An author like Robert Brasillachwhose literary talent can be appreciated while deploring political commitment, does not deserve to be treated lightly. However, this is not always the point of view of the left press. An article from NEW OBS Degreed it on all levels by adopting a mocking tone. Our columnist is unworthy.
The chance of the holidays, in other residences, family or friendly, makes that sometimes we read with delay weekly people, some articles of which seize you. This is what happened to me when reading a NEW OBS May 1, 2025, with a text by Grégoire Leménager whose title was “Should Robert Brasillach execute?” ».
This writer, shot in 1945 for intelligence with the enemy, had fascinated me in my youth, like, on another deep, melancholic and suicidal register, Drieu La Rochelle. My book on Robert Brasillach – 20 minutes for death – was a way of clarifying myself with this admiration disorder for the dignity of his death following a shameful trial. Accompanied by a feeling of horror when reading his writings as a political journalist during a period when, in the absence of heroism or real resistance, abstention was a minimum.
Reading the article by Grégoire Leménager, I could not help thinking about Jean Genet: “I never don’t care, I have too much to do to love or hate”. It is precisely the mockery, almost the derision permeates the analysis (if one can say) of Grégoire Leménager who disturbed me. All feelings have the right to apprehend the singular destiny of Robert Brasillach, brilliant literary critic at 23 and then fascinated by Nazism “Immense and red” To the point of abandoning oneself to the worst of partisan and hateful journalism, before being arrested, when he could have flee. He showed during his trial a look that no one denied him (even his worst enemies like Madeleine Jacob or Simone de Beauvoir), before dying courageously at the age of 35.
Beyond this journey, as reprehensible as it is, I am embarrassed by the condescension with which Grégoire Leménager treats the work of Robert Brasillach. His novels are not just “Mediocre and sentimental” And a more objective point of view would have been welcome. The anthology of Greek poetryson Pierre Corneille, The history of cinema (written with Maurice Bardèche), his old -fashioned, the poems of Fresnes (who have nothing to do with “Falsely naive poetry”) would have justified, even on the part of a left literary criticism, elogious appreciations.
On the ideological level, certain sentences, to be literally odious or furious, are in addition detached from their context and nothing, in what at the end of this short existence could have come to qualify its political badness, was not even touched by Grégoire Leménager.
To read also: Justice, have you said?
The safeguarding approach (to prevent him from being executed) initiated by François Mauriac, Marcel Aymé and Jean Anouilh (whose experience of life has been affected forever), is narrated in a light, almost casual mode. It is made to André Gide whose appreciation on the future that Robert Brasillach would have had if he had been pardoned is very questionable.
The cowardice of many were overlooked (Colette did not want to be the first on the petition asking for the grace!) And the declaration of Albert Camus signing it by detecting the death penalty when he assured that Robert Brasillach would not have returned to him if he had been sentenced to death.
From this article, an impression of discomfort emerges as if it had had to have, after having shot it, execute Robert Brasillach once again, but media.
I note that a single book is cited, that of Alice Kaplan whose documentation work is impressive but the judicial vision hardly critical. Grégoire Leménager should have mentioned Michel Laval’s work, antipodes of any mockery and which tackles with gravity and intelligence the problem questioned by Grégoire Leménager and responds positively.
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We have glossed a lot about the refusal of grace by General de Gaulle, while François Mauriac had left their relatively optimistic interview. No doubt there were various motivations for this hardness. The paradox is that in 1938, Robert Brasillach himself considered that an intellectual could not be exempt in principle from the supreme punishment because of his only ideas and denunciations defeated by history.
Summarize Robert Brasillach today by calling it “Icon of the French extreme right” is still a bit short.
I note, to rejoice, that in terms of tolerance, pluralism and accuracy, there is not the shadow of a possible comparison between the committed and media left and the conservative media. Let’s compare the magnificent series of Figarocompletely open, for example devoted to Antonio Gramsci, with this mocking poor review by Robert Brasillach by Grégoire Leménager.
He was missing, first, honesty. And, if we follow Jean Genet, love or hatred.
MeTooMuch ?
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