France in Flame

Very rarely is one given the ambiguous privilege of experiencing a revolution personally. For the theologian, such times are especially valuable, since in the absence of actual revolutionary conditions, it is easy to content oneself with a smug quoting of Romans 13, as if this single passage presented all the Bible has to say on (i.e., against!) political action. Werner Elert, in his Christian Ethos, noted on the basis of his experiences in Germany during the nightmare of World War II that both those Christians who support and those who reject the political status quo do so in a crisis of conscience, for God’s Word stands in judgment not only on irresponsible change but also on the irresponsible exercise of power by the establishment. The last two months in France have indeed reinforced this interpretation for sensitive Christian participants in the drama of revolution, counter-revolution, general strike, and election upheaval.

The outline of events during and after the historic “days of May” is now quite plain. Paris Match of June 29 and July 6 gave a superb retrospective coverage of the revolutionary period in terms of “eight episodes”: (1) The student uprising at Nanterre, which under the aegis of wild-eyed sociology student David Cohn-Bendit grew so large that the university had to be closed. (2) The transfer of the revolutionary spirit from the youngest to the oldest French university: the start of organized resistance by students at the Sorbonne, followed by police intervention (a supreme tactical error on the part of the dean, who requested aid despite a centuries-old tacit agreement that town must not interfere with gown) and, as a consequence, thousands of students demonstrating in the streets, barricades, the burning of automobiles, the introduction of tear gas by the authorities, and uncontrolled fighting. (3) First Minister Pompidou offered concessions to the Paris students, but these came too little and too late. (4) The French workers, following the student example (though suspicious of them as future “bourgeoisie”), declared a massive general strike to protest the status quo. Soon nine million Frenchmen were on strike, almost totally paralyzing the French economy. (5) De Gaulle stepped in to announce a referendum, but, again, events had gone too far. Demonstrations choked the streets, and the workers refused to accept the negotiations between their union bosses and the state. It appeared that de Gaulle’s government would surely fall. (6) After a secret trip to confirm the army’s support in case of a left-wing coup, de Gaulle delivered a master stroke: he legally dissolved the General Assembly, thus calling for new elections and forcing everyone to cease striking in order to make them possible. The immediate result: massive counter-demonstrations in support of the General. (7) A final “night of flames”—the last desperate move of the anarchial spirits. (8) The self-imposed exit of students from physical control of the Sorbonne, and the commencement of electioneering.—And then: a stupefying victory at the polls for de Gaulle’s party, with a loss by the leftist opposition of half its former power in the Assembly.

What were the motivating elements in this amazing series of events? Who was “morally right” and who “wrong”? Predictably, simplistic interpretations have not been lacking. After having just made it in and out of Paris to deliver my biweekly courses at the Lutheran Study Center at Châtenay—and having seen the frenzy, the fighting, the hopes and the fears in the Latin Quarter—I returned to Strasbourg to hear the pastor of perhaps the most active evangelical church in France argue from the pulpit that social chaos is the devil’s work and that the government represents order, stability, and (presumably) divine approval.

Now it is certainly true that the student rebels were an unwashed, disorderly, generally irreligious group, and that their idealism was often incredibly naïve (for example, the motto plastered on walls everywhere, Tout est possible—“Everything is possible”). It is also true that anarchists and Maoists tried to turn the days of May to their own evil purposes. But these facts do not touch other, more basic considerations.

De Gaulle, in spite of his unarguable assets as the French head of state, suffers from a clear case of Messianic complex. He has not been able to distinguish his own ideas from the “will of the people,” and, indeed, has regarded the French as sheep needing to be led by himself as shepherd. That leading has been in the direction of a disastrous foreign policy (the Force de frappe, the Quebec incident, anti-Americanism, and so on) and a woeful neglect of internal economic and educational reform. (Only 16 per cent of college-age persons go to university in France, as compared with 44 percent in the United States. In terms of number of telephones, TV sets, and kilowatt-hours of energy used per person, France is today far closer to reactionary Spain than to progressive, industrially developed Sweden.) And Gaullism has thrown its weight around in a most non-democratic way: while the bourgeois Communist party in France (to the irritation of international, orthodox Communism) has consistently taken a stand for democratic procedures, Gaullists have managed all TV news, and, here in Strasbourg during the chaos, nearly succeeded (with the active support of the Gaullist secretary of state for the interior) in burning down the Palais Universitaire to “clean out the Communists”!

The biblical Gospel most certainly condemns irresponsible opposition to constituted authority. But—and this is a fact consistently forgotten by well-meaning conservative Christians who confuse political with theological conservatism—Scripture also opposes totalitarianism, whatever its political garb (left or right). Freedom of decision is vital to the free course of gospel proclamation (John 7:17), and the arbitrary removal of such freedom in one area soon leads to its removal in others. “Power corrupts,” shrewdly observed Lord Acton, “and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely.” The fathers of our American Revolution—even when not themselves Christian—saw this clearly, and they are our benefactors both politically and religiously today.

How then de Gaulle’s recent election triumph? Some quoted Emile Ollivier: “When one has lived much history, one is not surprised at any inconsistency.” But J.-J. Servan-Schreiber, the most astute of France’s young political analysts, saw the true picture: in the face of demonstrably impotent leftist party options, de Gaulle’s new party slate was ironically in the best position to enact the reforms the electorate had demanded by three weeks of revolution; the election, in other words, gave the General his last chance to democratize (L’Express, 1–7 July, p. 39).

The natural man, said Luther on the basis of Romans 7, perpetually swings between extremes. Let us hope that between anarchy and messianism, la belle France can find her way to genuine political and economic freedom whose exercise will make the freedom of Christ more readily comprehensible to her citizens and her friends.

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