Thomas Crampton’s article in the International Herald Tribune of July 27th has been circulating within the bloggers community, particularly in France. Some features of “France’s mysterious embrace of blogs” have been put forward. A New York-based French executive, Laurent Florès, explains how negative and egocentric the French blogs are, compared to their American counterparts, while Loïc Le Meur sees them as a substitute to riots in the street. Both comments are symptomatic and meaningful for a country which, as many believe, may not have yet completed its revolution.
Precisely, about the French Revolution ; one of its brightest analyst, Tocqueville, disclosed its true nature as early as 1856. Explaining the importance of writers and intellectuals in the political life of the 18th century after Louis the XIVth’s authoritative royal power, he says : “ The political debate was violently repressed into literature” so that finally the actors of the Revolution behaved more as “literary heroes” than as political representatives.
In France, the status of a writer is high, the unexpected symbol of a counter power. Every fall, nearly 700 new novels are released on the market. This eagerness to “(re)write our Revolution “, reminding the press of that period, which Chateaubriand called “the social electricity”, is probably one of the deep motivations for this “mysterious embrace”.
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