je le crois. Et juste à propos de la peine de mort , je souhaiterais son rétablissement pour les crimes d'enfants.La perpétuité n'est à mon sens , pas suffisante pour de telles atrocités.
Je sais que cela irait à l'encontre d'une clause votée il y a quatre ou cinq ans lors de la Convention Européenne des Droits de l' Homme , et que aucun homme politique ne fera ce choix mais j'ai la conviction que la mort peut , dans certains cas trés particuliers , être une forme de justice.

Tout ceci étant une affaire d'opinion , pesant bien peu par rapport à la Constituion Française.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Comme tu t'en doûtes je ne suis pas d'accord avec toi. Je ne crois pas qu'il faille admettre la moindre exception, ça serait vider la loi de sa substance. J'adhère complètement à l'argumentation de Robespierre.

La justice ne doit pas trouver sa source dans l'émotionnel si elle veut rester la justice, et admettre la peine de mort pour les tueurs d'enfants (ou parce que tout est forcément subjectif pour d'autres crimes jugés supérieurs aux autres, car certains te diront qu'il y a pire que ça!) n'a rien de juste, c'est un simple exutoire et c'est une brèche d'où peuvent subvenir toutes les dérives.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

I can't find a translation and this is just too much French for me. I'd love to comment, but I can't!

I was wondering why Le Pen stressed La Vie - I read it more as 'way of life' or national identity, but of course the pro-life angle is definitely part of it. It's strange how many people are anti-abortion but adamantly for the death penalty. I don't get that.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately it's beyond my skills...and I feel too lazy to translate it!

I wish you could find a translation because Robespierre makes some excellent points! His speeches are always so articulate. Sadly they didn't listen to him then and death penalty wasn't abrogated by the deputies.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

It's okay - I wasn't complaining, well I was, but not because you posted it in French, but because it doesn't seem available on the web in English or German. I'm lazy, too, - with the help of a dictionary and a French grammar I should be able to read it, but that's too much work right now.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

[continued]
Listen to the voice of justice and reason; it cries out to you that human judgements are never certain enough for society to put to death a man condemned by other fallible men. Could you imagine the most perfect judicial order, could you find judges with the highest integrity and enlightenment, there would still remain some room for error or prejudice. Why do you forbid the means of rectifying them? Why do you make it futile to offer a helping hand to oppressed innocence? What matter these sterile regrets, these illusory reparations that you accord to a vain shadow, to insensible ash? They are the sad witnesses of the barbarous recklessness of your penal laws. To take from a man the possibility of redeeming his crime through his repentance or acts of virtue, to close off from him pitilessly any return to virtue or self-esteem, to hasten to cast him, so to speak, into the tomb still covered with the recent stain of his crime, is to my eyes the most horrible refinement of cruelty.

The first duty of the legislator is to form and to preserve public morals, source of all liberty, source of all social happiness. When, in order to achieve a specific goal, he strays from this general and essential goal, he commits the most gross and deadly of errors; it is therefore necessary that the law always presents to the people the most pure model of justice and reason. If, in place of this powerful, calm, moderate sternness which must characterise them, they place anger and vengeance; if they make human blood flow, that they could spare and that they have not the right to shed; if they were in the eyes of the people cruel scenes and bodies murdered by tortures; so they change in the hearts of the citizens the ideas of justice and injustice, they kindle in the heart of society fierce prejudices which produce others in their turn. Man is no longer for man so sacred an object: one has a less great idea of his dignity when public authority plays with his life. The idea of murder inspires far less fright when the very law gives the example and the spectacle; the horror of the crime diminishes as soon as it is no longer punished except by another crime. Stay well away from defeating the effectiveness of punishments with an excess of severity: one is absolutely opposed to the other. Everything supports moderate laws; everything conspires against cruel laws.

We can observe that in free countries, crimes are more rare and penal laws are more lenient. All ideas support it. Free countries are those where the rights of man are respected, and where, in consequence, the laws are just. Everywhere where they offend against humanity with an excess of rigour, it is proof that the dignity of man is unknown, that that of the citizen does not exist; it is proof that the legislator is only a master who commands slaves, and who punishes them pitilessly acording to his whims. I conclude that the death penalty must be abolished.

Well, he covered most of the bases, and I think I agree with him. All I wonder now is what on earth happened to the man who could make such a speech, once he took power himself?

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

And I'm not really sure how those got out of order, since I posted them consecutively...

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

It doesn't matter. Thanks for doing the job!

If you ever need something to be translated in French, just ask me.

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

All I wonder now is what on earth happened to the man who could make such a speech, once he took power himself?

Mmm Robespiere wasn't quite what people usually think. Mostly war happened (his speeches against war are also very insightful, especially the part in which he foreshadowed the coming of the Tyrant aka Bonaparte). For instance few people know that the members of "Le Comité de Salut Public", including Robespierre himself, had to be re-elected by the Convention every week.

I think that something did happen to him at some point though, when he started losing the connection he had with the mass.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

For instance few people know that the members of "Le Comité de Salut Public", including Robespierre himself, had to be re-elected by the Convention every week.

I didn't know that - interesting. I suppose the question is, by the time the Committee took power, was the Convention still a functioning body or had it been purged into a compliant puppet? (By comparison, I'm thinking of the English House of Commons after Cromwell and the Army took power in 1649.)

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Actually the Committee was a temporary government (until the war was won) established by the Convention itself and by the Commune de Paris, just like Le Tribunal Révolutionnaire. In June 1793 there was a purge indeed (ordered by La Commune de Paris), the Girondins were expelled but at the same time the Convention refused to sue them at the Tribunal (so in Province the Girondins started an uprising, the insurrcetion of Federalist). Danton was "in charge" of the Committee until July 93 by the way. The Convention elected Robespierre to the Committee the 27th of July , although he had not sought the position.

There was actually a constant struggle for power in the institutions at the time. The Jacobins manage to rule everything until Summer 1794, because their views fit in the context of war (civil war and war against European kings)and Robespierre was the voice of the Jacobins, but even between them there were struggles (basically there was a right wing and a left wing)that were obvious in the Committee and there was also a constant rivalry between the committee and La Commune de Paris (mostly ruled by Hébert and Les Enragés).

Robespierre didn't have any special charge in the Committee he was just a member like the others, but he did have charisma and an obvious influence thanks to his speaking skills so he played the role of connection between the Committee and the Convention (he convinced the deputies to vote many social laws), and between the Committe and the Commune de Paris.

According to the sources he was always depressive and in Spring 1794 he went absent very often. I do think something broke inside of him then. He was much less articulate in his speeches, he lost perspective.

So I don't think that the Convention was a mere puppet, the deputies decided to follow Robespierre for a long time and then chose to stop listening to him, refused to pass his motions, followed his adversaries and voted his arrest first in July 1794 and then declared him an outlaw (which meant death penalty without a trial)because they feared a Parisian uprising (which Robespierre apparently couldn't bring himself to order while he has follower at La Commune de Paris).

The myth of Robespierre the Dictator has been partly built by Les Thermidoriens like Barras who took power throough a mere coup d'Etat, that and of course after his death many of his colleagues tried to save themselves (there was a White Terror then) by blaming Robespierre.

The assembly became a real puppet when army took the real power during the Directoire and of course when Napoleon became First Consul. But that is another story...

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

So Robespierre was really just riding the tiger? Thanks for that!

(I'm reminded again of Cromwell, who I think was also an idealist who found himself placed in charge without really wanting the role - except that, in his eyes, there was nobody else who could be trusted to do the job properly without betraying what they'd fought for.)

For some reason the French Revolution was never something I was able to study either at school or university - it fell between the gaps of the syllabus every time. However, we did take a detailed look at the Russian Revolution and there seemed to be a general assumption that we should already know what happened in 1789-onwards, because of all the comparisons people made both at the time and afterwards. (One interesting snippet of information is that when the people were rioting in Petrograd in February 1917, the Tsarist authorities first started to get worried when the crowds started singing La Marseillaise... I don't know if they were singing it in French or in a Russian translation, though. :)

[frenchani.livejournal.com]

Can you tell I'm rather a robespierrist and an anti-Bonaparte?

Yes there are some similarities between the French Revolution and the Russian one (and many differences too!). The 1789-1792 phase is a bit like February 17 while October 17 and the civil war that ensues may recall 1793-1794.

And Orwell must have felt it when he named his pig Napoleon !

But I must say that none of this stuff is my special field as an historian, I'm a medievalist.

[sister-luck.livejournal.com]

Wow, you certainly did a great job! Thanks a bunch.

It is a very good speech.

[stormwreath.livejournal.com]

It's been a long time (*cough*25 years*cough*) since I last did French-to-English translation like this; let's see if I still can...


News having been brought to Athens that some citizens had been condemned to death in the city of Argos, they ran into the temples, and prayed to the gods to turn the Athenians away from such cruel and deadly thoughts. I come to ask not the gods, but the legislators, who must be the organs and the interpreters of the eternal laws which Providence has dictated to men, to wipe from the French Legal Code the laws of blood which command judicial murders, and are repugnant to their customs and their new constitution. I want to prove to them, 1st that the death penalty is essentially unjust, 2nd that it is not the most effective of penalties, and that it multiplies crimes much more than it prevents them.

Outside civil society, should a fierce enemy come to attack me or, repelled twenty times, return again to ravage the fields that my hands have cultivated, since I can only oppose my individual strength to his own, it it necessary that I perish or that I kill him; and the natural law of self-defence justifies me and approves. But in society, when the force of all is armed against one alone, what principle of justice can authorise giving him death? What necessity can absolve them of it? A conqueror who puts to death his captive enemies is called barbarian! A grown man who cuts the throat of a child whom he could disarm and punish, seems a monster! An accused man whom society condemns is nothing more to them than a conquered and powerless enemy; he is before them weaker than a child before a grown man.

[to be continued...]