Hours before the French election results were to be announced on May 7, it was declared that in the event of an Emmanuel Macron victory, celebrations would be held at the Esplanade du Louvre, the sprawling square flanked on three sides by the historic Louvre Museum. In itself, the choice of Louvre could not be questioned as it is a world-renowned Parisian monument. Besides, it is architecturally beautiful, immaculately maintained, and the river Seine flows majestically by its side.
But Parisians of different hues, accustomed to symbols of a more palpable history, were not too pleased with the choice. “What a choice! It’s neither left nor right. It’s an insipid mix of everything – just like his politics!” quipped a news-stand vendor. Sarah Ternat, a film editor, grimaced sceptically. “They could at least have left the Louvre alone. It’s more a symbol of art than history.”
Paris is a city of historical symbols. The columns and arcs and “palaces” of Paris were never allowed to fall into neglect and passive worship, as they were constantly invoked and re-invoked by the clamorous protests of the French have-nots. As a result, these monuments over time turned into myths of modern history.
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Far too left
Could the Bastille, the birthplace of the slogan liberté, égalité, fraternité, have served as a celebration venue for Mr. Macron’s victory? The answer is no. The Bastille has a history far too left to suit the neither-left nor-right taste of Mr. Marcon’s political movement. The Bastille was a fortress-prison where the French Revolution had begun on July 14, 1789. Since a part of this fortress was also an armoury, angry crowds had first converged here in search of gunpowder. The gates were kept firmly shut. The prison was thus stormed and the events that followed, rapidly cascaded into the French Revolution. Forty years after the revolution, during the July 1830 revolution, a brass column was erected at the Bastille square to immortalise the memory of 1789. La Place de la Bastille has since been a symbolic venue as much of protest as of freedom. It was also here that former socialist French Presidents (François Mitterrand and François Hollande) held their memorable victory celebrations.
Could Macron have opted for other historical places such as the Concorde square and the Arc of Triumph, which presides over the Champs Élysées? The answer again is no. The Concorde, where the guillotine was installed during the period of revolutionary excesses, is paradoxically associated with the memory of the victory celebrations of Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, both right-wing Presidents. The Arc de Triomphe was also considered unsuitable for its militarist connotations.
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So the Louvre was finally chosen as the venue. When the celebrations commenced, with thousands of French bleu-blanc-rouge flags fluttering against the translucent background of the Louvre Museum, it did not appear to be a bad choice at all. The crowd was still cheering into the void, when a young and solemn-faced Mr. Macron walked out of a gate of the Square Court at the back and slowly made his way, as though followed by the halo of his own future, towards the stage.
When Mr. Macron stood behind the lectern, silhouetting against the dazzle of the glass pyramid behind him, it seemed that the choice of the Louvre was even charged with an inescapable sense of history. After all, was the pyramid against which Macron had chosen to speak not the symbol of François Mitterrand, the man whose thoughts were an inspiration to the young new President and the very man who had commissioned the erection of this glass monument for the city of Paris?