Lewes Literary Society - Rod Kedward

The French have an expession ‘La Vie en Rose’ (life in pink) which is roughly the equivalent of our expression ‘looking through rose coloured glasses’. The academic and writer Rod Kedward, who is giving a talk at Pelham House tonight, has coined a popular pun on the term for his new, important book on the state of France today: ‘La Vie en Bleu’. Understand the term, and you’ll understand the gist of his book. “When the French won the World Cup in 1998 everybody was chanting ‘allez les Bleus’ and talking about the unity of France,” he says. “The term ‘La Vie en Bleu’ became a metaphor for the unity of the state, as if the three colours of the tricolour had merged into one. Blue came to represent the notion of Frenchness as a unified entity.”

The title, however, is meant to be taken with a large soupçon of irony, because France, whatever the powers-that-be espouse, is not as unified as it may seem. “The French hold a belief in French culture as a unitary, universalist force,” he continues, “trying to include everybody and impose things from the top. Various bodies believe in pushing this philosophy, from the political parties of both the left and the right to the Acadamie Francaise.” The philosophy stems from the period of the Enlightenment and the formation of the Republic. A good example of this ideal as policy is the banning of headscarves from French schools, which many French saw as an important step to keep France secular and unified. “On the other hand,” continues Kedward, “France has always had a tradition of changes coming from below, from the grass roots. And there are a lot of people, from the trade unions to the unemployed youth in the banlieu (city suburbs), who threaten this sense of unity.”