Time for Outrage

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Time for Outrage

Ninety-three years old. The last leg of my journey. The end is in sight. I'm lucky to be able to seize the time I have left to reflect on the events that laid the foundation for my lifelong commitment to politics: the Resistance, and the program devised sixty-six years ago by the National Council of the Resistance. For this, we owe a debt of gratitude to Jean Moulin, who rallied together the scattered forces that opposed the German occupation of France—resistance movements, political parties, trade unions—to unite them in their defense of France and their pledge of allegiance to its only true leader: General Charles de Gaulle. I had joined de Gaulle in London in March 1941. And it was there, on March 15, 1944, that I learned the council had drawn up and adopted a declaration of its policy, putting forward a set of values and principles upon which to ground our nation's modern democracy once it was freed from occupation.¹

Today, more than ever, we need these principles and values. It is the duty of us all to ensure that our society remain one of which we are proud, not a society wary of immigrants and intent on their expulsion or a society that disputes the welfare state or a society in which the media are controlled by the wealthy. We would oppose such things were we the true heirs to the National Council of the Resistance.

The year 1945 marked the end of a horrific tragedy. It also marked the beginning of an ambitious plan for the renewal of society, driven by the forces that made up the council. Let us not forget that this was when French Social Security came into being, just as the Resistance had stipulated in its program: "a far-reaching Social Security system, guaranteeing that no citizen would go without the basic means to survive should he or she be unable to work"; "a pension allowing workers to end their days in dignity."