0:00:00 > 0:00:04Now it's time for HardTalk.
0:00:08 > 0:00:11Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14Is something rotten in the Republic of France?
0:00:14 > 0:00:17As the country prepares to elect a new president polls suggest record
0:00:17 > 0:00:20levels of apathy and disillusion among French voters.
0:00:20 > 0:00:23A spate of terror attacks has sown insecurity and sparked a heated
0:00:23 > 0:00:25debate about immigration, Islam and France's identity.
0:00:25 > 0:00:32My guest today is Pascal Bruckner, a writer and public intellectual
0:00:32 > 0:00:36in the grand French tradition.
0:00:36 > 0:00:44Is France living through an age of decline?
0:01:08 > 0:01:12Pascal Bruckner, welcome to HARDtalk.
0:01:12 > 0:01:15Thank you.
0:01:15 > 0:01:18We are talking with a French presidential election very close.
0:01:18 > 0:01:21Does France feel ripe for the sort of political shock that we've seen
0:01:21 > 0:01:34in recent times both in the UK over the Brexit vote
0:01:34 > 0:01:37and in the United States with the victory of Donald Trump
0:01:37 > 0:01:38in the presidential election?
0:01:38 > 0:01:42I hope not, with all my heart I hope we won't face the same electoral
0:01:42 > 0:01:45results that you had with Brexit and that the Americans
0:01:45 > 0:01:46had with Trump.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49So we're doing everything to avoid the passage to the far right
0:01:49 > 0:01:50with Marine Le Pen.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53But at the present time we have two opposite candidates,
0:01:53 > 0:01:56Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is a Communist and a great
0:01:56 > 0:01:59admirer of Putin, and we have Marine Le Pen, the head
0:01:59 > 0:02:12of the ex-fascist party and also a great admirer of Putin.
0:02:12 > 0:02:15So it seems Putin is pulling the strings in France as he did
0:02:15 > 0:02:21maybe in the States.
0:02:21 > 0:02:23My question wasn't so much about the individual candidates
0:02:23 > 0:02:26or their ideologies but more about the mood about the public.
0:02:26 > 0:02:30I suppose if one is to generalise massively in the UK
0:02:30 > 0:02:32and the United States, we saw peoples who were angry,
0:02:32 > 0:02:35they were fearful and more than anything else they wanted
0:02:35 > 0:02:38to send a message, a very powerful message to elites they believed had
0:02:38 > 0:02:45betrayed them and left them behind.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47Is that something that France has too?
0:02:47 > 0:02:49Yes, it's exactly the same thing in France.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52People are puzzled, they're indecisive and they might bend over
0:02:52 > 0:02:54the saviour, whether extreme left or extreme right,
0:02:54 > 0:02:56who could carry out their anger.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59Of course, what happened in France, like many other European countries,
0:02:59 > 0:03:02is that the working class went from the Communist Party to the far
0:03:02 > 0:03:05right because the working class felt abandoned by the elites,
0:03:05 > 0:03:08the leftist elites, and this scenario might reproduce itself
0:03:08 > 0:03:25in Paris in ten days in May.
0:03:25 > 0:03:28I want to come back to the race and the personalities in it
0:03:28 > 0:03:33and their ideas later, but I do now want to put
0:03:33 > 0:03:40to you something that I find quite shocking and that is in your recent
0:03:40 > 0:03:43writing about the state of France today, you've said that for you one
0:03:43 > 0:03:52of the two biggest dangers and challenges facing
0:03:52 > 0:03:54the French Republic today is political Islam.
0:03:54 > 0:03:54Islamism.
0:03:54 > 0:03:56Are you serious about that?
0:03:56 > 0:03:59Yes, I'm very serious.
0:03:59 > 0:04:05We have the greatest Muslim community in Europe,
0:04:05 > 0:04:105-6 million, and the greatest Jewish community, so there's a strong
0:04:10 > 0:04:11risk of clashes.
0:04:11 > 0:04:21We know the Muslim Brotherhood on one hand, the Salafists
0:04:21 > 0:04:24on the other hand, try slowly and then constantly to re-Islamise
0:04:24 > 0:04:27the Muslim population of France and turn it against the Republic.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30It has been said overtly by many mouths, many clerics
0:04:30 > 0:04:34of Muslim confessions.
0:04:34 > 0:04:40I think it's a risk because France is a privileged target.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44If France swings over to the re-Islamisation
0:04:44 > 0:04:47of French Muslim citizens it would be a victory
0:04:47 > 0:04:51for all the fundamentalists.
0:04:51 > 0:04:54The point is you began by saying we have 5-6 million Muslims
0:04:55 > 0:05:01in France, you then proceeded to talk about a very small minority
0:05:01 > 0:05:03who take on board the ideas of the political Islamists,
0:05:03 > 0:05:09the Salafists, and a very tiny minority of that minority
0:05:09 > 0:05:11who actually consider or engage in violence.
0:05:12 > 0:05:15And to conflate that with the fact you've got 5-6 million Muslims
0:05:15 > 0:05:17in your country is to do something both misleading
0:05:17 > 0:05:20and possibly very dangerous.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23No, it's not the fact they are engaged in violence,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25as you said, it's a minority.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28There was a poll made last summer by L'Institut Montaigne
0:05:28 > 0:05:30about the state of the Muslim population in France,
0:05:30 > 0:05:33they said that 50% of the French Muslims consider
0:05:33 > 0:05:35themselves like ordinary citizens.
0:05:35 > 0:05:39They practise religion but in private.
0:05:39 > 0:05:44Amongst a very young generation, 28%-30% consider that the Sharia
0:05:44 > 0:05:55should pervade over the Republican law and they would like to come back
0:05:55 > 0:05:58to the early times of the Prophet.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01So when President Francois Hollande in the wake of...
0:06:01 > 0:06:03I can't remember which, but one of the terror attacks
0:06:04 > 0:06:07in the last couple of years, which have killed over 200 people,
0:06:07 > 0:06:09they've been terrible, but after one of those attacks
0:06:09 > 0:06:12he used the language of a war.
0:06:12 > 0:06:17Of course he declared a state of emergency,
0:06:17 > 0:06:22which still continues in your country, but he talked
0:06:22 > 0:06:28of a war.
0:06:28 > 0:06:34The same concept that George W Bush used back in the aftermath of 9/11.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36Do you think of this as a war?
0:06:36 > 0:06:40It is a war because if you go to Paris you will see soldiers
0:06:40 > 0:06:41and policemen everywhere.
0:06:41 > 0:06:51It is a kind of low-key war, you know?
0:06:51 > 0:06:53It's not a war with trenches and tanks.
0:06:53 > 0:06:57As we know, attacks can come out everywhere at any moment of the day.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00We see this week, last week, in London three weeks ago what can
0:07:00 > 0:07:04happen, any kind of person can take a car or take a knife
0:07:04 > 0:07:07and try to kill as many people as possible.
0:07:07 > 0:07:13But I'm not afraid.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16I don't think the issue is terror.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20The terrorists won't win, they have no way to transform the population.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23I think the strategy of the fundamentalists
0:07:23 > 0:07:26is much more clever.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28They want to win through predication and persuasion.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32Let me ask you a very blunt question, do you think France has
0:07:32 > 0:07:33a Muslim problem?
0:07:33 > 0:07:34Yes, like most countries in Europe.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36You would use that phrase?
0:07:36 > 0:07:38I actually picked it up from your book.
0:07:38 > 0:07:39Yes, yes, of course.
0:07:39 > 0:07:42I think this problem is also, as I said in the book,
0:07:42 > 0:07:43is also a symptom.
0:07:43 > 0:07:45I'm not the only one to say that.
0:07:45 > 0:07:52Are you aware that for so many people watching this programme,
0:07:52 > 0:08:01to talk of a Muslim problem is incitement.
0:08:01 > 0:08:08It represents the sort of inflammatory language that far
0:08:08 > 0:08:10from engendering a thoughtful debate about Islamism and security
0:08:10 > 0:08:12and French identity, actually pits communities
0:08:12 > 0:08:17against each other and lumps the vast majority of Muslims
0:08:17 > 0:08:21who live ordinary French lives, just like you do, with those tiny,
0:08:21 > 0:08:23tiny few who have bought into an ideology of violence.
0:08:23 > 0:08:30Well, it's not exactly the case, I'm not the only one to say there's
0:08:30 > 0:08:33a Muslim problem.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37Most Muslim French intellectuals say the same and the problem with Islam
0:08:37 > 0:08:40is Islamism, it's Integrism, that's why they say to ask us,
0:08:40 > 0:08:43sometimes in vain, to be aware of what is going on.
0:08:44 > 0:08:48You know we are very close to Algeria and in Algeria
0:08:48 > 0:08:51there was a terrible civil war in 1992 which caused 200,000 dead
0:08:52 > 0:08:54people and this could happen again after the death of Bouteflika.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58So yes, there is a danger and a problem and I think we should...
0:08:58 > 0:09:00You say might most intellectuals agree with me.
0:09:00 > 0:09:02Many intellectuals do not agree with you.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05Olivier Roy, who has written and studied extensively on Islamist
0:09:05 > 0:09:09extremism in France, he says, look, at root the problem here is a sort
0:09:09 > 0:09:11of cultist ideology amongst young people, nihilistic ideology,
0:09:11 > 0:09:14which then finds an expression through Islam but Islamism isn't
0:09:14 > 0:09:16the root of their psychosis.
0:09:16 > 0:09:21Do you understand what he's saying?
0:09:21 > 0:09:26Yes, but I totally disagree with him.
0:09:26 > 0:09:30I'm not the only one, like Gilles Kepel, who in my eyes
0:09:30 > 0:09:34is a real specialist of Islam because he speaks Arabics
0:09:34 > 0:09:36and he makes enquiries...
0:09:36 > 0:09:40So does Olivier Roy.
0:09:40 > 0:09:45He's just studied 100 case studies in France of young men
0:09:45 > 0:09:51who were radicalised and took on violent acts.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54He's studied their lives and their beliefs and this
0:09:54 > 0:09:54is his conclusion.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57But Olivier Roy doesn't know the Arabic world.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59He's a specialist of Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
0:09:59 > 0:09:59Iran.
0:09:59 > 0:10:01He's not very familiar with the Arabic world,
0:10:01 > 0:10:02he doesn't speak the language.
0:10:03 > 0:10:05Gilles Kepel is more aware of the real situation,
0:10:05 > 0:10:06more aware of the risk.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09And what happens those last years in Europe and France,
0:10:09 > 0:10:14what is happening every day now in St Petersburg,
0:10:14 > 0:10:20in Stockholm, last night in Germany, is it proves that the optimism,
0:10:20 > 0:10:23the deliberate optimism of Olivier Roy unfortunately does
0:10:23 > 0:10:28not fit and match reality.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31When you talk of a Muslim problem you make those millions of Muslims
0:10:31 > 0:10:34who live in France perfectly peaceably very uncomfortable.
0:10:34 > 0:10:40But you also seem to question the very notion that in France today
0:10:40 > 0:10:44there is a worrying strain of Islamaphobia.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48That is there are many people in your country who are now deeply
0:10:48 > 0:10:50prejudiced against Muslims and adopt discriminatory practices
0:10:50 > 0:10:52against Muslims too.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55Do you deny that is a problem?
0:10:55 > 0:10:59Yes, I totally deny it and I'm going to tell you why.
0:10:59 > 0:11:02I think France offers to the Muslim population a unique
0:11:02 > 0:11:04chance in Europe.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06The chance to be...
0:11:06 > 0:11:10To adopt certain religious indifference.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12The chance to believe and not to believe.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16That's exactly what France offers to Muslims and that is why
0:11:16 > 0:11:21the fundamentalists have such a violent reaction because they're
0:11:21 > 0:11:24very afraid to see all those people from Muslim origin coming
0:11:24 > 0:11:30from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia or sub-Saharan Africa,
0:11:30 > 0:11:34little by little abandoning their ritual, Ramadan,
0:11:34 > 0:11:43their religious practices, and become ordinary believers
0:11:43 > 0:11:46like we have ordinary Christians or Jews who go to the Mass
0:11:46 > 0:11:49sometimes, who do religious feats, but don't care about religion.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54Mr Bruckner, you are, I called you a rather grand public
0:11:54 > 0:12:02intellectual, you write in Paris, you have a comfortable life.
0:12:02 > 0:12:06How can you tell me Islamaphobia doesn't exist?
0:12:06 > 0:12:10Put yourself for just one minute in the position of a poor second
0:12:10 > 0:12:13generation North African immigrant living in a banlieue who has no
0:12:13 > 0:12:16chance of a job, and we know from the official statistics
0:12:16 > 0:12:20that it is much harder to get a job if you have an Arabic name
0:12:20 > 0:12:22than if you have a traditional French name.
0:12:22 > 0:12:24Put yourself in their shoes.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Don't call it Islamaphobia, please, call it racism,
0:12:26 > 0:12:30because this is a real word.
0:12:31 > 0:12:34What I don't like in the word Islamaphobia is that it blends two
0:12:34 > 0:12:36different meanings, first of the persecution of the believers,
0:12:36 > 0:12:42which of course is a crime in every country, and second the criticism
0:12:43 > 0:12:46of a religion and criticising religion is a human fundamental
0:12:46 > 0:12:50right, and so those people are not being harassed or discriminated
0:12:50 > 0:12:52against because they are Muslim but because they come from Maghreb,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55because they come from Africa, because they come from Asia.
0:12:55 > 0:13:01So let's not make religion the key of all these problems.
0:13:01 > 0:13:07Forgive me but you are the man who talks about the Muslim problem,
0:13:07 > 0:13:16so perhaps you are at the root of this issue yourself.
0:13:16 > 0:13:21Let me quote you perhaps a significant voice around
0:13:21 > 0:13:24the world, that is the UN Secretary General, who just
0:13:24 > 0:13:27the other week said, "One of the things that fuels
0:13:27 > 0:13:30terrorism is the expression in some parts of the world of Islamophobic
0:13:30 > 0:13:32feelings and Islamophobic policies, and Islamophobic hate speech."
0:13:32 > 0:13:38He has no doubt that there's such a thing as Islamaphobia.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42Yes, I knew this quote and I think it puts everything upside down.
0:13:42 > 0:13:44Why has Islamaphobia started at the first step?
0:13:44 > 0:13:48Because there were all those terror attacks during the last 20 years.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50The terrorists have generated hatred of their own religion.
0:13:50 > 0:13:57They have generated Islamaphobia, the hatred of Islam,
0:13:57 > 0:14:01which, by the way, in France is not so strong because the statistic
0:14:01 > 0:14:04of the last two years made by the Human Rights Commission show
0:14:04 > 0:14:07that the amount of anti-Muslim acts have considerably decreased by 60%.
0:14:07 > 0:14:13That's the glass half full but the glass half empty
0:14:13 > 0:14:19is that there are still every year scores, getting on to the hundreds
0:14:19 > 0:14:22of attacks, specific attacks, on Muslims because they're
0:14:22 > 0:14:23Muslim in France.
0:14:38 > 0:14:41No, no, no.
0:14:41 > 0:14:43I'm sorry, no, no.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46First you have to understand, that we have had two terrible -
0:14:46 > 0:14:48three terrible terrorist attacks, against Charlie Hebdo,
0:14:48 > 0:14:49on the Bataclan, and in Nice.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52And so, if the people reacted after Charlie Hebdo,
0:14:52 > 0:14:54the French behaved in a very civilised way.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56There were no pogroms, there were no mosques burned,
0:14:56 > 0:14:58no one has been killed.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01And who has been killed in the last year in July?
0:15:01 > 0:15:03A Catholic priest, of 83 years, because he was Catholic,
0:15:03 > 0:15:05by two radical Islamists.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07We should not put everything upside down.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10I think the French have reacted in a very decent and civilised way,
0:15:10 > 0:15:17if you compare them with the Americans after 9/11.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Yeah.
0:15:20 > 0:15:22Why are you, so, it seems, lacking in self-confidence
0:15:23 > 0:15:24when you think about France today?
0:15:24 > 0:15:27You seem to think that there's a real problem because you claim
0:15:27 > 0:15:29voices like yours are being censored, gagged,
0:15:29 > 0:15:32because it's become politically incorrect to say what you say
0:15:32 > 0:15:33about Muslims and about Islamaphobia.
0:15:33 > 0:15:47But in fact you have a fantastic platform.
0:15:47 > 0:15:49You're on French TV all the time.
0:15:49 > 0:15:52Everybody reads your articles and listens to you on the radio.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55In France today, there is a debate, and you're a part of it,
0:15:56 > 0:15:58so why do you argue that you're being censored?
0:15:58 > 0:16:01I'm not saying I am censored because I'm not Muslim.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04For me, it's easy to speak, but those who are censored
0:16:04 > 0:16:05are Muslim intellectuals.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07Think of women, ladies, people coming from the Maghreb.
0:16:07 > 0:16:10Think of Kamel Daoud, the Algerian intellectual who is now
0:16:10 > 0:16:12the object of a fatwa in his own country.
0:16:12 > 0:16:26Bueller Senecal.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29Even young writers like Sonia Mabrouk, for instance -
0:16:29 > 0:16:30she says she's called Islamaphobic.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33She displays the image of a free Muslim woman who refuses to wear
0:16:34 > 0:16:35the Islamic scarf, and peope threaten her.
0:16:36 > 0:16:37So I'm not censored, of course.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40Sure, I dare say people threaten her, but people also
0:16:40 > 0:16:43threaten those who go onto a beach with the so-called burkini.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46Well, you've called that a racist uniform, and some have actually
0:16:46 > 0:16:48concluded from your words about racist uniforms that
0:16:48 > 0:16:59you want to make Muslims invisible in France today.
0:16:59 > 0:17:02No, no.
0:17:02 > 0:17:04I have two answers to your question.
0:17:04 > 0:17:06First I didn't say it was a racist uniform,
0:17:06 > 0:17:08I said it was a provocative uniform.
0:17:08 > 0:17:09I'm not against the burkini.
0:17:09 > 0:17:13As you know, the conseil d'etat, they said it was not a problem.
0:17:13 > 0:17:15But the only question I'm asking to myself -
0:17:15 > 0:17:19in two months, the beaches will be open with the beginning of summer.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22Will women in burkini, will they admit besides them women
0:17:22 > 0:17:23in bikinis, women topless, even naked?
0:17:23 > 0:17:26As you know, in France we admit nudist portions of beaches.
0:17:26 > 0:17:29Will they tolerate these kinds of swimming suits next to them?
0:17:29 > 0:17:33So if the women in burkinis are very tolerant to the women that
0:17:33 > 0:17:36are naked, we are living in the best of all worlds.
0:17:36 > 0:17:45And another question.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49So women have to wear the burkini.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51Why don't men wear burkinis themselves?
0:17:51 > 0:17:56Why is it a one-way road?
0:17:56 > 0:17:58Why do men not have to wear burkinis and Islamic scarf?
0:17:58 > 0:18:00What's the reason for that?
0:18:00 > 0:18:11Let me tell you something.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14The last time I got into a deep discussion about burkinis
0:18:14 > 0:18:16and beachwear in France, it was with Marine Le Pen,
0:18:16 > 0:18:19and it strikes me that, although you come from a different
0:18:19 > 0:18:21political tradition to Marine Le Pen, right now,
0:18:21 > 0:18:25with your focus on the Muslim problem, your focus on what you say
0:18:25 > 0:18:28is this illusion of Islamaphobia, your focus on what people wear -
0:18:28 > 0:18:39you are on the same platform in France today as Marine Le Pen.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43You know, in the 30s, when people said that the Soviet Union was not
0:18:43 > 0:18:45a paradise, there were concentration camps, and the gulags,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48people said, "Don't say that, because you are speaking
0:18:48 > 0:18:53the language of the imperialists."
0:18:53 > 0:18:56And so your argument does not go with me.
0:18:56 > 0:19:01Does it make you in any uneasy?
0:19:01 > 0:19:06Not at all.
0:19:06 > 0:19:15That on this issue you and Marine Le Pen sound remarkably similar.
0:19:15 > 0:19:18Yeah, me and Marine Le Pen, and also a list of progressive
0:19:18 > 0:19:23French muslim intellectuals - Andino Bidah and Fet Islamah
0:19:23 > 0:19:30and many others - who refuse to be directed by Islamic fundamentalists.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34It's not because Marine Le Pen says, it's light at midday that I'm
0:19:34 > 0:19:35going to say it's raining.
0:19:35 > 0:19:37So this kind of rapprochement is normal.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41It's a game.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44But it doesn't dissuade me to think like I think,
0:19:44 > 0:19:46because I've been saying that for 30 years.
0:19:46 > 0:19:51OK.
0:19:51 > 0:19:54Let's then raise our eyes to a wider horizon than this one about Muslims
0:19:54 > 0:19:57and Islam and that aspect of French culture and identity.
0:19:57 > 0:19:59Let's think of France in the biggest perspective.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02There was a bestselling book by another philosopher not so very
0:20:02 > 0:20:05long ago called Decadence - The Life And Death Of
0:20:05 > 0:20:10The Judaeo-Christian Tradition.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13And it started a whole school of writing, particularly
0:20:13 > 0:20:16about France, called 'declinisme', that idea that France is on a sort
0:20:16 > 0:20:17of unstoppable downward trajectory.
0:20:18 > 0:20:24Do you feel that?
0:20:24 > 0:20:26Well, you know, it might be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
0:20:26 > 0:20:29If you say you are in decline, you will inevitably decline.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32But no, I think we haveof course many symptoms of decline,
0:20:32 > 0:20:34and French people are fearing everything -
0:20:34 > 0:20:39Europe, immigration, radical Islam...
0:20:39 > 0:21:12And you're part of that fear creation, are you not?
0:21:12 > 0:21:15No, I'm not, because I say we have to face that problem.
0:21:15 > 0:21:19And we have ways to absorb five or 6 million or more Muslims,
0:21:19 > 0:21:21and turn them into ordinary French civilians.
0:21:21 > 0:21:23Let's be proud of our own traditions.
0:21:23 > 0:21:24That's what I say in my book.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27And my book is a homage to Islam.
0:21:27 > 0:21:28I'm not against Islam, I'm against fanaticism,
0:21:29 > 0:21:30which we've seen with Catholics and Protestants.
0:21:30 > 0:21:32How does France get its mojo back?
0:21:32 > 0:21:35I think we need a leader, a real leader.
0:21:35 > 0:21:38You voted for Sarkozy in 07, you voted for Hollande in 12,
0:21:38 > 0:21:40and you renounced both of them.
0:21:40 > 0:21:43So it suggests to me you've got a fundamental leadership problem.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46I know - most of the votes in France are negative votes,
0:21:46 > 0:21:48but, after all, England voted also for Brexit.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52Only the future will tell us if it was a mistake or a benefit.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55But I think France needs to restore the authority of the state,
0:21:55 > 0:21:56because there is no authority.
0:21:56 > 0:21:58There is no pilot of the plane.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01When you walk in the cities of France, you don't feel
0:22:01 > 0:22:04the authority of the state.
0:22:05 > 0:22:06We need some new...
0:22:06 > 0:22:10Someone young, new, and capable of giving a project to this country
0:22:10 > 0:22:11which is doubting deeply of itself.
0:22:11 > 0:22:16Well, young and new.
0:22:16 > 0:22:19That, I guess, points you in the direction of Emmanuel
0:22:19 > 0:22:30Macron.
0:22:30 > 0:22:32Well, he is the only one available today,
0:22:32 > 0:22:34and he's not so bad.
0:22:34 > 0:22:36We have to do with the offer.
0:22:36 > 0:22:38And of course he blends a kind of republican tradition
0:22:38 > 0:22:41and the Anglo-Saxon tradition also - free enterprise, free market,
0:22:41 > 0:22:44and I think France has too many nostalgias over communism
0:22:44 > 0:22:52or state directed economy.
0:22:52 > 0:22:55I just wonder whether in part it's a loss of self-confidence in France
0:22:55 > 0:22:56being a major global player?
0:22:56 > 0:22:58Partly in ideas.
0:22:58 > 0:23:01I talked at the beginning about the grand tradition
0:23:01 > 0:23:05of the French public intellectual.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09Maybe you're part of this lack of self-confidence today in France.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13I'd be sorry if I were, because most of my books are quite -
0:23:13 > 0:23:16I try to re-give confidence to my fellow citizens.
0:23:16 > 0:23:20I suppose the question is, do you feel the rest of the world
0:23:20 > 0:23:21still listens to France?
0:23:21 > 0:23:24Yes...
0:23:24 > 0:23:31In fact, yes and no.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34I think France has lost a privileged position after 1989,
0:23:34 > 0:23:37when it was a kind of third party between the United States
0:23:37 > 0:23:40and the USSR, and then France hoped that Europe would follow
0:23:41 > 0:23:41the French model.
0:23:41 > 0:23:44In fact it didn't work because the French model now
0:23:44 > 0:23:45is outworn, it's finished.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47We have to change it.
0:23:47 > 0:23:48Even if you have very good intentions.
0:23:49 > 0:23:52So we need renewal, and I hope the young generation will do
0:23:52 > 0:23:55something to awake this old country, which is plagued by all kinds
0:23:55 > 0:23:58of evils - lack of self-confidence and self-hatred, which is,
0:23:58 > 0:24:03in my opinion, the worst feeling.
0:24:03 > 0:24:09Awakening the Gallic giant.
0:24:09 > 0:24:11That's what we must look to.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13But for now, we have to end this interview.
0:24:13 > 0:24:14It's finished?
0:24:14 > 0:24:15Yeah, it's finished!
0:24:15 > 0:24:17Too bad.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19Pascal Bruckner, thank you for sharing your thoughts.