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The French head of state, Emmanuel Macron, has paid an "enlightened tribute" to his distant predecessor, Napoleon Bonaparte, on the 200th anniversary of his death in exile on Saint Helena.

Speaking at the Institut de France, which houses the Academies, he stated: "Napoleon is part of us."

Avoiding controversies about the historical figure, he has sought

a "balance" between the "lights" without hiding "the shadows, such

as the reestablishment of slavery, which had been abolished by the Revolution."

True to his line of "looking the past in the face" without "hagiographies or regrets" as he has expressed regarding the Algerian war and other dark pages of French history, he has

refused to "judge the past with the laws of the present ".

Before a small audience of academics and schoolchildren, he has reaffirmed "his will not to give in to those who want to erase the past because it does not correspond to the idea they have of the present." History must be assumed from "Clovis to the Committee of Public Salvation", thus encompassing the first king of the Franks and unifier of France with the first governing body of the Convention.

In the review of the trajectory of the great privateer, certain

political and even personal affinities

could be read

.

"The life of Napoleon is an ode to political action, to those who refuse to accept the destinies assigned in advance, the stocks written in advance. The journey of a child from Ajaccio [Corsican city where Bonaparte was born] turned owner of Europe clearly shows that a man can change the course of history. "

Another could be deduced from the "song of reason and trust in science, the son of the Enlightenment (...) who" wanted science and technology "to be at the center of his political action. Macron recalled how Bonaparte Before coming to power, he recruited in this same Institute

fifty wise men

to transform the "Egyptian campaign into a scientific expedition."

He described the life of the hero as "Epiphany of freedom" coming to judge him as a being "free in love who divorced [Josefina] after being crowned by the Pope." How not to see in those paragraphs the similarities with his personal life, marrying a school teacher, Brigitte, who was listening to him in the front row, or the allusions to his irruption as a cyclone in the political life of France or even to

his administration of the Covid

, always appealing (although many times ignoring) the scientific advice.

In three sentences he favorably presented the trajectory of Napoleon, who "knew how to give order to the freedom of the Revolution, gave meaning to sovereignty on behalf of the people and projected the ideas of the Revolution for Europe."

It is what others call giving a coup or invading neighboring countries. "

However, Macron has not avoided the "chiaroscuro" of the Emperor.

Starting with the reestablishment of slavery

"a fault and a betrayal of the spirit of the Enlightenment"

... which was later repaired by the Republic.

The same technique to allude to the warrior ardor that despised "the value of human life ... that later" France has placed at the top, be it in wars or pandemics.

After the speech, he has moved to Les Invalides under whose golden dome, a 5-meter-high sarcophagus rises that contains the five coffins, embedded one inside the other, with the mortal remains of the Emperor.

It was a quick and not very solemn visit.

Just the time to lay down a wreath and listen to a cappella "Marseillaise".

Macron is the first French president who dares to "commemorate what not to celebrate" a Napoleonic anniversary since Georges Pompidou did it in 1969, on the bicentennial of his birth.

Macron is a fan of anniversaries and, true to the idea of ​​the history of France as a whole, has already honored De Gaulle, Mitterrand or Clemenceau.

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