France commemorates the bicentenary of Napoleon's death on Wednesday.
While the event has sparked controversy between the deputies in recent days, Emmanuel Macron will deliver a speech to pay tribute to the one who laid the foundations of the modern state, without obscuring the worst of the Empire. .
DECRYPTION
The memory of Napoleon sometimes rekindles wounds: the reestablishment of colonial status, the place of women ... While France commemorates, Wednesday, the bicentenary of the Emperor's death - a commemoration which causes controversy -, the minister responsible for 'Equality, Elisabeth Moreno, herself recently criticized Napoleon, as' a great misogynist who restored slavery'.
A widely held position, especially on the left.
On Wednesday, in his speech, Emmanuel Macron plans to deconstruct the figure of the Emperor.
"We do not debunk, we do not erase ', we explain to the Elysee in response to supporters of the" cancel culture "(culture of cancellation).
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Controversial
Taking up Alphonse de Lamartine, the President of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, called on Tuesday to "welcome the memory of Napoleon 'with meditation, but without fanaticism", on the eve of the commemoration of the bicentenary of his death.
"Let us know not to reduce big dates and big men to small slogans", he asked in a short speech before questions to the government.
"Let us know how to look at our past with measure and discernment."
On the anniversary of the death of the one who has never ceased to unleash passions, Emmanuel Macron will deliver his speech at the Institut de France in Paris, in which he intends to "look in the face" at the legacy left by the Emperor .
Two centuries after his death, the figure of the revolutionary general or the Emperor continues to cause controversy among the deputies.
The president of the National Rally, Marine Le Pen, estimated on RTL that he was "one of the very great historical figures" and regretted "that the President of the Republic commemorates him in a hurry".
"It has meanings to make official commemorations", on the contrary argued the Communist deputy Pierre Dharréville.
"There is something behind, values that we want to put forward. I am more in favor of doing a work of history and historians".
Take on France's past
For the President of the Republic, it is more a question of keeping the best of the Emperor, the one who laid the foundations of the modern State, the Civil Code, the mayors, the prefects, without hiding the worst of the Empire.
The head of state should recall that the reestablishment of slavery was "an abomination", a subject that Emmanuel Macron will address again next Monday, during the twenty years of the Taubira law on the slave trade.
Wednesday, this commemoration is in the image of the memorial project of Emmanuel Macron: to claim the complexity of history and to assume the past of France.
As one of his relatives theorizes, "we must not make our past bear the weight of our present debates".