In a tribune in Le Monde, former ecologist deputy Noël Mamère warns of resemblances between France and the United States in law and political rhetoric. From Paris, Minneapolis events reflect America's two faces: historical violence and non-violent civil disobedience. This highlights a crucial choice between trumpism and justice values.
Noël Mamère, former ecologist deputy, publishes a tribune in Le Monde highlighting the dangers of the European right and far-right's alignment on trumpism. He points to similarities in law and political rhetoric between France and the United States, calling for vigilance.
The Minneapolis events, viewed from Paris, embody a two-faced mirror of America. On one side, a history marked by violence: genocide of Native Americans, colonization, slavery, and segregation. On the other, a tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, embodied by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), its founding figure. Thoreau, ecologist author of Walden or Life in the Woods (1854), participated with his mother and sister in the clandestine Underground Railroad network aiding fleeing slaves.
His ideas inspired early whistleblowers during the Civil War (1861-1865), then the civil rights movement (1954-1968), with figures like Claudette Colvin, Rosa Parks, and Martin Luther King. Today in Minneapolis, residents, equipped with whistles, megaphones, and smartphones, form surveillance, mutual aid, and solidarity brigades against masked and armed men. These actions have weakened a power imposed by force and revived non-violent civil disobedience, proving its political effectiveness.
Minneapolis serves as a metaphor for America and a test for its future. It pits the 'Dark Enlightenment' – a neoreactionary current criticizing liberal democracy – promised by trumpism ideologues, against the demand for respect, justice, and equal rights shown courageously by its inhabitants.
