LIBRARY OF GEOSTRATEGIC.
A glance on the last successful works.
"Great international questions since the fall of the wall of
Berlin",*
of Thierry Garcin.
In this textbook, therefore the reading is quickly recommended to whoever wish
to understand contemporary events, Thierry Garcin, teacher in the Institute of
Political Studies of Paris and HEC, then in the Centre of Diplomatic and
strategic Studies, as well as in the University pole Léonard de Vinci,
described and comments on the major evolutions of contemporary international
relations. As in the excellent geopolitical broadcast "international
stakes", that he produces on Radio France for several years, Thierry Garcin
puts in perspective, in his last book, the key files of foreign policy, and gets
"effects of magnifying glass" in every treated domains, directly
useful by the student or the neophyte.
Seven large parts and numerous subdivisions allow a convenient use of the work.
Every essential subject is accompanied with recent bibliographical references.
More than twenty central questions, about fifty press boxes on particular
aspects and around thirty original cards facilitate also sequential reading.
In the first part of this remarkable work of the real sum of International
Relations, Thierry Garcin studies, first of all, the international turnovers
arisen between 1989 and 1991, following the fall of the wall of Berlin. Fall of
communist regimes in the East, unification of Germany, death of the ex-USSR and
conflicts of the Golf war are put in perspective.
In a second part, the author analyses one of the major alterations of
international chessboard after cold war : the unpublished status of the United
States as unique Superpower. In the big tradition of the classic strategic
analysis, Garcin describes the traditional foundations of the Power, then
analyses the originality of the superpower of United States notably through the
two mandates of the democratic ex-president Bill Clinton, marked by an
unprecedented interventionism.
In a third part, Thierry Garcin shows with good reason that the era of the
brotherhood and the end of the History proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama did not
arise, and that numerous factors of destabilization persist, even appear :
reproduction of identital conflicts, religious demands, migrations and movements
of population.
Having examined the various attempts of regional reorganization, through the
cases of the European construction and the process of peace in Middle East, the
author approaches the crucial subject of the defence on international balance of
power.
Specialist of the questions of defence and nuclear questions (the author is one
of the followers of the general Pierre-Marie Gallois, and is the former listener
of the Institute of High Studies of National defence). Thierry Garcin analyses
the consequences of the end of the East-west reports, the action and the future
of the Grand Occidental organizations of defence (NATO, OSCE, etc.), as well as
the reproduction of outside interventions.
Finally, having dedicated the sixth part of its impressive volume to the role of
the international organizations, notably the weaknesses of United Nations and
the role of the regional organizations, Thierry Garcin succeeds in maintaining
the reader in breath until the back page by reserving seventh part for the
subject more current than ever : the balkanisation versus globalisation.
Moreover, it is not the least merits of the author.
Moderate, objective and fed by an almost unlimited encyclopaedic knowledge,
"Great International Questions since the fall of the Wall of Berlin"
has the merit not to reproduce common ideas on the happy globalisation. Without
giving in neither to the excessive pessimism and or to deny the process of
globalisation which he notes and underlines the positive aspects, Garcin studies
in conclusion the political consequences of the balkanisation which he puts in
parallel with those of the globalisation, not always synonym of peace and
stability.
* Thierry Garcin, "Great international questions", 198 F, published by
Economica. (49, street Héricart, 75015 Paris, www.economica.fr).
"NATO attacks : the new strategic order",*
of Bernard Wicht.
Member of the historic Service of the Swiss army, Bernard Wicht is, with
Jean-Jacques Langendorf, who moreover introduced his last work, one of the
leaders of the Swiss strategic thought. He has already published "The idea
of militia and the Swiss model in the thought of Machiavelli" as well as
"The art of the war in the 21-th century".
In "NATO attacks : the new strategic order", seemed just after
"Operation Allied Force in Kosovo", Bernard Wicht tries to explain
which are the real reasons of operations led by NATO to Kosovo during the
spring, 1999. The american and european leaders, relieved by media, asserted
that they had the other ambition no more than to restore peace and human rights,
and to fly to aid a population in danger.
Bernard Wicht demonstrates in his brilliant attempt that these pickets'
arguments hide the other strategic motivations recovering from the military
logic and from the political strategy rather than from the cleanly humanitarian
will. The study leans on the history of military revolutions in West and on the
analysis of relations between power and violence. In this perspective, it seems
that the war of the NATO was scheduled, under especially the impulse of the
United States, and that it joins within the framework of a radical
transformation of our political systems.
With rigour and objectivity, Bernard Wicht seizes the occasion of the operations
of NATO against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as catalyst for a
geostrategic reflection widened on war and the international relations at the
end of the 20-th century. He describes at first (chapter 1) the international
dimension of the conflict and its consequences for the forming of contemporary
Europe by putting in evidence the deep motivations which led to the intervention
of the Atlantic Alliance ; the transformation of NATO is real philosophy of the
air power play in this respect a key role.
The author approaches then (Chapter 2) a purely military dimension of the air
power with the confirmation of this new operational art based on the Revolution
in Military Affairs (RMA) and the theories of the american strategist John
Warden. He exposes the political consequences of it for societies and presents,
besides, in the detail, the used weapons as well as the parades implemented by
defender.
In the light of this double analysis of the first two chapters, it is all the
geopolitical card of Europe of the post-cold war years which gets clearer :
politico-cultural blocks in presence, reorganisation of States and sovereign
powers, structure and mode of development of conflicts, etc. In support of the
conclusions, the author resorts as well to the process of forming modern State
in Europe as to the vision of the History of the great American specialists of
this decade (from Francis Fukuyama to Samuel Huntington).
Consequently, from the study of the intervention of the NATO, Bernard Wicht
raises a complete geostrategic panorama of the Occidental world at the beginning
of the third millennium.
* Bernard Wicht, "NATO attacks", Georg, Lausanne, 2000, 98 F.
"Papers of war",*
of Pierre-Marie Gallois.*
The studies which one is going maybe to read were drafted between two victories,
one dedicating the defeat of Germany, the other one the one of Japan, and also
after Hiroshima, at the dawn of the nuclear era. They form two very different
sets : a treating of turnovers consecutive to the post-war years, the other one
analysing a night-assault against Third Reich, offensive strategy of Royal Air
Forces and the stratagems of the defence used by Luftwaffe in desperate. In fact
two evocations of the reality, trying hard to expose ideas, the other one
describing a gigantic machine of war in action. Texts forming the first part of
this opuscule were published by the monthly magazine "Free France" of
which André Labarthe was the director and Raymond Aaron the secretary of the
editorial staff. For the temporary exiles that we were, this review was a link
with the homeland occupied by the enemy. In the contents appeared many
prestigious names : Bernanos, Roger Caillois, Albert Cohen, Aragon, Edmond
Robles, Paul Eluard, Marcel Arland ; and we thought, Jules Roy and I, what it
was a rare privilege to be published there. Articles, which appear in the
following pages, had been preceded by many other, published without signature by
spare obligation. On the other hand, in spring, 1945, allocated to Etat-major of
the Free French Air forces, I obtained from the colonel Coustey, the leader of
Etat-major, the permission to sign my papers. That is why they are collected
here only texts posterior to the end of hostilities in Europe. One of them, not
signed to avoid two same signatures in a single number of the review, of
September 15, 1945, comments On Hiroshima and On Nagasaki (in August, 1945). The
second part of this small work describes a night of strategic bombardments on
Germany.
* Pierre-Marie Gallois, "Papers of war", L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, 152
pages.
* General of the Air Force (CR), French initiator of the French nuclear
deterrent force, famous for his strategic studies, Pierre-Marie Gallois is
notably the author of a reference treaty on Geopolitics, republished at L'Age
d'Homme in 2000. Of the same author, L'Age d'Homme also published several
attempts : "Allah's sun blinds on the West", "The Blood of the
Petroleum" (t. I Irak, t. II Bosnia), "Does France go out of the
history ? ", as well as a book of memories, "The Egg timer of
century".
"Indictment",*
of Pierre-Marie Gallois.
Sometimes in our confusion, there are meetings of people outside the common.
They are witnesses who, by their example, incite us to listen at first, and push
ourselves to think. General Gallois is one of these rare people. In the first
place, great curiosity comes along, whatever is the domain approached (aviation,
painting, geopolitics, press), of work and method. The particular disposal for
the education gives him a force of exceptional conviction : one thinks of the
historic meetings where he convinced, in difficult contexts, Guy Mollet then De
Gaulle, of the necessity of endowing France of an independent nuclear armament.
These qualities lean on a temperament fundamentally realistic. Romantic
enjoyment for lost causes is stranger to him. General Gallois is a man of fight.
The reflection bases itself on the observation of facts, where from its taste
for the History and the place, which it gives to the past in the explanation of
contemporary phenomena. A second characteristic shows through : the sense of the
service. General Gallois knew how to inspire confidence in several great people
of this second half of 20-th century : Montgomery, De Gaulle, Norstad, Dassault
were seduced by a character which mixes harmoniously competence, loyalty, and
temperament. The level head rests on a strong conviction, which allows him to
remain courteous, and closes in front of opponents. General Gallois had entitled
series of conversations, which we had recorded : "In the shade of the great
people". He liked working with the great personalities whom he admired, and
of whom he was the councillor. Finally, the line of force, which sub-aims this
too long life, does he say sometimes, because he attends the decline of the
country, it is the love of France. It is for this rare man, who is not a
politician, who we asked some key questions at our disturbed time, which he
answered in eight attempts of geopolitics, without concession or simplification,
real indictment which calls the reader to think.
Lydwine Helly.
* Pierre-Marie Gallois, "Indictment", L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, 2001,
192 pages.
"After democracy",*
of Eric Werner.*
In "Pre-civil war years", the previous work appeared in 1998, Eric
Werner described ambiguous relations, which were established gradually, these
last decades, between power and disorder. He resumes here this same subject
enriching of new considerations. The present work collects certain number of
studies, certain new, the others having already been the object of a first
publication, but resumed and re-worked quite centred on the question of the
current evolution of the Occidental regime and its deep nature. Leaning on main
elements of the totalitarian theory, such as it was formulated ; there is about
fifty years, by Hannah Arendt and the others. Eric Werner observes that number
of these elements is today directly applicable to the Occidental regime. He
underlines besides correlation between the current decline of the democracy and
that of States of Nation. Modern democracy appeared in Europe at the time even
where States of Nation began to take shape, anything of amazing from then on in
what the end of States of Nation coincides with that of the democracy. Another
type of regime substituted today itself for the democracy, maybe better adapted
to the requirements of a society that one could consider burst. Transition was
made moreover gently, without excessive clashes, due to indefatigable work of
explanation, aiming at the collective anaesthesia, leaders and their
communicators. Result of this pedagogy : today, beyond the problems of comfort
and survival every day, nobody worries anymore of anything. The reflection of
the author goes on at the end of volume by three studies respectively dedicated
to Proust and Ernst Jünger, through whom he tries to draw some practical ways
of resistance.
* Eric Werner, "After democracy", L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, 2001, 160
pages.
* Eric Werner is a diplomat of the Institute of political studies of Paris and a
doctor "ès Lettres". He has already published, at L'Age d'Homme,
"Mystic and Political" (1978), "Of the intellectual and moral
Misery in French speaking Swiss" (1981, with Jan Marejko), "The system
of treason" (1986), "Montaigne strategist" ( 1996 ) and
"Pre-civil war years" (1998).
"Pre- civil war years",*
of Eric Werner.
Order comes undone, so makes in the measure where it frays, cracks, leaves in
dusts. One joins here the theory of the invisible hand, expensive to the
historic liberalism, without the hand has here nothing of invisible, it is on
the contrary one can not be so more visible. Better still, it does not make
anything to hide. Power encourages disorder, even subsidies it, but does not
subsidise it for itself, does not subsidise it for the order of which it is the
foundation, to the preservation of which it contributes. Order by the disorder,
here is the formula. Political disorder, but therefore moral, social, cultural
(because everything holds in the subject). As much as possible, power is used to
blur cards, to deprive the individuals of their usual marks. Objective is to
destabilise them, to make them stranger to their own environment. Reality avoids
them, their senses are anaesthetised. They ignore where they come from and where
they go, do not even very often know about what one speaks. Sometimes also it is
revolt, vandals enter scene. However, even there, what to make for it ? In
addition, this security obsession ! The same movement pulls everything, only
power escapes from universal dissolution. The individual clings to him as to a
supernatural buoy. It is the only appeal, the unique fixed point still appearing
in the storm.
* Eric Werner, "Pre-civil war years", L'Age d'Homme, Lausanne, 2000.
"Europe of Gibraltar in Vladivostok",*
of Frank de la Rivière.
After the communism and Nazism, "politically correctness" is the third
big imposture of 20-th century. These three ideologies rest on unique thoughts
and the elimination of any divergent thought. Communism and Nazism practised the
physical liquidation of their adversaries. "Politically correctness"
is more insidious. The consequences show themselves so fatal in the third world
(developing countries count 80 % of the population of the globe), in the
countries of former Soviet Union and begin to destabilise Europe. These three
ideologies are the same strictly natural : their purposes justify means.
Communism had to bring happiness to quite complete humanity. "Politically
correctness" has the same claim. Nazism was more selective and aimed at the
only happiness of the Aryan race. But the politically correctness, in fact, is
still more restrictive than Nazism, because it rests on the imposture of a
deceitful democracy, where the strongest make law, where powerful financiers and
media in their boots dull, anaesthetise and enslave their peoples and try to
impose their vision all over the world. The imposture of the politically
correctness, which is not at all a preliminary in the economic development, is
fainting. Significant fact, the pragmatic countries of emergent Asia are
allergic to it. The revival of Europe supposes that she finds, or finds, the
specific way. In every case of figures, politically correct and real democracy
are incompatible. This short attempt, in an always-easy reading, is a caustic
criticism of the politically correct, and a positive contribution for those that
hear taking up composed challenge. The author calls up to the construction of
Europe from Gibraltar to Vladivostok.
* Frank de la Rivière "Europe from Gibraltar to Vladivostok", L'Age
d'Homme, 128 pages, Lausanne, 2001.
"The destruction of France",*
of Jean Claude Barreau.
The former President of the Office of International Migrations and INED, the
councillor of the President François Mitterrand and Charles Pasqua, and author
of several works having for backcloth integration and generally problems of
immigration, Jean Claude Barreau delivers us at "Le pré aux Clercs"
(2000), an attempt trying to raise a picture of the political-social and
demographic situation of France. Without worrying of judgements, Barreau notices
that, almost non-existent in metropolis including when France still possessed
colonies, for the greater part Islamic non-European immigration became
dominating these last decades. It is unmistakably about a new, unprecedented
factor in the History of France. Among the 6 or 7 million immigrants and
children of French naturalised immigrants, mainly stemming from Black Africa,
from the Maghreb and from India which lists, the number of Moslems in France,
French and confused foreigners, would amount to about 5 millions. The new
characteristic of the recent immigration and the composition of the New
Frenchmen freshly gallicised, would be therefore Islam. By adding to this
factor, the africanisation, immigration being more and more from African origin,
Jean Claude Barreau notices that France is increasingly a crossed nation. The
former councillor of Mitterrand and Charles Pasqua explains that France does not
succeed any more in controlling the migratory streams which continue : 120 000
new immigrants (regular and illegal merged) a year. Studying the phenomenon of
the crime, when he was still young priest and when he took charge of young
hooligans, Jean Claude Barreau notices that a real moral crisis and identical
took place and transformed the data of problem of the crime, notably in the
articulation with phenomenon of the immigration. The author regrets that the
young delinquents of foreign origin, unlike their predecessors of thirty years
ago, often foreign or son of foreigners also, do not feel any more French. For
Barreau, the responsibility of this social and political fracture falls
essentially to the ruling classes, which would have lost any national feeling
themselves, and any republican and French pride. Why the young people
"Blacks-Beurs" they would feel a feeling of pride which the French
leaders have not any more the same, questions J. C. Barreau ? Interrogated on
this subject, for him, the error of the French leaders is in fact to want to
imitate the american model of integration communautarism. Barreau asserts that
it is an error as far as the American communities are integrated by a violent
patriotism who moderates in a sense the communautarism and who does not exist
any more in France.
Concerning connections between the Islam, the integration and the crime, Jean
Claude Barreau explains that Islam puts a specific problem with regard to the
Modernity : separation of the temporal and the spiritual, do not existent in
Islam ; disparity among people and women, etc. This religion possessing,
besides, a strong tradition of conquest and being used to dominate. So, Islam
rests according to the author, the specialist of the Islam, a problem which
confucian asiatic, would not put, integration by the republican system agreeing
better with the confucian tradition. However, J. C. Barreau underlines that the
integration of the Moslem girls in the Republic is globally made of success and
it is easier than the one of young Moslems, the girls receiving, in Islam, a
particularly austere education which would favour, for Barreau, integration by
the meritocracy, where from the best success of the Moslem girls in the
University with regard to their brothers, noticed by the author. These last
ones, in their society of origin, would directly pass from the gynaeceum to the
patriarchies, the austere authority of the fathers balancing the laxness of the
mothers. In France, on the other hand, the Moslem young men not crossing any
more the overliberal gynaeceum in the patriarchal system, nothing would answer
more their need of authority. However, Jean Claude Barreau clarifies that he
refuses to reduce the problem of the integration to the Islam. For him, central
problem it is the destruction of France. At the beginning of 20-th century,
under various Jules (Jules Ferry, Jules Grévy, etc.), the new Moslem Frenchmen
would not have been easily integrated into the french society, explains the
former priest-worker. As Judaism or the Christian Churches, Islam would have
perfectly been capable of becoming integrated, any religion being able to
evolve, especially under the influence of balance of power and laic pressures of
the republican State. By dissolving and by giving in to demands communautarism,
the Republic would not have returned service to the Islam and to the Moslem
Frenchmen, concludes the author, who is afraid that one opened Pandora's box in
the sense of identity and the dissolution of the Republic. Barreau explains that
the French Republic risks to collapse on itself, with the progressive
disappearance of the State and the social justice. According to him, only a
strong Nation can oblige the citizens the "middle-class persons" to
make concessions. According to Mr Barreau, for example, one of the secrets of
the economic and social success of Japan would lie in the fact that the rich
classes had to buy first Japanese, for the good of the community. In clear
terms, for Jean Claude Barreau, who uses a language at the same moment Marxist
and national, cosmopolitanism would be at end of the social pact, the division
of the cake being too much hurting for the poor men. Unlike what happens in
France, Barreau explains that, from his part, the american ruling class agrees
to grant to sacrifices, due to the patriotism, because patriotism is, according
to the author, the only real counterweight in the cosmopolitanism of the
bourgeois classes. That is why, according to him, social justice, so
integration, is inevitably bound to the patriotism and to the
public-spiritedness. For Jean Claude Barreau, marked by a strong republican
orthodoxy and secularist, although being himself former priest, France was
always integrationist, as Rome. For the author, Islam in France remains
possible, but conditions are more than ever a strong Republic, which would cross
a compromise with the Islam, as it crossed formerly compromises with the other
religions.
Barreau explains as well as thorough problem remains the one of France. If this
one remains in its social pact, in its not ethnic national pact, as well as in
its democratic pact, statement expensive to the author, by not removing national
sovereign power to the people, the integration of foreigners and neo-French from
Moslem confession will be able to be made. However, central problem remains in
the disappearance of the Nation. Barreau regrets the fact that internationalism
gained all the spheres of the society : syndicates, education, media, etc.
French and the History of France were practically abolished from school
programs. Inviting the Frenchmen to read again Pierre André Taguieff, the
author reminds that immigration can be only additional : it is the autochthonous
child who has to integrate the non-native, minority child, and not opposite,
otherwise things can become chaotic.
Eurosceptic as Charles Pasqua and Jean Pierre Chevènement whom he estimates and
to whom he is also close, Barreau regrets that French national laws are
henceforth conceived in Brussels by anonymous civil servants. The European army
seems to him impossible. For him, Brussels, it is in fact the end of politics.
Democracy was killed since the ruling of Nicolo, which makes that the
international treaties are necessary in the previous national laws, what is
purely inadmissible for Barreau. Democracy would be no more and no less by train
to be gradually killed. Finally, Europe of Brussels can be analysed as a machine
to destroy the Nation. A revitalising and fascinating attempt of which we
recommend reading, although it is allowed not to share all the theses, often
marked by a profound pessimism, and one prejudice for the sovereign power.
However, an attempt that deserves to be greeted for the courage of its analyses
and the plentiful documentation which sub-aims it.
Marc d' Anna.
* Jean Claude Barreau, "The destruction of France", Le Pré aux
Clercs, 2000.
"African France",*
of Jean Paul Gourévitch.
International Expert and specialist of African questions, Jean Paul Gourévitch,
who teaches at Paris XII University, who has already written in our columns (to
see Geostrategic, N ° 2, "French politics in front of African
challenges"), is the author of about forty works. He has just published in
editions "Le Pré aux Clercs" an attempt, which knew a strong echo in
France : "African France".
Having led for twenty years missions in all French-speaking Africa for the World
Bank, the UNESCO and French Cooperation, Jean Paul Gourévitch delivers us here
a study treating at the same moment international strategic questions bound to
the African Continent and questions of politics and even internal geopolitics,
immigration being one of adult problems of the Occidental European societies
which it is advisable to approach without taboos and without forgeries -
appearances, that is in a objective and taken the heat out of way, as well as
fact Jean Paul Gourévitch, who is also an expert of the questions of political
and educational communication.
In fact, African France is in some sorts the "volume III" of a series
of three works dedicated to the subjects of Africa, immigration and integration.
The first of the series, entitled "From French Africa to African France.
Inventory of fixtures", tries to demonstrate that African tragedy is the
major challenge of 21-th century. According to Gourévitch, the countries of the
"French square meadow" sank into the malnutrition, the epidemics and
the corruption. The Africans rejects France, whereas the Americans eliminate it.
Africa which was populated with 273 million inhabitants at the time of
independence shelters from it today 728 millions and will count 1 500 millions
of it in 2025. How could she feed them ? In addition, how could welcome them to
us, questions Jean Paul Gourévitch ? The mediatization of the illegal
immigrants of St Bernard or the Rwandan refugees consolidates only the reducing
speeches of the xenophobes or the "immigrationist", that the author
sends back to back. Because according to Gourévitch, these accredit finally in
the opinion the idea of a lost cause while Africa does not miss trump cards.
Inventory of fixtures without kindness and radical propositions that formulates
Jean Paul Gourévitch on the re-set up of the aid, the moratorium of the debt,
the control of the immigration or the re-orientation of solidarity's questions
certain number of common ideas and can be sometime even disturbing. Nevertheless
"it is rarely the patient who demands a treatment of shock", warns the
author.
In "Immigration, legal fracture", second attempt of the set of three,
Jean Paul Gourévitch asks the following question : what is today the exact
situation of the immigration in France ? Between disconnected or contradictory
official statistics and figures inflated by the fear or xenophobia, number of
the immigrants, migrants, residents of foreign origin, entered legally or in
illegally, rest vague, asserts the author.
Immigration became a taboo subject since this subject was got back politically
and since it is approached only with left "immigrationnist", on one
hand, and xenophobes, of the other one, than the author sends back once again
back to back. For him, indeed, he does not make any doubt that the absence of
debate leaves the free field with noises and with extremist theses.
Nevertheless, explains Gourévitch, the face of the immigration changed well
since the 60s. "Immigrant-type" is not any more the Algerian worker
but the malign illegal immigrant. So, one would be crossed by an immigration of
work in a social immigration in a country which succeeds badly in administering
the streams. In addition, one would announce for tomorrow virtual immigration.
In the social fracture which separates the provided outcasts would have come to
add a legal fracture among those that live according to the laws of the Republic
and those that, in all the levels, take advantage of the state of non-right. The
conjunction of a not mastered immigration and this legal fracture would be,
according to Gourévitch, particularly explosive, and urban violence would be it
only form. The author explains finally that they are nevertheless revealing of
the drift of a society in which "the State does not succeed any more in
applying its laws" and assists, powerless, on the way up some informal
economy.
This book proposes an objective state of places on the immigration in France, in
which facts, figures and shooting of any edges are crossed in the revelation and
lit by the history and the geography of the migratory streams.
Finally, in the last one of three works concerning immigration and Africa, title
"African France", the author resumes at once the famous formula of the
President François Mitterrand "France of 21-th century will be
African". Prophetic words, comments on Gourévitch : today the group of the
"black and beur" community would represent, according to him, 8 to 9
million persons. They were less 4 millions in 1975. They will be, because of the
immigration and the distances from fertility, credibly more than 35 millions in
the end of 21-th century, he asserts, at the end of a calculated demographic
demonstration having for main thing deserve to introduce a real concerning
debate calculate it not foreigners, but Frenchmen stemming from the African
immigration or native of the Antilles as well as foreigners as such, field of
study at present forbidden in France within administrations or public bodies
which see there a danger of drift "ethnicism" instrumentalisable by
political movements or xenophobic theses. For Gourévitch, it is exactly to
avoid the "return of the repressed person" identical and within a
better framework, taken the heat out analysis guaranteed against xenophobic or
extreme reactions, that it would be advisable to multiply this type of studies
on ethnic-religious previous history and immigration, proposition also supported
by the demographer of the INED Michèle Tribalat.
Beyond the taboos of the dominant thought, exclusively
"immigrationist", preventing consequently any objective debate, and
the simplistic speeches of the xenophobes, Jean Paul Gourévitch's book puts
diagnosis brave and extremely well informed on a society which, in its
demographic composition, its geographic concentration, its economic processes,
the cultural choices, will be profoundly and more and more africanised, this
report being divested here of any position. Therefore, the author warns that
mentalities should adapt themselves to new realities. In second half of 21-th
century, based on the current evolution, he will be born every year in France
more Blacks than Whites or "Frenchman of tree stump". Islam will have
probably become the first religion of France. Informal economy will have
infiltrated all the circuits of decision. As usually, Gourévitch keeps himself
of any taken party. To the reader to pull its own conclusions of these precise
and informed reports. A fascinating and fundamental study.
* Jean Paul Gourévitch, "African France", Le Prés aux Clercs, 2001,
130 F.
"The roots of the european identity",*
of Gérard François Dumont and alii.
With the birth of the single currency, continuation of the treaty of Nice, 2001
is an European year. To scrutinise the future of the young European Union
requires the knowledge of the roots of the European identity. Indeed, this
identity, always in future, is not only the result of contemporary decisions,
but feeds in the fruits of multiple inheritances and ceaselessly recomposed. To
investigate roots diversified by the european identity supposed an also
diversified team. The Vice-chancellor Gérard François Dumont, the professor in
Sorbonne, gathered twenty-two co-workers, of fifteen different nationalities,
among whom one finds an European Commissioner, diplomats, geographers,
historians, political analysts, ethnologists, philosophers... One guesses the
importance of the work of stake in coherence, which makes work very pleasant to
read while benefiting from the plurality of contributions.
After the general introduction, which presents an analysis, detailed with the
context of the European identity, the first part of the book examines
alternately the identities of various European countries, the german exception
in british hesitancies. In the course of fifteen chapters, one discovers for
example how much one can be really irish only in being european ; how the
european marginality of Portugal returned, as for the benefit of this country,
as in that of the group of the Union; that Netherlands are always Provinces
United in their differences... No national identity is understandable without
consideration of its weaving mill in the european identity. At the same time,
european identity exists only through its national, regional and local
identities. However, it is not it only sum. Therefore, the second part of the
book puts in perspective the different surrounding areas of European identity :
political, philosophic, historic, economic, socio-demographic, and
socio-psychological, the geographic aspect having been treated in the general
introduction. Every approach demonstrates its aptness. Certainly, greek
political contribution is not controversial, but it is important to understand
how it can almost disappear, such a subterranean river, before spattering as
source. On the other hand, it was not, a priori, evident to find in Europe a
demographic specificity. Now the dynamics of populating, throughout the second
millennium, implies well an identity.
In conclusion, Gérard François Dumont proposes twelve marks, by insisting
notably on the cultural dimension of the identity, and on its permanent dynamics
: identity is at the same moment inheritance and project, always to discover, to
invent, to reinvent.
In the foreword, the last President of the European Parliament, José Maria
Gil-Robles there Gil-Delgado, summarises the central demonstration of the book :
european identity is at the same moment the common collection of the various
identities which live on our continent and the result of interactions among
these last ones. Europe that would not understand such an education would be
illusion and so disappointment. Where from the importance to take into account
the roots of the european identity so that the future means hope.
* Gérard François Dumont and alii, "The roots of the european
identity", introduction from José Maria Gil-Robles there Gil-Delgado,
President of the European Parliament, Economica, Paris, 396 p, 149 F ( 22,70
Euro).
Published by Economica ; 49, street Héricart, 75015 Paris. Telephone : 01 45 78
12 92 and 01 45 79 93 56, fax 01 45 75 05 67.
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