Juliette Reboul
Is the French Revolution really over? Since the beginning of the political campaign for the 2012 Presidential Elections in France, Eva Joly, candidate for Europe Ecologie-les Verts, brought up the theme twice in public debate. [1] On the 14 of July 2011, she created a scandal, by arguing against the militarisation of the National Fest. She then proposed the creation of a Maison de la Revolution Francaise in Paris.[2] This was about a month ago. To all the aficionados of the French Revolution, there already exists a Museum of the French Revolution in Vizille (http://www.domaine-vizille.fr/indexPreHome.php), which was founded in 1983. Yet, it remains a regional museum. Strangely, no such place exists in Paris, and when a tourist asks for the “Musee de la Revolution francaise”, he is randomly sent to the Musee Carnavalet (http://carnavalet.paris.fr/).
This Maison de la Revolution francaise would be located in the Hotel de la Marine (currently used by the French Navy), vacant from 2014. The location is highly symbolical, as the Hotel is situated in the Place de la Concorde, formerly known as the Place Royale and then Place de la Revolution. On this very place, Louis XVI (21 January 1793) and Marie-Antoinette (16 October 1793) were guillotined; Charlotte Corday (murderer of the Jacobin leader Marat) and Philippe-Egalité (Duke of Orléans) lost their heads. A few months later, the execution of Robespierre, Couthon and Saint-Just on this very same place sounded the end of the Terror. As a matter of fact, the only criticism (and unfortunately one of the only political comments) arose from the Action Francaise, a small political organisation from the far-right wing. Its highly catholic and ultra-royalist rhetoric still refers to the Counter-Revolution as a political model.
Is this lack of criticism the sign of a decay and lack interest from the French people in revolutionary history? Since 1989 and the bicentenary, the French Revolution as a topic stopped being so controversial. The French Revolution is now part of the French heritage, and the interrogation of its meaning is left to historians and scholars. [3] The lack of enthusiasm from the French people towards this proposition is symptomatic of the identification and petrifaction of the event “French Revolution”. And it is this very symptom that Eva Joly wishes to cure with her Maison. It would be both an “historial” (history museum) and a forum. Scrutinising Joly’s vocabulary, one could wonder why she choose the word Maison over Musee. To a French mind, Maison echoes either the 1936 Front Populaire or Malraux’s Maison de la Culture. Indeed, De Gaulle’s Minister of the Culture attempted to create regional spaces dedicated to the diffusion of scientific knowledge to a provincial and/or popular audience. This Maison de la Revolution francaise would be one out of many educative and discussion spaces dedicated to the diffusion of “Republican values”.
As interesting as this idea sounds, one should not forget that this project is part of an electoral political campaign. And nonetheless, as the winner of the 2012 election will be Head of the French State for the five following years. This project is patently opposed to Sarkozy’s “pompous” Maison de l’Histoire de France, “sad simplifying engine”. The smaller chronological scale of the ecologist candidate’s Maisons (note the plural) could avoid a national – possibly nationalist – Manichaeism. Refusing to celebrate an “imaginary national novel”, Eva Joly positions herself as a candidate opposed to the Right wing, and in the continuity of the French Left-wing parties. Francois Mitterrand, French President and socialist between 1981 and 1995, celebrated with pomp the bicentenary of the French Revolution. Furthermore, Eva Joly creates a parallel between the Ancien-Regime and the Sarkozy’s presidency: financial, moral and cultural crisis, creation of a new aristocracy, etc. Current polls indicate that Eva Joly would receive seven per cent votes at the Presidential Election. Therefore, the prospects for the opening of such a place are slim.
[1] Eva Joly is a Franco-Norwegian magistrate and politician. She is particularly famous for her crusade against corruption (Credit Lyonnais, Elf-Aquitaine,etc.). On June 2007, she was elected as a French member of the European Parliament. In 2011, she was elected in the primaries of Europe Ecologie- Les Verts.
[3] Marcel Gauchet, in Antoine de Baeque, Pour ou contre la Revolution.
