(Applause)
Transmission in all its states.
Well, let me start by making a small editing
the theme of our afternoon.
Let’s look at transmission in the states.
In fact, how do big political communities do to convey
what seems to them indispensable to the future generation?
In terms of cultural collective memory,
we know how it works.
It goes through the traditions – it has already been discussed –
traditions and customs.
Tradition is already a very good word when we take a closer look.
The Petit Larousse defines it as a way of acting or thinking
transmitted, precisely, for generations,
inside a group.
And, in terms of methods
of the transmission of these traditions and customs,
States, nations, are alike funny.
It’s as if there was an assembly kit identity,
the same for all, of which it would be enough to connect the elements,
to inscribe in the long term the identity of the group.
The element, the most important component of this kit,
it is the places of memory.
They are ubiquitous in our daily lives,
in our usual environment.
They are highlighted in museums, by the work of historians.
They crystallize in symbols, in heroes, places,
events considered emblematic.
They are learned within an education system
– national education, is not it? –
but also in the family and through the media.
They express themselves, they are celebrated in the canons of literature,
fine arts, but also popular folklore.
And finally, they are insistently reminded
in public rituals and in official commemorations.
And all that, we know it well, we live it everyday,
all that, it works perfectly.
States have managed to push that to perfection
on a national level.
And I think we have a problem here.
We do not have a problem in terms of our cultural identity
– although … –
but we have a political problem.
Let me explain.
We are not just identity animals, who
in an almost Darwinian way, are obsessed with transmitting
their singularities and particularisms to the next generation.
We also have political values.
We consciously have political values.
Often these values, expressed in norms, rights, principles,
have been hard-won over a long time.
And, in the best case,
in the best case, these political values are precisely the fruit
an emancipation of ancient traditions and customs.
Precisely, they come from a break with the old regimes of all kinds.
I have some examples, here, of norms, principles, political values,
from the past,
that are based, based on lessons learned in the past.
We have a problem.
Whether we like it or not, we have a problem.
Today, this transmission of political values,
it is, like the transmission of cultural values,
perfected nationally.
But we live in a world
– the look on our smartphone or in the newspapers reminds him every day –
which is more and more interdependent.
The social groups that compose it
should actually be a little more able to transcend
their initial conditioning at the national level,
should be able to imagine real solidarity
beyond this straitjacket which is bequeathed to them by this transmission.
Only in Europe, we launched a small and modest attempt
in this sense, to imagine a different coexistence of these groups,
in the form of a kind of community, with more or less strict rules
which members voluntarily submit to.
But to get there, it took three indispensable prerequisites.
The first was a historical trauma,
an unparalleled traumatic experience.
It was the second world war,
the horror at the horror of carnage,
and the fear of the collapse of civilization,
that we thought impossible and who was finally embodied
in the concentration camps and, finally, in the atomic bomb
and total destruction.
Already, this traumatic experience was needed.
Then, it took a small window of opportunity,
open for a brief moment.
But opportunity seized by some men, not many,
resolved to seize it, and especially very aware of the volatility of things
and the remarkable ability of the human being
to quickly forget what he has learned from the past.
And thirdly, it took very quick setting up,
while the window was open, institutions of a new type.
Jean Monnet, who was both the engine and the brain
what must be called a civilizational revolution,
was, very sharply,
aware of the volatility of lessons learned in the past.
For him, institutions was the key.
As he said, the tragic experiences we have experienced,
they may have made us smarter, wiser,
but men pass, and others take their place.
And we can not pass on our personal experience to them.
What we can pass on to them are institutions.
Institutions that last longer than men.
And if they are intelligently built,
they can accumulate and transmit the wisdom of successive generations.
It is therefore the institutions, the key to the transmission of political values.
Political institutions, well, must love!
Try to tell your students, political institutions:
you put them to sleep in two minutes.
Try to discuss with your fellow citizens, during the coffee break, earlier,
political institutions: you will discover an ocean of ignorance
on their composition, their functions, the rules that govern them …
It is not won.
Try to talk a little bit about it to the media.
Try to engage journalists with the subject of political institutions.
Well, they consider him a sleeping pill.
It’s not won either.
Political institutions, what a nuisance, how slow and how inertia!
And again, at the national level, there is a little spice,
in the clash of the egos,
in the confrontation of extraordinary individual destinies.
France knows something about it.
But on the European level, it’s doubly more boring,
it’s doubly slower, and it’s doubly more inert.
Already, the European institutions, they are distant,
they are, of course, disconnected from the citizen,
they are heavily disabled
by the linguistic diversity that slows everything even more.
They have too much expertise,
unless it’s not enough skill.
Anyway, they do not have the right skills.
And they suffer from a persistent democratic deficit.
In terms of boredom, inertia and slowness,
it will be difficult to do better than the European institutions.
It’s obvious.
Still …
Nevertheless, they continue to transmit, indirectly,
almost unconsciously, a value learned from the past,
a conclusion drawn.
Jean Monnet’s challenge was to set up institutions
before men forget
what they had sworn never to forget.
And today, at the beginning of 2017, can we draw up a balance sheet?
Can we dare to evaluate this bet that was taken more than 65 years ago?
So, we can say that, in terms of institutional inertia,
we who wish, I think, to live in a democracy,
inertia is a great quality.
I want to sing to you the praise of inertia, slowness and boredom.
Inertia is a huge quality.
It is, especially for democracy, it is a protection.
Democracy is inherently fragile.
It is, by nature, by definition, exposed to short-termism
imposed by the elections.
And it is also plagued by the volatility of public opinion,
and therefore to demagogy of all kinds.
Inertia is a formidable bulwark against oblivion,
against the always amazing ability of the human being to repress,
and also against the good old nationalist reflexes
So, I sing the eulogy of institutional inertia on the European level.
Is this a success,
in terms of development, I would say, quantitatively, of these institutions?
We can say that the European Union today has exceeded
all the hopes that the founding fathers might have.
The small High Authority for Coal and Steel
has become a big, big commission, like a spider
at the center of a complex and multifaceted institutional web.
It’s impressive, as a result.
Of course, the European institutions are strongly criticized,
in all Member States.
And, I think, often rightly.
Far, far from perfect.
But, sorry,
while it scolds right and left in the Member States,
while the British pack their bags,
while academics, academics, think-tanks,
editorial writers tear themselves apart
to know if more or less Europe is needed,
all the time, the institutions,
in this sometimes annoying inertia, but oh so precious,
continue, day after day, to deal with the thousand details of this unique market,
to try to find solutions to all the problems that Member States
refourguent because they do not find a solution themselves,
and to transmit, without being really aware of it, this initial lesson
which was to be transmitted according to the founding fathers.
Me, I call it a big success
in terms of institutional development.
Now, in terms of human solidarity,
it may be something else.
I would almost say that the European Union today
it’s a pretty precise case study for this huge difficulty
that human beings of the 21st century are feeling
when it comes to going beyond the national framework
in which they were sociabilized, in which they are a little prisoners,
in which they have been conditioned.
The great sociologist Norbert Elias, in the last book
of his Great History of Human Civilization,
decades ago, these moments were highlighted,
in the long civilizational history of humanity,
these highly problematic moments
where interdependence and social integration in a society
have already, in fact, actually reached a higher level,
but where the cultural identity of the individuals that make up these societies
remains fixed, taped, at a lower level.
Highly problematic. Moments of great tension.
Well, it seems to me that these reflections, this theory, is very well adapted
to describe us there, in these first decades of the twenty-first century.
So, in terms of human solidarity,
the account is not quite there yet.
Now, personally, I have a huge chance.
I take bus number 6 from the Angevin network line,
and when I go to work, or when I come back,
approaching the Lake of Maine College,
there is always a small female voice, sympathetic, that whispers in my ear:
“Next stop: Jean Monnet. “
Honestly, every day, it amuses me a little.
This is the man who had the idea of making the transmission
values learned from the past, through institutions,
itself an object of memory transmission.
It’s pretty funny, almost funny.
And at the same time, despite the times,
every day in my bus,
I force myself to see it as a promise for the future.
Next stop: Jean Monnet.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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