Yeah Napoleon Bonaparte If he were resurrected, 47% of French people would be willing to vote for him in the next presidential election scheduled for 2027. More than 200 years after his death, 62% He believes that the Emperor would lead France better than the current President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron.
In fact, Macron only triumphs among the supporters of his political group, Renaissance, (81%). In contrast, 88% of voters of the extreme right of Marine Le Pen67% of the classic right of the new Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, as well as 65% of the voters of the extreme left of Jean-Luc Mélenchon He believes that Napoleon would be a better president than the current occupant of the Elysée Palace. Socialists (52/48) and ecologists (49/51) are also divided on this point.
Asked by the Odoxa polling institute, 62% of French people believe that Bonaparte was a good leader for France. The Emperor triumphs among right-wing voters (84%), Macron voters (74%) and Marine Le Pen voters (69%). Supporters of the extreme left, as well as environmentalists and socialists They are shown divided in his historical judgment.
In general, the French They have a positive memory of the former First Consul of the Republic and, immediately afterwards, Emperor. 53% remember him as the ‘father of institutions still in force today, such as the Civil Code, the lycées and the departments’. 43% think that he knew how to build France and turn it into a great power.
The survey presented eight response options from which each participant could choose three. In addition to the two most voted, two other positive options were that “he made it thanks to his great abilities and his work force” (30%) and that he is “the model of providential man” (10%).
Among the negative proposals, 40% remember that “their wars cost the lives of a million people in Europe”, 26% that “His power was despotic and centralist“15% who “reestablished slavery” and 13% who “plundered archives and works of art from the countries they conquered.”
With this memory it is not strange that 47% of French people be willing to vote for Napoleon if the Emperor were to rise from the dead and emerge from his grave in the Invalides in Paris to run for the the 2027 presidential elections. A remarkable percentage. (Macron won in the second round of 2022 against Marine Le Pen by 58% to 41%).
The left would vote for him
66% of right-wing supporters, 57% of far-right supporters, and even 53% of Macron supporters would be willing to vote for Napoleon I. Attention, on the left There are also voters for the Emperor: 42% of the far-left voters, 38% of the environmentalists and 36% of the socialists.
The survey was conducted on the occasion of the publication of the science fiction book The key and the Cross, a thriller written by Eric Giacometti and Jacques Ravenne and published a few months ago by the publishing house Lattès.
Napoleon is the historical figure who stars in more books and movies. If the ‘Napoleon’ of Ridley Scott in which the American actor Joaquin Phoenix brings him to life was a worldwide blockbuster, at the last Cannes Film Festival the reconstruction of ‘Napoléon’ by Abel Gance (1889-1981) was presented.
Considered a masterpiece, it was the first of six films that the French filmmaker planned to dedicate to the Emperor. He only made the first one, released in 1927, dedicated to the youth of the hero. Its more than seven hours of footage have been reconstructed at the price of 4.2 million euros…
In France, Napoleon is part of the national narrative. After his death in Saint Helena in 1821, it was Louis Philippe, King of the French, who agreed with England on the repatriation of his mortal remains in 1840. He organised a colossal funeral in Paris and arranged for his burial at Les Invalides.
The building was built by Louis XIV, the embodiment of absolutism, as a hospital and asylum for military personnel. It was Napoleon himself who restored Catholic worship to the church after the secular fervour of the Revolution and ordered the burial of two generals of the Ancien Régime there.
Napoleon is buried under the golden dome of the Invalides which was the tallest building in the French capital until Eiffel raised his tower. His impressive tomb is located in the crypt, six metres below the level of the temple.
A majestic tomb… invisible unless you stand close to the railing. Macron celebrated the 200th anniversary of her death in May 2021 with a speech at the Institut de France, which brings together the five academies, and laid a wreath at her grave.
Napoleon counts among the French political class declared admirers such as the former Gaullist Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, and detractors such as the Socialist Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, author of an implacable indictment entitled The Napoleonic Evil:”Napoleon turned the ideas of the Revolution on their head” and developed “a form of extreme domination, a despotism and a police state.”
Macron, who argued that the right/left dichotomy had been overcome, has cultivated the national narrative by celebrating De Gaulle and François Mitterrand. The founder of the Fifth Republic and his socialist nemesis are two milestones in that story.
Con Santa Juana de Arco y D’antonymie, Clemenceau y Pierre Mendes France. Y, por supuesto, Naopelón. Ya dejo dicho el historiador Albert Sorel que “la Historia de Francia es un esfuerzo perseverante por hacer coincidir la evidencia histórica con la realidad política“.
Así que no se extrañen ustedes de que si Napoleón volviera de su tumba, muchos franceses, hastiados con los quehaceres de Michel Barnier para formar un gobierno con la derecha y el centro que no sea censurado al mismo tiempo por todas las izquierdas y la extrema derecha, se declaren dispuestos a votar por Bonaparte.
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