For some time now, Michel ONFRAY's speeches have surprised and annoyed me. By dint of wanting to be everywhere, our philosopher no longer seems to know where he's going, which doesn't stop him from wanting to get there at all costs.

Although it is no longer clear whether Mr ONFRAY is still an atheist or whether he still defends the values of the Enlightenment, a few strong ideas stand out in a speech that I find increasingly confused. What is not in doubt is that Mr ONFRAY is a sovereignist and anti-Maastrichtian. His obsession with this treaty leads him to sometimes astonishing intellectual audacities. This was the case on the occasion of the publication of the latest issue of the quarterly  POPULAR FRONT'[1] which he directs and which he uses as a weapon against the European Union, whose mere description as 'Maastrichtian', which he systematically adds to it, serves as an indisputable condemnation.

This issue brings together some fifteen contributions under the general title Europe demystified, the life and death of an empire. Unsurprisingly, all these articles come from sovereigntists for whom the European Union is the cause of all Europe's woes, but especially France's.

It is obviously Mr ONFRAY who leads the charge in two long articles. the editorial, entitled The Totem is taboo, new occupation, new resistance, new collaboration[2], starts from a rather surprising angle of analysis and describes a not very happy path.

It is obviously a question of denouncing the perversity of the European project and hoping that it will soon come to an end. So we need to start by recalling that civilisations all begin with a murder that has fertile properties. So we will invoke Cain and Abel and Christ to get to Louis XVI and his son.

This historical review, which I have abbreviated, brings us to Maastricht Europe and the accusation that it has done better (or worse) than the past. Its founders are said to be the satisfied heirs of all the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century.

While the EU was built on a pile of corpses, it also benefited, says Mr Onfray, from the cultural desert created by the death of many intellectuals during the First World War, who were poorly replaced by others.broken brains by the war, which produced ideas that M. ONFRAY probably did not share. Surrealism, Dadaism and Dodecaphony are all labelled with the same qualifier: nihilist. From there, our philosopher can slide progressively towards fascism and Nazism, which, on rereading the text, is the ultimate goal of the demonstration. Taking a long diversions via REBATET, the aim is to demonstrate that Europe has only one true father, Walter HALLSTEIN, and that the first President of the European Commission was an outspoken Nazi.

The accusation, whose gravity is clear to see, is almost word for word the same as that made in an article in Le Figaro[3]dated 4 March 2019, signed by Eric RIOUFOL, which repeats statements made in a book by Philippe de VILLIERS[4]. It is based on at least one factual lie, since ONFRAY accuses Wikipedia of concealing this truth, even though the page devoted to Hallstein very clearly refers to his activities during the war.

The demonstration is reinforced by the accusations made against Jean MONNET and Robert SCHUMAN. The former is accused of being a Vichy, because he is said to have attended the school for Petainist cadres at Uriage, but ONFRAY does not say how MONNET could have achieved the feat of being both in France and in London, and then in Washington during this period. The source here is, once again, Philippe de Villiers and has perhaps not been carefully checked. In any case, if there was a stay at Uriage, it was brief and it should also be remembered that the school was closed by the Vichy government because it had quickly become involved in opposition to the regime and then in the Resistance. As for SCHUMAN, if it is true that he was struck with national indignity at the Liberation (which is the argument used to make him a quasi-collabo), the truth requires us to specify that it was because Schuman had been appointed minister by Pétain on 16 June 1940 without having been consulted and that he had resigned without having sat!

What is also curious is Michel ONFRAY's selectivity in choosing his targets. If we are to believe him, there are only three fathers of Europe, all three suspected of scandalous sympathies. Others, who all have one thing in common - having resisted fascism or Nazism, are curiously absent. There is not a word for de GASPERI, MANSHOLT, SPAAK or SPINELLI. They undoubtedly get in the way of the demonstration.

But all that doesn't really matter because we haven't reached the end of the reasoning. The fact that the EU was created by former collaborators is no surprise, since these former collaborators have in fact put themselves at the service of the new occupiers. Once a collaborator, always a collaborator, even if it means changing masters.

And, therefore, to denounce AMGOT (Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories) that everyone has forgotten. Clearly, in Mr ONFRAY's mind, this ephemeral American project to put liberated countries under tutelage is continuing today, since he does not hesitate to write that "de Gaulle opposed the project, but Mitterrand did his utmost to make it possible". The idea, which was born in some American cenacles and supported by ROOSEVELT, was based on whether or not the liberated countries had legitimate governments and on their ability to manage their devastated regions. But while France did pose a problem, AMGOT never had to be set up in other countries, such as Belgium, where the government returned from London a few days after the liberation of Brussels. At the very least, we would like to understand how a project that was never implemented could have exerted its influence nearly forty years later, but the strength of fantasies is that they do not require serious proof. And while we know that the Americans were afraid of possible Communist coups d'état, our author has no criticism to make of de Gaulle, who had them join his government in 1944, even though they were great admirers of the great Stalin, whose love of freedom is a well-known characteristic.

The Maastrichtians, as Mr Onfray calls them, are also responsible for another misdeed. Not content with subjecting the EU to the will of the United States, they are hijacking Victor Hugo's famous speech of 1849 in favour of the construction of Europe.[5] which called for the creation of a United States of Europe. If you thought that this text was the starting point for a fine humanist project that would take shape in the reconciliation that followed the end of the Second World War, you are mistaken. Mr ONFRAY will open your eyes.

In keeping with the spirit of the times, Hugo was clumsy enough to say that his project was aimed at bringing civilisation to barbarism'.. Like most intellectuals of the time, these remarks may be seen as paternalistic, and the desire to make others happy against their will is questionable. But it is an intellectual leap to deduce, as our philosopher does not hesitate to write, that "this Europe, vaunted by the Maastrichtians, is clearly proposing a colonialist, racialist, Eurocentric project".

ONFRAY has thus come full circle in his demonstration. The EU was created by Nazis and collaborators and was inspired by Victor Hugo, who is a racist, to build a detestable project. The only alternative is sovereignty: "Sovereignty is resistance to this new AMGOT. Whoever refuses this resistance, collaborates'.[6].

One might think that anything excessive is insignificant and leave ONFRAY to his ravings. One might also hope that he would leave it at that. But no, Mr ONFRAY has other targets that he attacks in a second article entitled The New European Man[7].

The first victim of our sovereignist-in-chief's anger is surprising. It was Abbé GREGOIRE, a great figure of the French Revolution, known for having - in principle - campaigned to improve the status of Jews in France. I say in principle because, like many others, I naively believed that Abbé Grégoire was a humanist. But M. ONFRAY has opened my eyes. Grégoire is, in fact, an anti-Semite, since by writing a "essay on the physical, moral and political regeneration of the jews'.It shows just how degenerate they are!

ONFRAY, in many of his writings, castigates wokism. It is curious, in this case, to see him fall into the trap of typically Woke reasoning. When he criticises the Abbé's text and writes "The less Jews are Jews, the more they get rid of their Judaism and Jewishness, the more acceptable, defensible, acceptable and legitimate they become. In a word, the less Jewish they are, the more republican they will be [...]".It is part of the Woke logic of assignment. Abbé Grégoire's fault would therefore be to have wanted to take the Jews out of their condition and make them citizens like everyone else, a great crime indeed.

In reality, Mr ONFRAY doesn't give a damn about Abbé Grégoire, this historical reference is just a pretext. Robert BADINTER prefaced the abbé's essay and BADINTER is a servant of MITERRAND, the sworn enemy of our philosopher, which justifies a lot of intellectual convolutions.

This second text, which I won't analyse in detail, is revealing of Mr ONFRAY's technique. A thick layer of erudition, but few detailed arguments. A progression of the demonstration in successive leaps that leads the reader astray and allows us to go from Cain and Abel to the AMGOT via the miserable fate of Louis XVII; from Abbé Grégoire to Elon Musk via Guy Deleuze and Françoise Dolto. All these detours lead back to the same point, Maastricht and the EU, the cause of all our ills. In addition to this zigzagging method, ONFRAY also sheds selective light on the personalities in question. ONFRAY is not one for nuance. If he accuses Abbé Grégoire of anti-Semitism, he is careful not to mention that the latter was also a pioneer of anti-slavery, just as he is careful not to put Hugo's speech into the context of the time. What he says about Monnet or Schuman is partial, biased and poorly documented. He is also careful to hide anything that would contradict his theses.

Nothing in all this makes it possible to clearly identify Mr ONFRAY's political project. His sovereignism is purely incantatory, like that of most of the contributors to this issue. It is everyone's right to be in favour of Frexit, but the least his defenders could do would be, for example, to explain the practical consequences of leaving the Euro or the CAP. The intellectual and moral well-being of the French people who have finally wrested their name and flag from the clutches of the accursed Maastrichtians is one thing, but informing them of the state their wallets will be in is also an interesting subject.

With three months to go to the European elections, Mr ONFRAY is resolutely siding with the enemies of the EU, and that is his right. But is it reasonable to weaken the EU when it already has enough enemies outside? Just a few hours' flight away, other countries and other political models exist. Although I consider that the Europe of 27 is far from being paradise on earth, what Putin's Russia or Xi's China have to offer inspires me much less. To each his own. Contributing to the development of an interesting but imperfect European model is a civic-minded approach, but fuelling conspiracy is a dangerous game for freedom.

Claude WACHTELEAR, Past Chairman

[1] Europe demystified, the life and death of an empireFront populaire n°16, March, April, May 2024.

[2]  Op. cit. pp. 2-9.

[3] RIOUFOL, Ivan, European Union: a stinking past <https://www.lefigaro.fr/blogs/rioufol/2019/03/la-peste-brune-racine-aux-raci.html>

[4] de Villiers, P., I pulled on the thread of lies and everything came out, Fayard, 2019. The book provoked controversy, and a group of historians published a reaction in Le Monde under the title :"Philippe de Villiers has no right to falsify the history of the EU in the name of ideology". In an article published in Le Monde, a group of European academics specialising in contemporary history denounced the latest book by the former MEP, a convinced Europhobe, on the origins of European integration as "a tissue of pretence typical of conspiracy theories"., 17/12/2020

[5] Speech on the United States of Europe at the International Peace Congress in Paris in 1849,https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Discours_sur_les_%C3%89tats-Unis_d%E2%80%99Europe_au_congr%C3%A8s_international_de_la_paix_en_1849_%C3%A0_Paris

[6] Op. cit, p.9.

[7] Op. cit. pp 54-63.