Philosophers From France

"Halévy's account of foreign policy, however, is, in my opinion, the weakest aspect of his History... [I]t remains true that Halévy's innate distaste for power politics growing out of his general dislike for the factor of force in public affairs did prevent him from treating diplomacy with the sympathetic penetration that characterized his discussion of internal problems."

"Professor E. Halévy is best known in England for his Historie du peuple anglais au XIXe siècle, the first volume of which appeared in 1913. English critics generally agreed that it ranked among the best histories of the period."

"James Mill and Jeremy Bentham lived for him: Canning and Peel were his companions: the Wesleyans were not abstractions, but human flesh and blood. Above all, he had a justice and a balance in his views, and a clarity in his expression, which made him a master of exposition. Perhaps he had not eloquence, though he could lecture as few men can: perhaps he had not the gift of style, though he could say exactly, and with a rigorous economy of words, just what he wished to say. Such things would have been incompatible with the severe simplicity which was his essence. He had no artifices: he laboured simply to understand, and to set down simply his understanding. His book on the formation of philosophic radicalism, and the first volume of his history, are standing witnesses, and they are likely to be enduring witnesses, that he succeeded in his endeavour. His interpretation of English thought and English life, through all the long years from the youth of Bentham to the end of the World War, is one of the greatest gifts which the genius of France could have made to England, and it is a gift which English scholars will not forget."

"The Labour leaders are men whose doctrine requires them to make the state stronger, and whose good British instinct is to make the state as weak as possible."

"Modern socialism is a doctrine with a double aspect... It is a doctrine of emancipation...and it is a doctrine of organisation."

"I can still hear Sidney Webb explaining to me that the future lay with the great administrative nations, where governing was done by the bureaucrats and order was maintained by the policemen."

"M. Brunschvicg has said of L'Angleterre en 1815 that it is not only a model of what an exhaustive study of a civilization should be: it is also a masterpiece of psychological insight. The praise is just. It is no wonder that English scholars, and the English public in general, have come to recognize Halévy as the great interpreter of nineteenth-century England."

"Charity towards mankind as a whole, Hope in the future welfare of the human race, Faith in the possibility of furthering, through co-operation between nations, the cause of knowledge and culture, of everything that the eighteenth century, the most Anglo-French century in history, called by a fine name, "enlightenment"—Les Lumières. It is in this philosophical spirit that I mean to approach my difficult subject."

"Father, mother, child, which express both the union of the sexes and de production of the being, can only be considered dependently on one another, and relatively to one another. A woman could exist without the existence of a man; but there is no mother if there is no father, nor a child without both of them. Each one of these ways of being presumes and recalls the other two; that is to say, they are relative. Considered thus, they are called relationships, in Latin, ratio; father, mother, child are persons, and their union forms the family. The union of the sexes, which is the foundation of all these relationships, is called marriage."

"In the social body as in every organized body — that is, one in which the parts are arranged in certain relationships to each other relative to a given end — the cessation of vital functions does not come from the annihilation of their parts, but from their displacement and the disturbances of their relationships."

"A nobleman is not only a subject, he is the most subordinate of all."

"Marriage is therefore not an ordinary contract, since in terminating it, the two parties cannot return themselves to the same state they were in before entering into it. And if the contract is voluntary at the time it is entered into, it can no longer be voluntary, and almost never is, at the time of its termination, since the party which manifests the desire to dissolve it takes all liberty from the other party to refuse, and has only too many means to force its consent."

"Dancing on a tightrope requires that one maintain an equilibrium from one moment to the next by recreating it at every step by means of new adjustments; it requires one to maintain a balance that is never permanently acquired; constant readjustments renews the balance while giving the impression of ‘keeping it’."

"Marine Le Pen continues to have the support of working-class categories, especially precarious, young working poor voters, whereas Eric Zemmour, for the moment, is rather a candidate supported by men with rather bourgeois socio-economic positions, certain fringes of business circles, craftsmen, shop owners and older voters"

"The oratorical talent of Eric Zemmour, whom everyone recognises, could appear to some voters as something that Marine Le Pen does not know how to do, or no longer knows how to do."

"The choice for all those people in trouble, including the Yellow Vests, is between not voting or a protest vote. You should not underestimate the non-voters, that was very strong. And that opens up for Éric Zemmour the possibility that people who don't believe in voting anymore say: finally a candidate outside the system and anti-system, so let's try it."

"Eric Zemmour is not a politician. Eric Zemmour is someone who talks about the country, its difficulties and its future. And he is very successful, precisely because he speaks about the reality of our country without using the doublespeak of our politicians."

"The real question is whether [Zemmour's rise in the poll] is a media bubble which is linked to his overexposure in the media -- an overexposure which is likely to continue -- or if it is a real, deeper phenomenon which sees Marine Le Pen losing voters due to a fatigue after her party repeatedly failed to conquer power"

"Much of France has been abandoned. That screamed his anger in 2018 and now feels recognized by Éric Zemmour."

"I think Les Républicains should give their support to Eric Zemmour in a very formal way, because Les Républicains voters have long been waiting for someone like him on immigration, justice and security issues."

"Very clearly, he is someone who is very much to the right of the political spectrum, both on the socio-economic axis and on the cultural axis."

"Zemmour, as an individual, has never campaigned on the far right. He was never a member of the National Front. He calls himself a Gaullist."

"The only difference between Eric and myself is that he is Jewish."

"Our commitment is that France will never come to resemble the abandoned Calais of today."

"I want France to be in Europe, but I want France to come before Europe... With me the European flag will never fly without the French Tricolor."

"Whether you share Eric Zemmour's beliefs or not, by sponsoring his candidacy you are contributing to the return of pluralism."

"Eric Zemmour is a man from the right who has never belonged to the extreme right, or to Mrs. and Mr. Le Pen's party. But he is someone who has the ideas of Geert Wilders about Islam and migration. We have the paradox that Marine Le Pen, who has been called the far right for the past 20 years, is being overtaken by someone who is much harsher and more pessimistic."

"The first problem is France's destination and demographics. The invasion of migration. We have a big problem and we absolutely have to solve it, otherwise France in 20 years will no longer be France, but an area like Lebanon with communities fighting each other."

"Trump has forged a coalition between the workers and the patriotic elite. I strongly believe in the coalition that has brought Trump together. Just like Boris Johnson. That, I think, is the political axis of the future."

"Eric Zemmour became a television celebrity for his ability to debate. He is a polemicist who's renowned for his extensive culture and his very good ability to defend and communicate his ideas. And he first had the reputation of someone who has a passion for oratorical jousting."

"What else should we call the beheading of Samuel Paty a year ago or, say, the policewoman who had her throat slit in her own office? The sixteenth-century wars of religion also started little by little. It took fifty years for the struggle between Protestants and Catholics to erupt on Bartholomew's Night in 1572."

"The brightest representatives of the Islamic diaspora have long figured out how to use this liberalism to blow up the remnants of the nation-state, free themselves from the weak authority of the republic, and establish the law of Allah in their own enclaves."

"Islam is a civilisation incompatible with the principles of France."

"For my ancestors, the arrival of the French was an enormous progress. The door to culture, freedom and emancipation opened, they were no longer second-class citizens."

"A French first name shows that you really want to belong. The family name refers to the civilization of the country of origin that is left behind. The French first name refers to the future."

"Demography determines our destiny."

"Thierry Baudet I met him once. A very likeable man. He wants the Netherlands to remain the Netherlands. Just as France has to remains France."

"Eric Zemmour is a writer, a journalist who, for twenty years, has been alerting the public opinion and our leaders to the fact that our country cannot cope with a completely deregulated immigration like the one we have known for decades; that security is the first of freedoms; that figures for petty crimes, attacks on property and people are skyrocketing and that soon, in France, we will have a serious problem with that."

"To call your child Mohammed is to colonize France."

"I am aware of the enthusiasm that my potential Presidential candidacy can evoke. That enthusiasm exists because the French people do not want to die. It is there because there is hope."

"I still can't go of course. But if I didn't go, I would disappoint a lot of people. One would consider it desertion. As betrayal. And that also counts in my decision-making. I will choose the moment myself. And it will be there soon."

"The question of who is allowed to stay on French soil is a political issue par excellence that should not be left to "an oligarchy of national and European judges. The French should be able to decide that for themselves.""

"I would add that Eric Zemmour is rather largely what one calls a declinist, that is to say, the idea that France was better off before and that the power of France, the support and respect that France inspires abroad, its influence in international relations have only declined. And that without a surge of national spirit, France is poised to disappear."

"Camus was speaking about a show on France Culture, and while he expressed himself in terms that were certainly maladroit, the campaign against him was totally unjust. Demographic substitution, is “not a conspiracy theory.” He testifies to the anxiety of French identity, but he is so radical in his propositions. He’s become totally inaudible."

"Le Grand Remplacement is not merely about the replacement of some people by others. It is also, the fact that everything is replaced by something else: the original by the copy, the authentic by the imitation, the object by its facsimile, writers by intellectuals, literature by journalism, journalism by information, information by fake news, Venice by Venice in Las Vegas, Las Vegas by Las Vegas in a Spanish desert or anywhere else. The fake is at the heart of global replacement. This is a world where everything is fake, where everything is the imitation of what things should be."

"Replacists will be eaten, devored, absorbed, replaced by their replacers même, Replacists replace lambs by wolfs. They replace docile replacees, well prepared to their own repalcemement by excess of comfort, too much civilization, too little culture and constant propaganda, by rather agressive replacers, younger, more numberous, testeronically superior, well fed by their replacees and fiercely identitarian Replacists will be gobbled up first. That is a meager consolation."

"Racism turned Europe into a field of ruins. Anti-racism has turned it into a hyperviolent slum."

"The creed of tolerance preached by liberal elites has inaugurated a world where the Holocaust becomes more and more difficult to teach and where Jews are obligated to flee by the thousands."

"I think my life is united, Tricks was an attempt to say what could not be said, and Le Grand Remplacement is the same. Homosexuality could only be mentioned in an erotic context, and never in simple terms. Tricks is a paradoxical book that shows that what is told isn’t extraordinary, that there isn’t much to tell, in fact.” The mission of the great writer in society is to go toward what is not said, the untold part of the discourse."

"Has not printing freed the education of the people from all political and religious shackles? It would be vain for any despotism to invade all the schools ... The instruction that every man is free to receive from books in silence and solitude can never be completely corrupted. It is enough for there to exist one corner of free earth from which the press can scatter its leaves. How with the multitude of different books, with the innumerable copies of each book, of reprints that can be made available at a moment’s notice, how could it be possible to bolt every door, to seal every crevice through which truth aspires to enter?"