Our Society and Culture Correspondent Richard Neat was the first Englishmen to receive Michelin stars in both the UK and France. He worked under “chef of the century” Joël Robuchon in the French capital. He ran his own one-starred eatery in Cannes. So France isn’t just a country for Richard. It’s what made him who he is. In today’s article, he reflects on the sad state of a nation that made gastronomy an art.- Daniel Clarke-Serret (Editor, Guerre and Shalom)
Previously on the Frintifada Symposium:
Jens Heycke on the French economy, youth unemployment and multiculturalism:
Daniel Clarke-Serret on the two nations inside France:
Khaled Salih on the contradictions implicit in the French Open Society:
More reflections on France to come. Continue to submit your articles!
“The Unfolding Tragi-Comedy That Is La France Éternelle” by Richard Neat
France. I lived in this magnificent country for seven years. I arrived as a twenty-one-year-old man-child, was educated by the country and its people, married there and owned a business there. France remains my spiritual, intellectual and aesthetic home.
And yet, how extraordinary it is that such a remarkable people, possessed of such an appetite for life, such a laudable determination to demonstrate the occasional genius and sublimity of man through art, literature, architecture, philosophy and gastronomy, should also exhibit such an inexhaustible appetite for political petulance and instability.
One hears much about the ‘ungovernability’ of France, a charge which, at some point, must surely become an aspersion upon the French people themselves, for they are, after all, the constituent elements of the nation. Yet this bears little resemblance to my experience of living and working amongst them.
The first two years of my life in France were spent working for Joël Robuchon at his iconic Restaurant Jamin in Paris, the restaurant in which he would earn the accolade Chef of the Century from Gault & Millau.
There, some fifty mature, consummately professionals, ranging in age from their mid-twenties to their fifties, worked in the service of Robuchon’s extraordinary genius. We were disciplined, dutiful, obedient and reliable. We understood hierarchy, respected authority, accepted responsibility and subordinated our individual inclinations to a common purpose.
I offer no grand sociological theory, merely the empirical evidence of fifty French men who, day after day, demonstrated precisely those qualities supposedly absent from their national character. I humbly suggest that we were eminently governable.
And may I further dare to suggest that surely this observation extends far beyond the confines of Robuchon’s kitchen. The extraordinary achievements of French civilisation, in architecture, painting, literature, philosophy and gastronomy, were not produced by an undisciplined or ungovernable rabble. Quite the contrary. Such achievements demand an almost fanatical devotion to one’s craft, an obedience to its disciplines, a respect for accumulated knowledge and an uncompromising submission to standards of excellence.
These are hardly the characteristics of an inherently ungovernable people. Indeed, they seem profoundly at odds with the nihilistic impulses being displayed in the streets of Paris. Of course, the same individual may be disciplined in his profession and rebellious towards political authority. But this only reinforces the distinction between a people incapable of being governed and a people increasingly unwilling to submit to the particular authority exercised over them.
One is therefore entitled to ask whether France’s celebrated ungovernability is really a characteristic of its people, or rather a symptom of the institutions and political ideas by which they are governed.
I would hazard that it is the latter. When the French, intoxicated by Jacobin revolutionary zeal, permitted the state to usurp the place of God, they unwittingly conferred upon it something of the divine’s thaumaturgical powers. The state was no longer merely an instrument of government but an agent of salvation, endowed with the supposed capacity to remedy every human misfortune, correct every injustice and deliver society from the imperfections of the human condition.
The foundations of this political centralisation had, of course, been laid long before the Revolution, under the absolutist Bourbon monarchy. But the Revolution transformed the nature of the state’s authority, investing political power with an altogether more ambitious mission: not merely to govern society, but to remake it.
Perhaps herein lies the great French paradox: a people capable of extraordinary discipline, independence and individual achievement, yet seemingly persuaded that the ultimate remedy for their collective difficulties must come from the very state against which they so frequently rebel.
I spoke this morning to an old French friend, someone I have known for thirty years. Bright, beautiful and a devout Republican, she remains unwilling to concede that France’s present malaise might be the consequence of centuries of extravagant promises made in the name of the state. I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that the Anglo-American fetishisation of the heroic, socially unmoored individual has also proved detrimental to society. But might she not, in the face of so much evidence, concede that the French alternative — the pursuit of salvation through the machinery of the state — has proved more damaging still?
As their own Chantal Delsol has argued, utopian visions and ideologies promising perfect solutions to human problems so often end in disillusionment and tyranny, precisely because they fail to acknowledge the complexities and limitations of human nature.
The utopians Helvétius and Saint-Simon, the fiercely anticlerical Voltaire, the bloodthirsty Saint-Just — notwithstanding their considerable philosophical differences — shared, in varying degrees, a belief in the transformative possibilities of human reason and the remaking of society. For the more radical among them, the ambition was nothing less than the creation of a new earthly Eden.
But the promised paradise is always in the future. Or, as Alexander Herzen wrote:
“If progress is the goal, for whom are we working? Who is this Moloch who, as the toilers approach him, instead of rewarding them, draws back and, as a consolation to the exhausted, doomed multitudes, shouting morituri te salutant, can only give the mocking answer that after their death all will be beautiful on earth.
Do you really wish to condemn the human beings alive today to the sad role of galley slaves?
A goal which is infinitely remote is not a goal, only a deception. A goal must be closer, at least a labourer’s wage, or pleasure in work performed.”
And it is precisely the labourer’s wage and the pleasure derived from work that risk being diminished when the demands of an ever-expanding state encroach upon the fruits of individual endeavour. France’s formidable burden of taxation, public expenditure and regulation raises an uncomfortable question: how much of the individual’s labour must be surrendered to sustain the state’s increasingly extravagant promises?
As one of the principal architects of the European project, France cannot undertake this reckoning without consequences far beyond its borders. The process will undoubtedly be painful, perhaps even convulsive. But the question France must eventually confront is not how much more the state can promise, but how much it can reasonably be expected to deliver.
For a people so abundantly endowed with the capacity for greatness, that distinction may prove indispensable to the survival of La France éternelle.
Let’s say I’m living in Spain in the 1930s. I would celebrate the collapse of General Miguel Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, the abdication of King Alfonso XIII and the birth of the Second Spanish Republic, I would support labor reforms, regional autonomy for Catalonia and the Basque Country and women’s suffrage, support welcoming back Sephardic Jews, vote for the Popular Front in the 1936 general elections, despise General Francisco Franco and the Nationalist rebels, join the Republican forces to put down the Nationalist rebellion, work to persuade Moroccans living in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco to fight for the Republican cause, welcome the International Brigades of foreign volunteers arriving in Spain with open arms, salute our Mexican allies, admire the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, lobby the United States, Great Britain and France to send us aid, condemn Nationalist atrocities, and would detest Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy for helping the Nationalists and be sickened by the war crimes and atrocities they committed in my country. But at the same time, I would be suspicious of the Soviet Union and reject their assistance to the Republican cause, distrust the Communist faction of the Republican forces, be horrified by and condemn in the strongest possible terms, atrocities committed by Republican forces, condemn the purges conducted within the Republican zone against anti-Stalinist leftists, Trotskyists, and anarchists, be troubled by internal factionalism and a lack of unity within Republican ranks, be miffed that we didn’t get more foreign assistance, shake my head at our logistical and military disorganization, call for reforms in Spanish Morocco, oppose restrictions on Moroccan men marrying Spanish women, reject antisemitism and racism in Spain, and be friendly towards African-American soldiers fighting for the Republican cause.
Let’s say I lived in South Africa in the 1990s. I would support F.W. de Klerk lifting the ban on the African National Congress and other liberation movements, cheer Nelson Mandela’s release from prison, celebrate the removal of key Apartheid legislation, be excited by multi-party talks being held, proudly vote yes on the referendum to allow continued reforms and end apartheid, welcome the drafting of an interim Constitution, proudly vote for Nelson Mandela and the ANC in the first-ever universal, non-racial election in 1994, support the new Constitution, back the Truth and Reconciliation Commission all the way, support racial reconciliation and national unity, cheer on South Africa during and be overjoyed by our win in the 1995 Rugby World Cup, support South Africa reconciling and having good relations with the United States and Israel, and encourage Afrikaners, English-speakers, blacks, Coloureds, and Asians to work together to build a strong, peaceful and prosperous rainbow nation in South Africa. However, I would also be troubled by the high rate of Jewish emigration from South Africa, be saddened by the bad state of the economy and the conditions most black South Africans lived in, be frustrated by the continued economic inequalities and deep-seated racial prejudice in the country, be critical of Affirmative Action, BEE and land reform, be freighted of both the far-left and far-right, oppose the factional infighting that occurred between South African political parties, express my disgust with racism by whites directed at blacks and blacks directed at whites, and oppose the government of Mandela’s successor Thabo Mbeki.
Let’s say I lived in Bulgaria during the 1930s and 1940s. I would be a proud Bulgarian, revere the Bulgarian nationalist heroes who helped us gain our independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 19th Century, greatly admire Tsar Simeon I and Saints Cyril and Methodius, be a pious member of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, visit the Black Sea Coast and our capital city of Sofia with much awe, love traditional Bulgarian culture and food, love Bulgarian folk music and help Bulgarian peasants during the Great Depression. At the same time, I would oppose the repressive rule of Zveno and later Tsar Boris III, oppose Bulgaria doing business with Nazi Germany, oppose Bulgaria joining the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany, oppose the Bulgarian occupation of parts of Greece and Yugoslavia, I would be outraged and ashamed by Bulgaria deporting Jews from the occupied countries to concentration camps, lobby to protect the native Bulgarian Jewish population, oppose discrimination against Jews, Roma people, Turks, and Pomaks, oppose the 1941 Law for Protection of the Nation, support the Fatherland Front and the overthrow of the Tsardom, support the signing of the Armistice with Allies and declaring war on Germany in 1944, and would join the Goryani Movement to fight Communist rule after the war.
👏👏👏 A terrific and timely piece in light of the unfortunate riots raging right now in cities across France. Chef Richard Neat has written an incredible article that needs to go viral! This piece proves once against that Guerre and Shalom truly is the world’s intelligent journal! As Chef Neat brilliantly explains, the French people are NOT at all ungovernable! They are not opposed to being governed in of itself. They are rather increasingly unwilling to submit to the particular authority exercised over time. France’s celebrated ungovernability is a symptom of the institutions and political ideas by which they are governed. The French intoxicated by Jacobin revolutionary zeal, permitted the state to usurp the place of God. The state became an agent of salvation endowed with the supposed capacity to remedy every human misfortune, correct every injustice and deliver society from the imperfections of the human condition. Paradoxically, it is the very state they protest against all the time that they believe can solve all their problems. The Revolution transformed the nature of the state’s authority, investing political power with an altogether more ambitious mission: not merely to govern society, but to remake it. This belief in the all mighty French state that can cure all ills I think is the problem. The pursuit of salvation through the machinery of the state has done a great deal of damage to France. Chantal Delsol was 100% right when she said that utopian visions and ideologies promising perfect solutions to human problems so often end in disillusionment and tyranny, precisely because they fail to acknowledge the complexities and limitations of human nature.
This hits the nail of the head as to why France needs to abandon its worship of the God of the state! That is the only way to cure the malaise that currently plagues France and keeps it a stagnant, divided and politically polarized nation. The French people need to STOP worshipping the state and seeing it as the answer to all their problems! France needs to look to private sector solutions for its problems. Taxes need to be cut, regulations rolled back, public expenditures need to be cut, and the free market needs to be allowed to thrive and innovate! France also needs to have a reckoning with the current political status quo. France needs to throw out its current corrupt, incompetent and decaying political establishment and replace it with a new and better one that works for the people. France must get rid of Emmanuel Macron and find the next Charles de Gaulle. A national unity government including the left, the right and the center and excluding the far-left and far-right should be formed. The Catholic Church and Protestant denominations in France should start holding revivals all across France to bring people back to the faith. The birth rate should be raised to 2.1, marriage rates increased and the nuclear family restored. Divorce and illegitimacy rates should be lowered. Mass immigration will be brought to an end. A huge fence will be built on France’s border and the French military deployed on it. Mass deportations will be carried out. Only 50,000 people a year will be allowed to immigrate to France. A rigorous assimilation program will be set up to ensure newcomers are acclimated to French culture, customs and laws and can demonstrate proficiency in speaking the French language. The rules about who can qualify for refugee and asylum statuses will be tightened. France will adopt modest property and education requirements for voting in order to ensure that those who take part in French democracy have a real stake in it and they are incentivized to go vote and it will help to cultivate a more informed and intelligent electorate. France will renegotiate its relationship with the European Union. They will ditch the Euro and return to the Franc. France will pull out of the Schengen Area. France will increase defense spending and the size of its military. The French government will declare a national emergency. Initiatives will be started to build bridges and ease tensions between Frenchman of different political views, races and religions. No-go zones will be stormed by the French police and military with the assistance of the French Foreign Legion. They will then be gentrified and integrated with non-Muslims. More money and resources will be given to the police and there will a concerted effort to fight crime in the cities. Paris will be cleaned up and criminals, leftists and Jihadists will be run out of town. The number of police in Jewish neighborhoods will be quadrupled. France will create a government department that exclusively deals with antisemitism and appoint an antisemitism Tsar and Rabbis and experts on extremism will be brought in to consult with.
France will sign a defense pact with Israel and withdraw its recognition of a Palestinian state. This brings us back to the subject of nuance. As Chef Neat so eloquently reminds us, any ideology that promises to create a utopia can’t grasp or come to terms with the complexities of human nature. The French religion of the state does not take into account that those who make up the state are human beings who can make bad decisions, be corrupt, not have good intentions, miscalculate, put in place bad policies, or abuse their authority. Though I’m admittedly starting to run low on them, I will provide some examples of this complexity. I believe very strongly that gender-affirming care for minors should be illegal. But I do believe an exception should be made for the small number of children who legitimately are Trans. I support the limited war the United States is waging in Iran. But I also think it was wrong that President Trump did not get Congressional approval before launching it as previous Presidents had always done. I believe that the DOGE was a good idea and a modest success. But I think it could’ve been even more successful and lived up to its full potential had it been executed better and Elon Musk not been involved in it. I don’t like Rep. Ilhan Omar at all, but I think the Trump administration’s political witch hunt against her is 100% wrong.