Pod Insights The Rest Is Politics 69. François Hollande on Putin, Obama, and Brexit About this episode In a special guest episode, we speak to former French president François Hollande from his office in Paris. Tune in to hear his views on Putin, Xi Jinping, Merkel, Macron, the far right, the importance of political parties and much, much more.
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Transcript 6,182 words · 13 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:04 Rory Stewart? This episode is brought to you by NordVPN.
0:06 Alastair Campbell? And I must thank NordVPN because on my grand European tour with Fiona, I was away from the Hawthorns for West Bromwich against Burnley, but I managed to watch it. There you go.
0:19 Rory Stewart? I actually had a NordVPN thank you. I was in the new Starbucks here in Creve and of course the thing flashed up saying this is an unsecured public network. And I was able to go to my VPN and it was a little reminder of something we often forget when we're in all those cafes and things, which is actually genuinely people can do all kinds of weird cyber attacks and spying if you don't have a virtual private network when you're sitting in that Starbucks.
0:42 Alastair Campbell? Well, I think, are you not really sort of proud of me that I managed to do this? Or should I say Fiona managed to do this?
0:49 Rory Stewart? I'm incredibly proud of you. That's a tech transformation. So to get the best discount off your NordVPN plan, go to nordvpn.com/rustaspolitics. That's nordvpn.com/rustaspolitics. And the link is in the episode description.
1:43 Alastair Campbell? Welcome to another special edition of the Rest is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell in Paris.
1:48 Rory Stewart? And me Rory Stewart, somewhere a very long way in Kenya, up in northern Kenya.
1:54 Alastair Campbell? And we're very pleased to have our first président, our first président de la République française. Welcome François Hollande.
2:04 Speaker 02 Thank you for your invitation.
2:06 Alastair Campbell? It's really nice to have you. And I want to start with what you think about what is happening right now in my country and la politique britannique.
2:18 Speaker 02 It's difficult to speak about another country than France for me, but I don't want to give lessons. So so difficult in France that can forgive what it happened in in Great Britain. But it's a surprise to have five prime ministers in five years.
2:37 Alastair Campbell? Six years.
2:37 Speaker 02 Six years. It's a splendid performance. So it's not a joke, it's a pity that a country like Great Britain has a instability. We we need stability in this moment because of the war in Ukraine, because of the energetic crisis. We need Great Britain in a good direction. So I hope that now you can work with with Europe.
3:03 Alastair Campbell? You you've just published a book, Bouleversement, which I guess the English translation is probably upheavals, shocks. And you have a a chapter on Brexit and Trump. And there's a fascinating account of when David Cameron said to you and Angela Merkel, I'm going for the referendum. So just tell our listeners what your reaction was, what Angela Merkel's reaction was, and how you feel it has worked out for Britain and for Europe.
3:33 Speaker 02 At this moment, we attended a European Council summit. David Cameron explained to to Angela Merkel and and to me, he decided to.
3:46 Speaker 02 And the debate in Great Britain. So he explains that it's a good decision because after the yes, it was over that British people asked for a new relation with Europe. With Cameron, I explained also that we have an experience in France. European campaign for referendum in 2005. So we lost.
4:14 Alastair Campbell? On the new treaty.
4:15 Speaker 02 On the new treaty, we lost the referendum. And it's difficult to win a referendum about Europe because you have always one reason to vote no to the referendum. Because you are not happy for economic policy, because you have problems with wages, because you have a preoccupation about your job for the future, because your region is weak and you think that Europe is responsible for this situation. So you have probability to lose the referendum. And David Cameron, who is a man who is always.
4:55 Alastair Campbell? Sure of himself. Yeah, he went to the same school as Rory and Boris Johnson.
4:59 Rory Stewart? But he had a better haircut.
5:00 Speaker 02 Yeah.
5:02 Rory Stewart? So you've written, Monsieur le Président, a wonderful book called Bouleversement. One of the thoughts that I was having reading that book is you put a lot of focus on the year 2012, on 2012. You see that as being the big change. And I wondered whether you could tell us a little bit about why you think 2012 was so important, why you think that was such an important moment of change.
5:24 Speaker 02 2012 is a big change, not because I was elected.
5:30 Speaker 02 It's a big change because at this period, Putin came back in power and Xi Jinping became the new president of China. And Putin is in revenge against the world and against the United States. He wanted to be now in a new cycle of supremacy.
5:56 Speaker 02 of authoritarian regimes against democratic systems. And Xi Jinping, at the beginning of his presidency, is regarded as a modern president, or in fact is a nationalist president. And he wants that China will become the biggest power in the world in 2050, because it's the first century of the regime. So the new situation is not that Putin and Xi Jinping are in an alliance, but they are convinced that the time of the democracy is over
6:37 Speaker 02 and now a new period is opened for authoritarian regimes.
6:43 Alastair Campbell? And do you think that we, the democracies, were very arrogant in assuming that democracy was going to win forever? And do you think the dictators, even with what's happening in Ukraine, do you think that the dictators think they are winning?
6:58 Speaker 02 Putin was sure to win when he decided to invade Ukraine. Now it's not so evident and China is expecting what the issue of the conflict. But they think that we are, in our democracies, decadent. We are weak, we are divided, we are pushed by populism, pushed by nationalism. But it's a nationalism of internal affairs. It's protectionism, it's sovereignty. It's not nationalism to be powerful in the world. On the contrary, they want with China and Russia be powerful in the world.
7:41 Speaker 02 And they think that many countries are upset and they can hope that with dictatorship it's a better way to tackle the big problems of the world, including the climate change.
7:55 Rory Stewart? One of the most interesting things, I think, in your book is your focus on the responsibility of President Obama for this and your sense of your interactions with him. So you refer to him, I think, as an intellectual, but you thought there was a certain froideur, a certain coldness to him sometimes when he interacted. And you sometimes thought that his attitude towards Europe could be a little bit de haut en bas when he was discussing things with you. Is that correct?
8:26 Speaker 02 Yes, Obama is a charismatic leader. He has popularity outside of the United States. He was regarded as a new leader with a great talent to communicate. But also, he is clever, of course, but he is arrogant. He is American style. He thinks that the Americans are superior. And he explained with the other leaders what they know, they already know. The main fact, and you are right to remember the moment, 2013, with Cameron and Obama,
9:10 Speaker 02 we decided to intervene in Syria to punish Bashar al-Assad. It's a crucial moment. We are in August 2013, and we are now convinced that Bashar al-Assad has used chemical weapons against his people. David Cameron, he was convinced to intervene, but because of the Blair's decision in Iraq, most of the MPs refused to intervene. So it was not a problem, we can do the operation with the United States and France. And just on that, you were ready to do it? Yes, yeah, all the things, it was ready.
9:54 Speaker 02 And at the last moment, Obama called me and explained that he wanted to summon the Congress and to have the support of the Congress. So the operation was over at this period. And it was not so important for Syria. Syria, it was crucial, but it was very important for the world, because at this moment, Putin understood that Western countries are weak and not intervene anywhere. A year after the Ukrainian conflict, two years after bombs on Syria by Russian planes,
10:38 Speaker 02 and Bashar al-Assad is always in power.
10:42 Alastair Campbell? So how does the how does the war in Ukraine end?
10:45 Speaker 02 The decision is American. If Biden has the majority in the new elections, he will continue to support Ukrainians and provide arms and equipments. If he has not the majority, it would be more difficult. And if people in Europe accept sacrifices
11:09 Alastair Campbell? Sacrifices.
11:09 Speaker 02 About energy costs, about inflation, about recession, Ukrainians can continue to
11:17 Alastair Campbell? That's a big F. That is a big F.
11:19 Speaker 02 And Putin knows all these aspects. He has no democracy inside, so he can obtain the support of the Russian people. But he knows that we are divided. He knows we are weak. He knows we have elections. So he continues to control the eastern of Ukraine. And he hopes that we accept a negotiation and Ukrainians have no choice.
11:48 Alastair Campbell? So we're here on Monday and your newspapers this morning, there's next to nothing about Johnson, Sunak, et cetera. The big, big story is the divisions between France and Germany, which I assume is flowing from the war in Ukraine. Now, how big a problem and how big a crisis does that become for Europe unless it gets resolved?
12:15 Speaker 02 There is a cohesion in Europe about the support of Ukraine. Germany and France and Great Britain agree to continue to support Ukraine. The division is about energy and weapons for the future. Energy, because in Germany they have the capacity to sustain the demand. In France, more difficult because of the budget capacity.
12:47 Speaker 02 So we want to to have a selling price.
12:50 Alastair Campbell? Yep.
12:51 Speaker 02 For the gas. And Germany is against the system because it's too expensive. And Germany want to to have a relationship in NATO with the United States for the future of the weapons. And France want to to have common.
13:11 Alastair Campbell? European defence.
13:12 Speaker 02 European defence and also want to to sell his proper weapons to to Germany. But Germany prefer buy American than buy European.
13:23 Alastair Campbell? But it's it's a genuine difficulty.
13:25 Speaker 02 Yes, it's difficulty.
13:26 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, and Putin will welcome it.
13:28 Speaker 02 Yes, and if we want defence of Europe, we must we want we must have the common weapons together.
13:36 Rory Stewart? So one one of the things, Monsieur Laprezidon, which you've mentioned in the past is the problem of the relationship to Saudi Arabia and China in terms of sustaining Russia. Is that something you can talk about a little bit, that Russia is not really operating alone? That this is a fundamental challenge between autocracies and democracies? And that if we predict the future of Ukraine, we need to think about other countries, not just Russia.
14:00 Alastair Campbell? And Iran, of course, because it's Iran that's providing these drones that are doing so much damage now.
14:05 Speaker 02 I I spoke about the big change in in twenty twelve with the islands between China and Russia. But we have islands with all the dictatorships. The problem is now that Russia is not so condemned by the international community because Russia continues to to explain that the responsibility of the crisis is on the side of Western countries. That's a problem. So Europeans and Western countries must convince the world that if Putin is winning the the war,
14:48 Speaker 02 it will be a problem for all the the world because tomorrow China can catch Taiwan because after.
14:57 Speaker 02 Tomorrow Iran can dispose of nuclear weapons and control the region. It's a problem because Turkey can occupy the north of Syria and Kurdish regions. So it's a problem not for Ukraine. It's a problem for the international order and stability of the world. Okay, on va faire une petite pause, a little break.
15:24 Speaker 03 Mr. President, my company formed me the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.
15:34 Speaker 04 Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess and Digger's gonna dig us out. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.
15:41 Speaker 05 What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.
15:45 Speaker 04 With great power comes great deniability.
15:48 Speaker 05 I'm not the first nanny.
15:50 Speaker 04 Digger, see the trailer online, only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R, under seventeen, not a minute without parent.
15:55 Speaker 05 Priceline Negotiator.
15:57 Speaker 06 It's me, the.
15:58 Speaker 05 Priceline Negotiator.
16:00 Speaker 06 We don't need the jingle twice.
16:01 Speaker 05 What about a third time?
16:03 Speaker 06 Stop it. This is about vacation inflation and how Priceline negotiates amazing deals on hotels, flights, and rental cars.
16:10 Speaker 05 Seems like they decided.
16:12 Speaker 06 Yeah, but I didn't mention that you can save up to sixty percent off hotels in the Priceline app.
16:16 Speaker 05 Time to be the tagline.
16:18 Speaker 06 Fine, no one deals more deals than.
16:20 Speaker 05 Priceline.
16:21 Speaker 06 Please stop.
16:21 Speaker 05 Priceline.
16:22 Speaker 06 Touche.
16:23 Speaker 05 Priceline.
16:24 Speaker 06 Priceline.
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17:27 Alastair Campbell? Welcome back to a special episode of The Rest is Politics with me, Alastair Campbell in Paris.
17:31 Rory Stewart? And me Rory Stewart, roughly somewhere near Lycippia in Kenya.
17:35 Alastair Campbell? You write a lot in the book about Angela Merkel. How much do you think the world is missing Angela Merkel? You're very, very fond of Angela Merkel.
17:45 Speaker 02 I think Angela Merkel has human qualities first because of the past. We don't understand how it's for her reality, the period of her life where the communist system was in his.
18:06 Alastair Campbell? Existence.
18:07 Speaker 02 Yes. First. Second, she's, she's, she was a European. So she defends the German interest. But at the end of the discussion, a long discussion, a long compromise with nights and days to discuss, at the end of the course, she accepted compromise on the eurozone, Greece, and also about Brexit.
18:40 Alastair Campbell? She wanted a second referendum.
18:42 Speaker 02 Yes, she wants, she wants, when the Brexit was decided by the British people, she hoped that a new vote was possible because she likes France, but she prefers to have great Britain inside, not to be in front of France only.
19:00 Alastair Campbell? You thought that once the vote had happened, that was it?
19:03 Speaker 02 Yes, it was over because I remember the vote in France. It was very difficult to explain to the people, you vote no, but tomorrow you can change. If you don't want to change, we want a parliamentary system to obtain the same result. No, it's impossible in democracy.
19:23 Rory Stewart? So this is one of the questions that we're still struggling with, which is, was Theresa May correct to try to create a more soft Brexit than? Boris Johnson, for example, to remain inside the customs union.
19:36 Speaker 02 It was possible, and Theresa May tried to to to do that. Perhaps the European Commission was too hard, but all the European leaders want to to have a soft Brexit. It's a pity that this solution has not been formed. And the problem was the the border with the island. And Boris Johnson committed a mistake, but also a lie to explain that it was not a problem. It's the main problem if we want to to have a soft Brexit.
20:17 Alastair Campbell? What what do you make of the fact that Trump became president? Again, you write about this in one chapter, Trump became president of America, Johnson became prime minister of Britain. And you talk about Putin using lying as a weapon.
20:33 Alastair Campbell? How has this capacity for senior politicians to lie? How has that affected democracy and the way the world of politics has changed?
20:44 Speaker 02 In a democracy, we use lies, but little lies, silent lies. I don't.
20:54 Alastair Campbell? White lies, we call them.
20:55 Speaker 02 But not the enormous lie that the lie astonish, cut the discussion. And with Putin, it's possible, he explained that chemical bombs were not launched by the regime, but by the opposition itself.
21:14 Alastair Campbell? That's a big lie.
21:15 Speaker 02 It's a big lie. When I was in Minsk, at the end of the night, we have an agreement with the Ukrainian president Putin and Merkel. We are ready to to sign the the the agreement. And he explained, I must know what the separatist Ukrainians separatists think about that. So I told him, go on, phone phone them. I don't know them. I have never met them, never in my life.
21:44 Speaker 02 So he sent an advisor to phone. The advisor came back one or two hours after. You know, they did not accept the separatist. So we were obliged to discuss one or two hours. At the end, I would phone to the separatist. He has the number, the pocket.
22:05 Alastair Campbell? How do you deal with that? When you, I mean, I get what you say that all politicians are sometimes are very careful with the truth. Okay, let's put it like that. But dealing with, and it's one thing for Russia, because he's a dictator. Okay, so he lies and he controls the media. But we've had the same in America and Britain, which are meant to be great democracies. So what's the effect on that long term?
22:28 Speaker 02 It's a big crisis in the democracy when the defeated leader say that he has not.
22:34 Alastair Campbell? He won.
22:35 Speaker 02 He won. We must ask question. What if Trump was president at the moment where Putin invited?
22:45 Alastair Campbell? Big change.
22:46 Speaker 02 It's, are we sure that the Americans will support Ukraine? No.
22:52 Alastair Campbell? No.
22:53 Speaker 02 Are we sure that Putin and Trump have not a special relationship? No.
22:59 Alastair Campbell? No.
23:00 Speaker 02 Are we sure that Trump want to reshuffle NATO to be? Yes, but broken, no. So that's a great problem. If in democracy we have leaders who don't want defend democracy against dictatorship, what is the future?
23:20 Alastair Campbell? The problem, yeah.
23:21 Rory Stewart? You said that in normal democracies, politicians tell lies, small lies, not big lies. Can you give an example of this for the people listening to this podcast to understand the kind of small lies which happen inside democracies?
23:35 Alastair Campbell? I'm going to give you an example. I'm going to give you an example. If I say to you, do you feel that President Macron stabbed you in the back?
23:44 Speaker 02 Hmm?
23:45 Alastair Campbell? What's your answer?
23:46 Speaker 02 Yes, I'm sure.
23:47 Alastair Campbell? Okay, that's the truth. I thought you'd say no, I wouldn't say that.
23:51 Speaker 02 That's a polite lie.
23:55 Speaker 02 Democratic lie, because we must accept the verdict of the people and who is legitimate to preside. A little lie is when you don't give the information about the services, give you some informations about the external situation. You have not to precise, you have not to give all.
24:21 Alastair Campbell? You don't tell all of the truth.
24:23 Speaker 02 All the truth. Useful lie, because if you are completely transparent, you give to the enemies some informations.
24:33 Rory Stewart? But Monsieur le Président, there's a challenge, because the public and the media, the newspapers, television, don't really understand the difference between a useful lie and a non-useful lie. They will also attack you if you lie about the intelligence services.
24:51 Speaker 02 Yes, so we must call this attitude, this behaviour not a lie, but...
25:01 Alastair Campbell? En français.
25:01 Speaker 02 En français, une nécessité pour gouverner.
25:05 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, yeah, something you need to do to govern effectively.
25:08 Speaker 02 It's not in comparison with a brutal lie, a complete lie, not to convince, but to impress. That's the big difference. Putin is not a liar to give you some information you will interpret. He wants to lie to impress you, to convince you. He is in a relation of force. He will go at the ultimate point to be the better.
25:37 Rory Stewart? And sometimes he wants you to know that it is a lie, because his power is about being able to tell something which is an obvious lie, a clear lie. But I wonder also...
25:48 Alastair Campbell? If one of the problems is that the public thinks that all politicians are liars, and this helps populism.
25:55 Speaker 02 Hmm.
25:55 Alastair Campbell? How does Giorgia Meloni become the leader of Italy? How does Boris Johnson become the leader of Britain? Because the public is so cynical that they think everybody's lying, so it doesn't matter who I vote for.
26:06 Speaker 02 Yes, it's a great danger, so we must say the truth so each time it's possible. I think that transparency, truth, and confidence are the...
26:22 Alastair Campbell? Trust.
26:23 Speaker 02 Trust are the main arms to, in a democracy, to convince. If you begin to lie, that the risk is to be a liar of the others. Because it's a risk to give the reality. People prefer sometimes to have a liar that frank leader. I can be a good testimony of that.
26:46 Alastair Campbell? Yeah. You've got a very interesting section in the book about technology and about the social media companies who you think have not done enough to deal with the spread of hate and extremism. And you have a wonderful expression of Elon Musk, anarcho-capitalist, anarcho-capitalist. What do you mean by that?
27:10 Speaker 02 We have a problem with dictators. We have also the problem with big companies which don't respect any border, any vote, any legitimacy. For Musk, the problem is not to have a success for the United States, is outside of the United States. The technology is first, and the leadership of a big companies is more important than the vote of citizens.
27:43 Alastair Campbell? Do you think that the nation-state is in danger as an entity?
27:46 Speaker 02 Yes, yes. Nation-state is in danger because who is the most powerful? Is the state or the big Amazon, Google? Who is, for the people, the most powerful?
28:05 Speaker 02 System.
28:06 Alastair Campbell? You think it's them, not you?
28:07 Speaker 02 It's the state, but people are not sure of my answer.
28:13 Rory Stewart? So, one of the things I'm interested in, Alastair is always attacking me for going to an elite school. But you yourself, Monsieur le Président, went to some of the most elite schools in France. You went to a private school, you went to the best business school in France, you went to Sciences Po, you went to ENA.
28:35 Speaker 02 And my English is not so good.
28:39 Alastair Campbell? Et malgré ça?
28:41 Speaker 02 In spite of this course, my English is not so high.
28:45 Rory Stewart? Yeah, moi aussi, je parle français comme une vache espagnole. So, the question is, is there a problem with elitism in French and British politics?
28:56 Speaker 02 Le lack of diversity, the main problem for the leadership, not only in public affairs, but also in the companies, private companies. So, the same people who speak in the same circles, they don't know what is the reality of the society. But we have another problem now in France, is nobody in the elite wants to make politics.
29:29 Speaker 02 Before, when one was a student, the main success was to be a member of the parliament, perhaps minister, and if it's possible, president. Now, in the elite system, politics is considered that the wrong way. The best way is to be in boards and economic circles, not in politics.
29:58 Rory Stewart? And why? What has changed?
30:01 Speaker 02 It's hard to be in politics. You are regarded on your private life, you don't have any revenues and wages in comparison of business. You can be defeated in elections and have a difficulty after.
30:20 Alastair Campbell? You're talking about yourself here, private life defeat.
30:23 Speaker 02 So, you have no holidays, no weekends, never.
30:29 Speaker 02 So why to be committed proper of an elite is not to be considered is to work for the for the prosperity and sovereignty and happiness of the people.
30:42 Alastair Campbell? How do you?
30:42 Speaker 02 Must be engaged, committed as before, even if it's more difficult now. Social social medias are very, very harsh cruel for for the political system. So why to do in this way?
30:57 Rory Stewart? Also, I think part of the problem is the is the lack of respect.
31:01 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:02 Rory Stewart? It's okay to work weekends, work hard, not be paid very much. But if the public thinks you are all liars or lazy, incompetent, useless people, after the time, it's a bit demoralizing. You don't feel very proud of yourself.
31:16 Speaker 02 Yes, it's difficult to explain. We are not lazy, we are not liar.
31:23 Speaker 02 We work each day of the week. But that it was also very difficult in the past. I think for the leaders during all the 20th century, it was difficult too.
31:46 Speaker 02 So that democracy is a fight, a fight against animal spirits.
31:54 Alastair Campbell? Do you just briefly, finally, what's your assessment of how President Macron's doing? What's Mélenchon's future on the far left in French politics? And whether you think there's a real risk that the far right could ultimately win power in France?
32:12 Speaker 02 In your situation, in Red Beaton, you have many problems, many, many prime ministers too. But you have a chance. You have a political system with two big parties, which remained the.
32:31 Speaker 02 Political environment. If you are fed up of the conservatives, you can choose Labour Party. You don't like Labour Party, you have an opposition which can be tomorrow the government. In France now, the big parties, the political system have burst. Right party now has no leader, no line, no future. Except Sarkozy. And in for the left, we have Mélenchon with Corbyn in worst. It's possible.
33:13 Speaker 02 And we have far right.
33:17 Alastair Campbell? Le Pen.
33:18 Speaker 02 Le Pen. So if the political system is not rebuilt and two parties can appear that solution or alternative, the risk is to have Le Pen. In Italy, it was the same problem, same model. The parties have no legitimate, no place. They have common government with all the party inside except one, the far right. So then now far right is in power.
33:48 Alastair Campbell? So you think it could happen here?
33:49 Speaker 02 It could happen. It could happen everywhere, except when the democracy is organized with big parties. Please, in great Britain, keep your parties.
34:00 Alastair Campbell? The party socialist, your old party, is it dead?
34:03 Speaker 02 No, it is dead, but it is in a long.
34:07 Alastair Campbell? Somme? Sleeping.
34:08 Speaker 02 Sleeping. So wake up, wake up. Be proud of what you have been and you are and you can be in the future.
34:20 Alastair Campbell? And what are you going to do with the rest of your life?
34:21 Speaker 02 Politics. Because it's my life.
34:24 Alastair Campbell? What does it mean? What does that mean, being an ex?
34:26 Speaker 02 To write books, to participate.
34:28 Alastair Campbell? What about another political position? Would you think about that or not?
34:33 Speaker 02 I will do that if there is a party to push this movement. I don't believe in a personality and providential man. We need providential man or woman. First, we must have organization and ideas. No ideas, no politics.
34:59 Alastair Campbell? Most of our listeners are very, very intelligent people all around the world. So most of them will understand some French. Alors, si je vous demandais... Tu peux te tutoyer ?
35:12 Speaker 02 Oui.
35:12 Alastair Campbell? Si je te demandais...
35:13 Speaker 02 Parce qu'en anglais, tu peux tutoyer.
35:14 Alastair Campbell? Si je te demandais à expliquer en quelques phrases la totalité qu'on a discutée, qu'est-ce que tu vas dire ?
35:22 Speaker 02 Je dirais que la démocratie, qui est le système pour lequel nous avons toujours pensé vivre, et sans doute aujourd'hui menacé, menacé par l'extérieur, par la volonté belligeuse des États autoritaires, on le voit aussi Chine, Iran et bien d'autres, mais menacé aussi à l'intérieur par nos divisions, par nos doutes, par la contestation même de la représentation politique. Et donc, le grand engagement pour les générations qui viennent, c'est : est-ce que vous voulez vraiment vous battre encore pour la démocratie ? Pour défendre des valeurs, des libertés,
36:04 Speaker 02 des indépendances que nous voyons menacées ? Est-ce que vous voulez vous battre ici aussi ? Et si vous voulez vous battre pour la démocratie, engagez-vous non pas dans l'armée, mais dans les partis politiques.
36:15 Alastair Campbell? Et sinon ?
36:16 Speaker 02 Et sinon, le risque, c'est que bien sûr, les démocraties ne disparaîtront pas, elles s'affaibliront de jour en jour, la participation électorale sera de moins en moins forte, les jeunes se désintéresseront de plus en plus des enjeux et nous serons progressivement minés par les propagandes des régimes autoritaires et par les extrêmes droites qui finiront par s'installer progressivement à la tête de nos pays.
36:41 Alastair Campbell? Super.
36:41 Speaker 02 Merci.
36:42 Alastair Campbell? Merci. Au revoir.
36:48 Rory Stewart? Alain, merci beaucoup pour ça. L'une des choses que j'ai vraiment rappelé à laquelle vous, qui êtes un linguiste beaucoup mieux, ne réalise pas tout le temps, est quel est le défi d'exploiter un langage différent. Je me sens souvent comme ça. Je parle un certain nombre de langues et je me sens souvent que quand je parle un autre langage, je ne suis pas aussi intelligent et sur le point que je suis quand je parle mon propre langage. Et je sous-estime souvent ça si je parle Farsi ou Dari ou si je cherche à communiquer avec quelqu'un quand je suis diplomate. Donc, je suis très heureux que, à la fin, vous avez posé une question en français parce que l'une des choses qui me frappe à propos de Président Hollande, en lisant ce livre, est qu'il est incroyablement intelligent. C'est une sorte de échelle intellectuelle au-delà de la plupart des principaux ministres britanniques.
37:29 Alastair Campbell? Je suis étonné par la façon dont, je ne pense pas qu'il y ait eu une traduction anglaise du livre, ce qui est, je pense, une vraie oversight et une partie de notre continuer à regarder à l'intérieur. Donc, si il y a des éditeurs qui écoutent, je me rendrais compte et voir si vous ne devriez pas le traduire. J'ai vraiment aimé. Je suis heureux que vous le fassiez aussi. J'ai connu le Président Hollande depuis assez longtemps et j'ai travaillé avec lui un peu. Et il, comme vous le dites, est incroyablement brillant. Je n'ai jamais compris pourquoi il est devenu si peu populaire. Je me souviens d'avoir eu un meeting avec lui quand ses ratings de vote étaient à quelque chose comme 4,5% et je lui ai dit : "Tu es maintenant à la parle de combien de gens pensent que Elvis Presley est vivant."
38:11 Rory Stewart? Far fewer, je pense.
38:13 Alastair Campbell? Et il a aussi... Il a toujours riant sur des choses comme ça. Il a un très bon sens de rire. Et ce qu'il disait dans le bouton français à la fin... Et vous avez raison à propos du langage parce que, vous savez, je le trouve parce que je parle français et parce que je ne pense pas avoir eu jamais une conversation avec lui en anglais. Donc, j'ai toujours voulu... Je savais ce qu'il voulait dire et j'ai toujours essayé de l'aider. Mais il a juste... Il a des cours en anglais parce qu'il comprend que, vous savez, si vous ne parlez pas... Si vous ne pouvez pas communiquer en anglais, c'est très difficile dans la politique globale de nos jours. Mais je pense... Donc, ce qu'il disait à la fin, c'était essentiellement que il croit que notre système de démocraties est en danger d'une manière que nous sommes trop complaisants à faire et que les dictatures vraiment...
38:56 Alastair Campbell? Operate at the advantage of of democracies and that too many people, and especially he thinks young people, really don't understand the the seriousness of the threat that we're facing. So that was the kind of big point he made at the end.
39:06 Rory Stewart? I I also think that to encourage people to try his book, it's a really lovely book. And actually, his French is so clear and beautiful that you don't actually have to be very fluent in French to be able to read the book. But it's also so elegant. I mean, what's extraordinary about reading a a French politician of that stature is these extraordinary phrases. I was just looking at his description of of Donald Trump. Ces mensonges innumébres, ces déclarations barocques, ces décisions parfois surréalistes. Les insultes dont il a abreuvé ses adversaires ont été à l'auteur de sa réputation. It's a sort of extraordinary rhetoric. I mean, there are these sort of four or five beautiful phrases coming one after another.
39:50 Rory Stewart? His his his character portraits are so beautiful of Trump, of Mohammed bin Salman, of almost everybody he encounters is beautifully and he's he can summarize Iran, he can summarize Syria. And he has a global vision, which I think is much broader than any of the rest of us.
40:06 Alastair Campbell? Hmm hmm. I I I think I like the one. I don't know if people will get this one about Cameron, but he talked about le masque orgueilleux de la sérénité, you know, the the arrogant mask of serenity. This is when he this is when he said, he and Merkel were saying to him, listen, this is very dangerous what you're doing. And he said, no, he was, he knew what he was doing. Well, that that ended very well. L'union est amputée d'un pays majeur. The union has been amputated of a major country. So anyway, I I think it'd be tr- I think it'd be tricky for somebody who doesn't speak French to read it, Rory, I really do. But I honestly think if there's a publisher there, you're missing a trick here. It's a very, very, for a former president, it's not a memoir. It's got lots of personal memoir points in it, but it's not a memoir at all. It's basically a take on what's happening in the world.
40:50 Alastair Campbell? And it's uh, it's interesting. I also do think, Rory, you're you're in Kenya at the moment, but it it is very interesting in the hotel this morning, flicking through the French papers. The big, big, big story here is this, there's a meeting between Macron and Scholz later in the week. It's what's going on in the Franco-German relationship.
41:06 Rory Stewart? I think one of the things that strikes me about him is that he is able to range so confidently over global affairs. I mean, So nimbly, summarize Iran in a page, summarize Syria in a page, draw the connections between what's happening in 2012 in China and what's happening in 2012 in Russia. I do think there's a sophistication and global breadth there that I don't see in British politicians. I've not seen a British political memoir that can do that, not even your friend and hero Tony Blair is quite able to move that nimbly and with that much precision.
41:37 Alastair Campbell? Yet another dig at my old boss there Rory. I think Rory's, I think Tony does do that. I'll just say that in his defence.
41:43 Rory Stewart? Well, he does. The reason, the reason he doesn't do that, I think, is that he's not prepared to be as brutally rude, partly because he's actually still much more active in international affairs. President Hollande is prepared to be unbelievably cutting about almost everybody.
41:56 Alastair Campbell? He did say, I was very surprised by what he, he basically said. Maybe our goal is not quite as strong as arrogant, but I think the American media might be interested in his portrayal of Barack there.
42:08 Rory Stewart? Yeah, and he, he refers sort of very comfortably to Paul Valery, he refers very comfortably to Flaubert, he assumes his readers are up on all this.
42:16 Alastair Campbell? You'd, you'd almost have thought he'd been to Eton. His literary, his literary allusions are so deep.
42:22 Rory Stewart? Well, of course, the, the truth is that he went to, as you know, the Saint Jean Baptiste de la Salle boarding school, which is a private Catholic school, then the Lycée Pasteur, and then he went to the three most elite. So actually, the French system is exactly the kind of thing that gets up your nose about the English system.
42:38 Alastair Campbell? Yeah, but he's a socialist, he's fine.
42:40 Rory Stewart? [laughing]
42:44 Alastair Campbell? Anyway, it was very good to talk to him. I'm glad that you were able to, and I'm sorry, we do apologize to your family for breaking into your holiday to do it, but I hope you thought it was worth it.
42:52 Rory Stewart? Very happy. Thank you.
42:54 Alastair Campbell? Take care.
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