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Tuesday, 09 December 2008 |
Staff editorialist Robert Harneis looks back on some of the paper’s triumphs, its strengths and weaknesses.
One of the most interesting aspects of the imminent if temporary demise of French News is the total absence of gloating by the French media.
The comments have been sympathetic and not a little sorrowful in tone. The brief report in ‘Le Journal de Dimanche’, echoed by France 3, tells us what lies behind this sympathy. They headed their report: “The first victim of the crisis in the press.” Apart from the natural solidarity that operates in the journalistic world, there is the widespread feeling of ‘there but for the grace of God…’.
There are more glorious fields in which a newspaper can claim to be first. Looking back over the years of trying to decode the future and explain the past and present, we have had our moments. Hamilton Mills had Sarkozy clocked as future president way back in 1993. At the time, no French commentator would have put his money on a cocky lawyer, half Hungarian, half Jewish, making it to the top of the French greasy pole. Speaking of Hamilton, we must hold the record for being the last newspaper published in France to boast a writer who served right through the war with the Free French.
French News predicted the defeat of the referendum on the European Constitution months before it happened. At the time, the French press still firmly believed the opinion polls, that the Yes vote would win at a canter. In Europe, we were very sure that the forced partition of Serbia and the independence of Kosovo was a dangerous precedent for Europe.
In recent months, we have been quietly pointing out that, contrary to the generally accepted view, Ségolène Royal was far from finished in the French Socialist party. In November, one of our competitors wrote that she would not even be a candidate in the elections for the Socialist leadership that she so very nearly won in the same month. Small things, but it is comforting to feel that we have, on the whole, shone a fairly clear light on events in and around France. Perhaps our unique position in France, but not entirely of it, sometimes gives us a clearer view.
Of course, we have not always got it quite right. One of the most rewarding aspects of writing for the paper has been the ever watchful and amazingly well-informed readers, prompt to send both brickbats and compliments.
I once wrote a piece about the great Ettore Bugatti, one of the heroes of Alsace, who started his legendary car building career just up the road from here with the de Dietrich company. He was, I wrote, a great engineer but not such a clever businessman. The man had been dead for more than 50 years, so you would have thought I was safe from criticism. Even so the next post brought a letter, which I still treasure, from a reader who rebuked me by pointing out that Bugatti could hardly be blamed for the commercial consequences of World War II and was a great businessman as well. He knew because he had worked with him for many years.
“May you live in interesting times” is a Chinese curse. To a journalist it is a blessing and we can hardly complain of a lack of dramatic events to write about over the last few years. It will be strange for French News to be silent on the ever more extraordinary events now unfolding and what they mean for France.
Let us hope it will only be a brief respite for readers and writers.
Robert Harneis, discussing the finer points of gastronomy with Jean-Louis Vogt, owner of the legendary Café du Palais in Reims
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