Between republican heritage, identity challenge and new forms of commitment
One Monday morning in Marignane, fifteen days before national holiday. Fluette voices timidly awaken the sleeping city of Bouches-du-Rhône. “Come on children of the fatherland …” Single the schoolchildren, from kindergarten to CM2, in the courtyard of their school. In turn, the older ones hoist the tricolor flag that has remained against the mast. That day, the Mistral did not deign to get up. Sitting on the steps behind their primary comrades, the youngest observe the scene, amazed. No, it is not a general rehearsal before July 14 but a well -established routine in this average city, located 25 km from Marseille.
Since the return of the Easter holidays, the little ones welcomed during the extracurricular time have been brought, each start of the week, to participate in this patriotic ceremony intended to “learn to love his country” explains the mayor, Éric Le Désès, at the origin of this decision. The councilor, labeled various right, founded in 2023 with Franck Allisio, deputy National Rally (RN) of the department, the Rally for the Republic (RPR) movement. In the eyes of this elected official, it is important that children familiarize themselves from an early age with tricolor symbols and national commemorations.
The idea made the opposition leap, which prefers to bet on civic education: “The values of the Republic must be worked, debated, discussed …” recently explained an elected communist at the BFMTV microphone. National education boots in touch: extracurricular is not its responsibility. In front of the grid, the parents, them, approve: “In my school in Morocco, we also sang our national anthem, comments Fatima, a Franco-Moroccan with a blue scarf. The flag does not belong to a party but to France. »»
A political will
This is what leads many elected officials and citizens to wonder in Marignane as in the rest of France: how to express her patriotism when, since the 1980s, the symbols of the nation have been brandished loud and strong by the extreme right while another part of the population moves away from reaction or indifference? Few citizens today, starting with young people, know the words of the French anthem well or will join the veterans in front of the war memorials on November 11.
For the past twenty years, the public authorities openly have displayed their desire to reconcile the French with patriotism. At the beginning of 2024, the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron, declared before journalists: “I am totally favorable to what we learn La Marseillaise in primary. It is even essential because it is what unites us, it is the fruit of our history. (1) “
In 2005, the singing and learning of France’s symbols were enrolled in the school program. Since 2019, the lyrics of La Marseillaise And the national motto must even be displayed in each class, surrounded by French and European flags. On the other hand, it is not planned, contrary to what happens in Marignane and in many other countries, to hoist the flag in the school courtyard.
Speaking of unity and common history, the President of the Republic is trying to reconnect with the most common definition of patriotism: “Since 1789, in France, to be a patriotic is to put all its ardor in the defense of the values of freedom and equality, promoted by the philosophers of Enlightenment and which will become the base of the Republic”, explains Christophe Beginning, Director of Studies (2). General François Lecointre, a great chancellor of the Legion of Honor does not say anything else: “The homeland, for me, is much more than the soil. It is a question of defending this universal value of human dignity; France has a special role to play, because it invented this generous principle. »»
Nationalist temptation
Patriotism is therefore first defined as “a feeling, a momentum of love for his country, shared by a community”, according to the philosopher Louis Lourme (3). Etymologically, “the word” homeland “, invented by the Romans, means” the country of its fathers “” specifies Éric Anceau, professor of contemporary history at the University of Lorraine (4). A historical and cultural heritage which it is a question of remaining worthy.
If this beautiful idea inspires a certain distrust of part of the opinion, it is because “since the end of the 19th century, the supporters of nationalism have taken it to promote the idea that a nation can be superior to the others and thus justify its domination”, specifies Christophe Partysson, citing European fascist movements. “Words are heavy with meaning: I believe that the motto of Vichy” work, family, homeland “also gave a negative image of patriotism that continues among young generations, adds Louis Lourme. Moreover, during the Second World War, General de Gaulle exiled to London spoke rather of “France” than of the fatherland, as if to better distinguish itself from Pétain. »»
Elsa, an architect of 29, who says he refuses to join any form of patriotism, recognizes it: “When I saw my neighbor putting a flag at her window, I immediately associated it with the RN. This amalgam has become banal, even if, in reality, the Socialist Party like the Parent Republicans, too, their meetings of blue, white and red.
New symbols
How, then, showing your love of the fatherland in 2025 by escaping these labels? Henda Ayari draws a track: co -founder of the very young association Les Patriotes de la diversity, this feminist activist of Algerian and Tunisian origin, in a point in the fight against Islamism in France, proudly sports a spit on which is a white hand squeezing a black hand on the background of a tricolor flag: “We want to show that in the popular districts of many people of foreign origin. »»
Because there are many ways of being a patriotic, as shown by the shared fervor during the Paris Olympic Games in 2024. All the French found themselves united behind the “King Léon” (the swimmer Léon Marchand, five times a medal). “I believe that it is around new heroic figures and gathering sporting or festive events that the collective feeling of belonging to the fatherland can exist today,” analyzes the historian Sébastien Ledoux (5), specialist in memorial issues. The idea can even be declined in everyday life, according to the professor of political science Vincent Martigny (6) who speaks of “banal patriotism”: when we exchange with foreigners, we cannot help praising French gastronomy, the beauty of the landscapes, even … the social security of our country. “The love of the fatherland is translated today by the pride of a France in which life is good,” he adds. It is also expressed in our way of consuming. Almost nine out of ten French people want to buy more Made in France products, according to an OpinionWay survey of 2023. Some brands have entered this aspiration, such as the French underwear, which relaunched the textile sector in the early 2010s.
But General Lecointre does not recognize himself in these extensive definitions of patriotism. In his eyes, it is a “serious, solemn affair, linked to a feeling of responsibility”. Civilians decorated this July 14 for service rendered to the nation embody this vision. Just as the hundred craftsmen who worked on the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris, rewarded by the Legion of Honor or the Order of Merit. French know-how, event of historical scope and collective transmission of knowledge … values put forward in our national story. “A soldier agrees to sacrifice his life for the fatherland and to transgress the absolute taboo to kill. Each soldier, and moreover each citizen, must have confidence in what France is and in the values it carries. Patriotism is a powerful ferment, ”adds the general.
Defend the country
On a state level, the main issue in patriotic education consists, in fact, in preparing the spirits for the defense of the country. The international context now makes the question all the more protruding and concerning: according to an opinion survey carried out by Odoxa in May 2024, 65 % of young men aged 18 to 34 would be ready to engage in the army in the event of a conflict in France. “I am sure that citizens, even indifferent in peacetime, would largely mobilize in the event of border attack as they did in Valmy in 1792 or in the trenches in 1914,” said Christophe Party.
The subject makes Elsa, the young architect a lot, reflect. “It would not come to the idea of getting involved, I only carried out the compulsory defense and citizenship (JDC),” she admits. But if tomorrow, all my loved ones did, I would not leave them alone. In 2019, the government wanted to go further than the JDC by launching the Universal National Service (SNU), contaminated for its cost, the main objective of which is to “strengthen social cohesion and promote republican values among young people aged 15 to 17”. In the suburbs of Avignon, Alice (7) appreciated the effects of these fifteen days of civic activity on her teenage son. “He kept denigrating France like all of his high school friends. But since his return, I feel more mature and more responsible. »»
Does patriotism prohibit criticizing your country? “No, answers the philosopher Louis Lourme. As a Christian, I would try to discern according to situations. I recognize myself in a patriotism which is not afraid to assume the gray areas of the history of France rather than in an idolatrous version, which rejects the other because it fantasizes about the purity of the soil and wants to preserve an alleged homogeneity of the people. »»
Europe was also built to avoid this drift which had led, in the 20th century, to Nazism and to war, even if it always struggles to federate the same sense of belonging as the nations which compose it. This July 14, when they see the French army parade on the Champs-Élysées, some of our compatriots may wonder about what it means to be a patriot in the disturbed world of 2025. The answer, as we can see, is more diverse than ever. Attachment to the fatherland continues to reinvent itself.
(1) Press conference, January 2024.
(2) The main dates of the Republic, from 1792 to the present day Ed Dalloz, 224 p. ; € 4.
(3) What is patriotism?, Ed. Vrin, 120 p. ; € 10.
(4) has just published History of the French nation, Ed. Tallandier, 528 p. ; € 24.50.
(5) Lecturer at the University of Picardy, author of The Nation in account. From the 1970s to the present dayEd. Belin, 348 p. ; 23 €.
(6) has just published New times: putting an end to the Thirty Glorious Years, Ed. Threshold, 256 p. ; € 21.
(7) His first name has been changed.
