PIOTR BIŁOS

University professor, modern and contemporary Polish literature, head of the Polish language section, Inalco, Paris.

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Publisher’s note:
As soon as I saw this text, I knew that it was fundamental for advancing both the science of International Relations and our understanding of Poland’s place in Europe. It changed my way of conceiving International Relations.
We learn that geopolitics is like a tapestry woven by history, over the “long time”, on the loom of culture. Culture, the result of the longest and most intimate human work, has more importance in the links that unite or oppose nations than money and politics. Here, we are exploring what Fernand Braudel called the third current of history (beyond political events and social changes), the longest, the slowest, the deepest and the most determining for human actions.
What makes this presentation so brilliant, and perhaps even what makes it possible, is the author’s perfect knowledge of two European cultures that have grown so far apart in recent times that they have difficulty understanding each other: Polish culture and French culture. No one is in a better position than him to see the dramatic power of this cultural distance, which leads two great European nations, strongly linked by history and separated by barely 800 km, to ignore each other almost entirely on the political and cultural levels. The case study is impressive.
The cultural aspect of European construction has been neglected, which is a serious source of the dysfunctions of the European Union, if not the main one. It is by bridging these cultural gaps and by becoming aware of the incredible cultural diversity of the countries of Europe – which has still not been done – rather than by trying to erase it, that we will build the Europe of tomorrow. The people who will accept to take up this challenge will be more and more numerous, and that is how we will be able to move forward.

Daniel Foubert, Geoeconomist

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Introduction

To be part of Europe is to take part in a civilisation project, not just to deal with geopolitical issues. Geopolitical issues are only one of the dimensions of this project, and if they are properly secured, properly managed, they free up space for what some philosophers call the “world of life” [1], and oppose to systems that, as consolidated sets of norms, exert a deterministic influence on collective and individual life. The worlds of life and culture come into close contact with each other, constituting elements and at the same time connected orders. Culture is a sphere in which men fulfill themselves through the process of joining the work of maintaining and further building a community (called socialization), acquiring knowledge and skills that give them the opportunity to prove themselves in a more specialized field (called education and acquiring appropriate qualifications) and developing their own, original and often, critical towards certain current patterns, attitudes (called subjectivization) [2]. This last scope of activity shows that the individual is not an ordinary product determined by the prevailing order – as endowed with reason and free will; he can rebel in order to invent alternative patterns of life.

Central and Eastern Europe in the civilizational project of Europe

When we think about the impact of Poland on Central and Eastern Europe, but also about its participation in the civilizational project of Europe, we should bear in mind the whole range of possibilities arising both within the system (of which geopolitics is a part) and the world of life just mentioned. Geopolitics weighs on us, because for centuries it appeared as an unfriendly sphere, while the imperial aggression of modern Russia is once again awakening old – not so old – demons.

France, meanwhile, is an old country in which, over centuries of continuous development, a specific and recognizable order has been created, which is expressed, among other things, in the way bookshops operate there in conjunction with educational institutions.

France and its society can be described as largely routinized, because their functioning is ensured by old, well-proven mechanisms. One of them is the canon of scientific and fiction readings and publications addressed to the next generations of elites who are educated in a consolidated system of elite schools. As France is an entity having a significant impact on European affairs, it is worth considering how this canon of reading covers Polish issues.

My story is a story of many prejudices, resentments or various doubts

Before I explain these aspects, I would like to ask a general question – what does the attitude of others towards us depend on? How is their knowledge about us shaped? We, who stand in front of these others, must also take into account how the formation of relations within the country affects the possibilities of Polish culture outside the borders of the community and beyond the territory from which it grows.

The question “How do they see us?” should be related to the question “What materials do we provide them with, what excitement do we provide so that they can look at us differently?”.

Are we active in this area?

What could they rely on if, say, they wanted to smooth down or straighten out the mistakes of their previous approach? What access do they have to sources? Which texts are available in translation and which are not? Did they go into circulation, into the right circulation? Of course, all these possibilities and parameters also depend on our partners and to some extent are the result of their own activity or initiative.

This does not change the fact that in Poland we should consider creating a specific office, which would be responsible for detailed monitoring of the presence of Polish culture in contemporary distribution channels of cultural goods. An office that would review data and prepare documents that would make it possible to immediately answer the question whether classical works belonging to the canon are available in translation in a given area – from which publishers (that is, from those who provide “visibility”) and whether they are reprinted.

The availability of Polish culture and language outside Poland

The question of the presence, accessibility and status of Polish works must be distinguished from the question of the language itself. Even if these are spheres in relation to each other, they are separate. That is the basic question, and I do not know whether it has been approached in the right way so far. What is the status of the Polish language abroad? I should clarify – the question about the status of the Polish language abroad is a question about what could be done so that this status would not be – as it has been so far – only the result of the spontaneous course of history, so that – from the other side – it has any influence on the formation of this status.

The so-called glottodidactics in Poland is developing and doing well. There is an institution supervising the sending of Polish language teachers abroad called NAWA; undoubtedly, this is a necessary institution and let us give it credit, but I mean something else.

I would like to ask a question about the potential impact of culture on politics and geopolitics, that is, about the untapped potential inherent in this area. And at the same time to address the issue of mutual perception of various entities, both at the level of relations between individuals, as well as in the national-state or geopolitical dimensions. If I juxtapose these two areas, the lives of individuals and geopolitics, it is because I am convinced that despite the difference in scale, there are connections and analogies between them, and that what takes place in the arena of geopolitics has its roots in the basic determinants of certain behaviors that we deal with at the level of individuals.

A fatalistic set of determinisms?

Geopolitics seems to be a distant sphere, governed by its own laws, a sphere that in a way crushes individuals and is detached from the pragmatics of everyday life. Well, I would like to risk a thesis that it is possible to contribute to changes also in such areas as relations between states and geopolitics, by undertaking a policy of small steps, implemented at the level of individuals involved in the processes shaping the sphere of culture. I would even risk a thesis that abandoning the sphere of geopolitics to the sole mechanics of the cold game of interests always threatens to cause the outbreak of conflicts and the collapse of the entire structure in the long term.

We consider relations between states and geopolitics somewhat fatalistically, as an inevitable product of certain determinisms, which are expressed in a mechanical and ruthless systemism detached from the free will of man, and thus the negation of this space that philosophers call the “world of life” and in which people interact with each other in a gesture of sharing and co-creating meanings. In the light of such a statement and referring to the sphere of culture, it is worth considering to what extent relations between states and geopolitics can be drawn to the side not only of international law, but also of jointly shaped culture, in the spirit of solidarity and the creation of community spaces regulated by culture. What is at stake is to subject the unleashed elements of mutual indifference and resentment, which sooner or later find an outlet in war, to democratic control, that is, to make them a sphere in which decisions are increasingly the result of a collective effort by citizens themselves to model reality by enforcing processes that give democratic character to political life – it is about obtaining information,  debating values and forming different opinions about them. In a word, what is at stake here is the democratisation of relations between states, so that these relations increasingly depend on democratic processes based on the principle of negotiation excluding as few individuals as possible and including as many individuals as possible.

I was pushed to such reflections, which in my case result from the analysis of the Polish case referred especially to what has been happening in France for many decades, by an event that took place under the auspices of Hera, the goddess responsible – as we know – for home affairs… Well, while vacuuming a fairly large room in a house in the country, I encountered spiders in large numbers, both on the floor and on the beams supporting the ceilings – hitherto I had protected spiders for the sake of a story I heard as a child. About the spider that allowed the fleeing Jesus to effectively take refuge behind a cobweb in the hollow of a large tree. However, someone sensitized me to the fact that spiders like to climb inside the couch, lay eggs there, which destroys fibers and materials. I don’t know if that’s true, but in this case, also given their number, I decided that I would have to pull these spiders with a vacuum cleaner, and then I thought to myself that this is sometimes the case in international relations and in relations between cultures – there are situations when someone becomes a spider for someone, and that someone can be us.  Because someone from the outside, breaking all democratic rules, will perceive us in such an alienating and negative way – and if he thinks that we are harming him, he may give in to the reflex to pull us in with his mental vacuum cleaner and thus throw us out of his living and imaginary space. Push us into oblivion. Oh, it’s not good to become someone’s spider in that sense… Perhaps it is worth trying to prevent this and take appropriate steps in advance…

Culture and geopolitics – David’s fight against Goliath?

In the second half of the twentieth century, the priority of Polish thought, as well as the political activity of that part of society that rejected foreign domination, was first to regain sovereignty and independence, and then to achieve security and prosperity, improve the state’s infrastructure and modernize by joining Western structures, first NATO, and then the EU.

As a result of geopolitical conditions in past centuries, the main task of Poles was to try to exist, not to say: survive – this task was the possibility of further existence, because during the past centuries (the caesura can be erected somewhere in the mid-seventeenth century, at the time of the Cossack uprisings, and later the so-called “Swedish Deluge”) the Polish political and cultural community was threatened with extinction – indeed – non-existence, elimination of existing nations and cultures outside the brackets,  absorption by powerful imperial organisms.

In this sense, Polish culture has become a culture of resistance, insurrection, a state of emergency, a besieged fortress, a conspiracy. However, when its national-state existence was restored, which does not mean, however, that it was definitively consolidated, the question arises as to what to do next and whether Polish culture will prove capable not only of ensuring its survival or its very existence, but whether it will be able to exist, by which I mean existence not only for its own use, for itself, for its own community and its own society,  but also – here is the change – existence for other subjects, existence in creative and life-giving confrontation with these other subjects. Anyway, let’s say at once, the division into one’s own society and external environment is something relative, because the attitude to what is located outside, the attitude to otherness, is also something that deeply determines our own being and influences its form and substance.

This question raises another, namely about the real role of culture, referred to as soft power. Well, it may turn out that its impact on broader political, economic or even geopolitical processes now – that is, before the democratic changes I mentioned – is in fact much deeper than we usually think, although it is difficult to measure. Therefore, shouldn’t the sphere of culture be considered, if not as a potential hard power, then as something like a superpower? Both at the level of internal relations (through education) and at the level of relations with the world. Especially – I will add here – that we refer to a country like Poland, which through successive wars and occupations was successively weakened in economic and geopolitical terms, which means that its current rank in these areas is often assessed – which is difficult to deny – as being below our expectations and capabilities.

Confrontation of views strengthens cultural identity

France, on the other hand, is now such a special place, where perhaps with the greatest intensity one can see how different, let’s call them, systemic, mental and epistemological barriers and obstacles effectively block the possible peregrination of Polish culture to the West and the confrontation of this culture with Westerners. I wish to place this lack of confrontation at the heart of my speech insofar as it weakens what we call cultural identity. The premise on which I base this observation is simple – confrontation, real exchange of views reinforce, while their absence also weakens, what we treat as our own. The lack of confrontation is even a threat to the vitality and further development of native culture.

In the light of the remarks that have just been made, it is worth asking another question, namely whether cultural hostility or ignorance, which are the cradles of contempt and rejection, do not lead to attitudes that will inevitably have repercussions on the spheres of human activity defined as “hard”, and therefore on economic, diplomatic, interstate or geopolitical relations. In the end, the phenomenon of such reluctance strikes so-called “ordinary” citizens. At this point, it is worth recalling the phenomenon of mothers who in France were ashamed and are ashamed to still speak Polish to their children – not only on the street, but also at home.

I am thinking of the whole area of culture, although above all I would like to emphasize the role of language and art, which grows out of it and which gives it a special dimension, that is, literature, not primarily the contemporary one (although I do not exclude it), but the one that is covered by the patina of time and which is characterized by a kind of classicism. I understand classicism not as an expression of classicism, but as the status of those works that have stood the test of time and gained the name of cultural monuments. The word “monument”, however, as associated with something motionless, static and solidified, should be treated conventionally and with distance. These are works to which the collective consciousness has given a special status of objects worth remembering, which means that they are constantly put into circulation anew, so that they experience a kind of bath of youth, an injection of pulsating blood, and which cause the reader to open up historical and existential-cultural depth. It is about such works, the knowledge of which allows us to feel existence as something fascinating.

Is it possible to create nodes of understanding (a broader concept than memory nodes) that will be able to weaken and even overcome barriers standing in the way of mutual knowledge and sharing views on issues that we consider to be the most important for us? What does it depend on? Certainly not only on our partners, who – it is true – may not be able or do not want to understand us (for various reasons – because they are comfortable with it, because they do not see interest in it), but also on ourselves. This is perhaps even the case to a predominantly extent, because it is from us that impulses should flow to convince these partners somehow, to try to create a field of common good together… (to free each other from reasoning solely in terms of spheres of influence).

What unites us, what divides us

Politics, geopolitics, economy, organization of the state, international order, functioning of the EU, ideological divisions in Poland – these are a set of factors that may disturb and hinder the confrontation of Polish culture with its counterparts in the West, and it should be stated that this phenomenon unfortunately occurs, so to speak, systemically, due to a certain deficit caused by the history so far.

Culture is not a collection of objects, but a continuous process created by people. It can be said that it is inscribed in the dimension of eternity, although at the same time it takes place at every moment, at a given moment in history, and therefore it should also be considered in the perspective of temporality. In this sense, it has a double face. Culture is created by human actions taking an articulated, verbalized form, but not only – we talk about culture when we are dealing with a certain system of signs arising – always before our eyes – never fully fixed or unfulfilled. Therefore, the cultural system of signs is not petrified, because how it is understood, what it serves, depends on human – and perhaps divine, I do not want to exclude such a possibility – intentionality. Culture is born of man’s efforts to give meaning to his “sojourn on earth” (“pobyt na ziemi”), from which, if he is a believer, he can expect a ” passage towards paradise ” (rajski przebyt). In these medieval phrases, regardless of their religious dimension, I am interested in the play of prefixes – this outbidding, as it were, “stay” with “passage towards”. Culture is “the meaning-creating process that directs the existence of people and societies.”

Of course, although it cannot be separated from the processes that give it shape and meaning, culture also takes on stable forms, tends to fix itself in certain solid constructs. “People get used to certain customs or cultural traditions and don’t want to get rid of them.” [3] We are dealing with the phenomenon of “permanence of customs and traditions”, and they allow us to share meanings, which makes communication possible [4].

It is on this aspect that I would like to focus – on the aspect of communication, because it is this in the perspective of relations between Polish and Central and Eastern Europe with the so-called West that has been a challenge for a long time, and in the face of certain threats and adverse phenomena, it has not yet been adequately addressed. We have been dealing with such a situation for a long time, because it has been going on for at least several centuries, although – of course – as we will see in a moment, the impotence I am talking about here causes spectacular symptoms in current times, today.

Collective experience

Although I try not to underestimate the illusions associated with the concept of individualism, I attach great importance to the fate of the individual, which means that even in relation to collective experiences I strive – as far as I can – to imagine how processes taking place on a collective scale break through the lens of the feelings of individuals, thus taking the form of experience – for example, the experience of Renaissance humanism,  the Industrial Revolution, the Holocaust or the gradual disintegration of communism in Europe around 1989.

It is not only about how collective events affect the personal lives of individuals, but how individuals feel them. This is an issue that touches the very essence of culture. Culture, in fact, is born on the border between inner and worldly, objective, experience. It is a sphere that permeates the consciousness of individuals, but towards which the consciousness of the individual is also directed, through which culture seeks to model. Culture is born of the desire to mediate between the two orders.

Therefore, when I consider general issues, I try not to forget about the individual and to bear in mind that they affect him. This rule acts as a warning, it allows us to realize that if we have not taken care of something, if harmful processes take place, it will inevitably affect this individual person. When we discuss general issues, we should always keep it in mind.

On the other hand, the study of man’s cultural activity is to investigate how, by striving for self-knowledge or knowledge of the world, that is, for socialization and finding oneself in various interpersonal orders (on various levels of economic, political, artistic, literary culture, etc.), man affirms the individuality of his own experience.

The fact that culture is part of the collective dimension is beyond question – without this dimension – it seems – nothing could be said about culture at all. Following the definition of the Belgian sociologist Rudi Laermans, it can be said that culture is a “socially shared resource or repertoire of signs” [5], which means that it is realized at the moment when it is read within a certain community, when a specific interpretative community receives it. The collective dimension also includes the production of cultural goods and practices, since the creator, using a system of signs, directs his work outwards, towards a community of interpretation. Culture takes place within the framework of sacred customs, but it also takes the form of works of art, which in the Western world we owe to the activity of individuals. It can develop as long as it is stimulated by the expression of free acts of individuals, independent individuals, despite the fact that the creative act refers to the world postulated as common, and tries to show this world in a new light, which has been sanctioned by the practice of the so-called artistic avant-garde based on anti-patterns, thanks to which, next to this form of the world that we know well, the possibility of another world or another world is born.

Since, therefore, cultural activity concerns collective aspects as much as it concerns the individual freedom of those who are its depositaries and creators, the question arises – does culture have room for manoeuvre in the face of phenomena which, as I mentioned, take the form of a soulless profit and loss statement, and a game of interests based on a specifically understood realism or even geopolitical cynicism, which is why they are contrary to the principle of democratic negotiations and free elections.

We are entering a sphere in which the culture subjected to this game of interests loses its autonomy. Geopolitics thus has a negative impact on cultural issues, distorting them and effectively preventing culture from fulfilling its goals. What is more, a culture distorted and so modeled by geopolitics will seek to sustain the negative phenomena that have influenced it and are responsible for the fact that certain phenomena coming from other countries, reduced to spaces treated with contempt or reluctance, are not allowed to enter a distribution or circulation that would allow them to become an object of communication across divisions. It happens, therefore, that a certain understanding of interstate interests underlying negative emotions or emotions resulting from indifference and insensitivity entails negative representations, stereotypes that disturb the circulation of cultural products and put a barrier to deeper possibilities of its development and expansion.

Therefore, when we consider issues related to culture, it is impossible not to look in the direction of geopolitics and interstate and intra-state politics, macroeconomics, interstate and international relations, because these are factors that affect the functioning of both culture and the shaping of the fate of individual people, and their role is ambivalent – they enable as much as they block life-giving relations in the field of interpersonal contacts,  as well as cultural relations.

EU enlargement. From prejudice to accusations

Let us return to the place of France in relations between Poland, Polish culture and the world – the world of the West above all.

As we all know, in 2004 Poland joined the European Union under a process then called the ‘enlargement’ of the EU.

Did this process mean that, after a long separation, a feeling was born that the sisters and brothers had happily returned home, and that now, amid mutual embraces, everyone would be throwing themselves into each other’s embraces?

The term “enlargement” is not neutral and differs, for example, from the optics of other terms such as “unification” or “reunification”.

How did this expansion take place, that is, in what spirit and public mood? Using the partly figurative language of apologia, it can be summarised as follows. The hard-right nucleus, the more developed nucleus, behaves generously, makes a beautiful gesture, a gesture of generosity and tolerance, opening its doors to poor relatives in the name of a beautiful European idea. In fact, it is aware that these poor relatives are not at the same level of development, that they are inferior, and yet it welcomes them and graciously gives them hospitality, because this is the historical moment, this is the verdict of history and it must be accepted. We may not be happy about it, but somehow we will survive it.

There is no feeling at all that some historical harm is being righted, that in fact these others should have been members on the same rights long ago, because – but when was it? – they fought alongside us, nay, they even fought for us, they fought when we did not want to fight too much. I am thinking of the Battle of France in 1940 or the landing in Normandy and the notorious Battle of Falaise. This comradeship of arms is much older and reaches deep into the nineteenth century due to the Napoleonic wars…

The passage of time has done its job and there is a phenomenon of enormous force of habit here, we (we the French, Westerners) have become accustomed to living separately, to treating them as being on the other side, on the other side, on the worse side, as evidenced for decades by emigrants coming from there, about whom it was known that they fled from there. Moreover, on the right side, we have become accustomed to the fact that they – in the geopolitical and political sense – are beings subordinated to stronger players, that their state has a façade character, because it is the result of the actions of a certain empire (the USSR built around Russia), which for all these years, decades, and maybe even centuries was the right center of power. The problem is that it is this empire that we take seriously and respect, both then and now, when it strives to be reborn as a fallen empire. It is true that it was perceived as fundamentally alien and even hostile, but it turns out that it is not so hostile, nay, that in some areas it can act as an ally – because the shadow of another foreign empire (the United States) is also placed on us (the French), and we do not fully accept the power of this other empire, we feel that it takes away our primacy, that it pushes us into some undefined background.

The Fracture of the Western World

I will refer here to the excellent anthology created under the aegis of the Lublin magazine “Akcent” devoted to intercultural relations within the borderland phenomenon and in relation to Poland, and since the perspective also included emigration and reflection on globalization, the reader received a study referring to many cultural zones, both those traditionally associated with Poland (Jewish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, German,  Tatar, Armenian, etc.), as well as potentially from all over the world. It is entitled On the Border of Nations and Cultures. Polska – Europa – Ameryka (wyd. Czytelnik and the Eastern Cultural Foundation “Akcent”). For the purpose of this essay, I would like to draw your attention to the essay of a Lublin scholar, Tadeusz Szkolut, who analyzed Norman Davies’ book on Europe – I will refer to this essay several times, this time the quotation will serve as a reminder of the otherwise well-known attitude of France towards the USA:

“Davies appreciates that the concept of liberal democracy together with the idea of human rights as individuals are the fruits of nineteenth-century modernity,  but doubts whether liberal Europe would have defeated totalitarian Europe without the considerable help of the United States in the Second World War, which, let us add, some Europeans, especially the French, would gladly forget today.” [6]

This rupture within the Western world means that since this second empire, the one that oppresses emigrants fleeing from its oppression, political refugees and like a roller ride over the right of the nations of Central and Eastern Europe to a sovereign national existence, since this second empire is a competition for the one we ourselves do not fully accept, we are inclined to treat it with a certain amount of understanding.

Thus, we treat this hostile empire with the respect due to players who are our equals, and even to those players who prove useful, but with the consequence that we take that respect equally away from those who appear to us as its pawns. This is despite the fact that we otherwise sympathize with the people who suffer under the thumb of this empire, which means that even when there is an outbreak of social revolt in the zone controlled by it, we show considerable generosity and mobilize to help these people (in the times of “Solidarity”). However, help is directed only to the people, and it is the people who we have in mind, not their country, which, in a way, does not exist, because it is a puppet in the hands of the empire; It is also not about their culture, because it cannot develop – as we think – normally. We think the best scenario for these people is to simply join us so that they become like us, so that they merge with us. In the meantime, we have forgotten that for centuries they had their own culture, which was a variation of the common European one. That these centuries, which are the arena for the creation of memorable works, cultural monuments, could connect and bring us closer today, but also tomorrow. Maybe somewhere here and there, there are some memories that there were indeed such achievements, but they are very pale, with the passage of time getting paler and more and more isolated and anecdotal.

In a text published in 2014, Jan Kieniewicz wrote: “The border between the worlds was closed. The Berlin Wall was a response to the Iron Curtain. On the other hand, the border of the free world has become more and more characterized by civilizational exclusion of those who, regardless of aspirations or imaginations, remained outside.” [7]

One day, the empire (the USSR) collapses, which results in the long-awaited – as it seemed – freedom.

How do we receive these events? First of all, with some disbelief, because the empire seemed to us almost eternal, or at least long-lasting. Quite quickly the question arises – what next?

At this point, it becomes necessary to recall the violent outbreak of certain negative moods that arose against Poland and Poles at that time, and were diligently fueled (controlled) by the local media. These are phenomena that are still smoldering and far from being completely extinguished.

Suddenly, the Polish plumber became frightening (it was quite a grim – it must be admitted – play, because it openly attacked ordinary people, specific, private people), and Poland was accused of using social dumping.

Subsequently, the campaign of distancing and resentment entered its second phase. More and more loudly in public debates began to invoke the argument, unilaterally profiling it, that Poles are the main beneficiaries of EU subsidies, which they cannot appreciate, because they buy American military equipment. Noteworthy is the phenomenon of contradictory and double interpretation – it is about the phenomenon of foreign investments (feted in Poland), and there called relocations, i.e. understood as the outflow of production capacity from the domestic territory, from the domestic market towards some unspecified, suspicious foreign country.

Finally, the old atavisms and prejudices resurfaced when the accusation of nationalism appeared and soon took on a ritual character. Here is Davies again in Szkołuta’s essay :

“Rich Europeans, often with disdain or reluctance, think of those peripheral countries where people speak little-known (not to say “barbaric”) dialects and are strongly attached to their national traditions, by ‘modern’ and ‘progressive’ Western intellectuals considered anachronistic.” [8] Indeed, these are very old habits, reaching much deeper than communism in Central and Eastern Europe, although it should not be ruled out that communism, as it introduced a gap in normal, fluid relations indirectly contributed to the cursor’s unstoppable slide towards prejudice.

Central Europe reduced to the camp of the Counter-Reformation

In 2019, a collective book was published under the aegis of the Le Grand Continent think tank run by people close to President Macron. It dealt with the geopolitics of Europe and was the result of conferences of eminent experts and intellectuals that were broadcast in many European cities. It consists of speeches by such personalities of the world of science as Patrick Boucheron, Antonio Negri, Thomas Piketty, Myriam Revault d’Allonnes and Elisabeth Roudinesco. At this point, I would like to quote from a text presented by a now highly influential French historian, author of A World History of France, an overview of the history of this country and territory from the point of view of the evolution of the world. In fact, his opinion on Central Europe is very characteristic in this passage. Here it is: “Jean-Claude Milner reminds us that Europe, consisting of 27 countries today, was created by the integration of Central Europe, which is the Europe of the Counter-Reformation. This must be understood. We need to stop moaning that it doesn’t fulfill its task of imitating us. This Europe lacks nothing. It doesn’t lie, it doesn’t want us. It was once the heart of Mitteleuropa, the heart of a cosmopolitan and pluralistic power that had disintegrated. Today it is a powerful model, powerfully authoritarian, powerfully xenophobic, powerfully identitarian. It’s so sad that you want to cry, sure, I agree, but it’s just the way it is.” [9]

Does this passage require comment? It can be seen that the region of Central Europe – called in German “Mitteleuropa” – was reduced to the camp of the Counter-Reformation, which would justify its xenophobic-authoritarian character today (sic!). Discouraging, isn’t it…

In a similar vein were these words by Marc Porée, author of the introduction to the newly reissued collected works of Joseph Conrad in the French series La Pléiade, an extremely prestigious series printed on biblical paper, which has the ambition to collect works belonging to the canon of national and world literature (and in which not a single author writing in Polish has so far appeared) : 

“Conrad participates in the debate on the legitimacy of Romanticism, he engages in a discussion with the revolutionary tendencies of his father and the poets of his country, Mickiewicz and Słowacki, towards whom he has very ambivalent feelings. He sees their restless idealism as ineffective and dangerous, perpetuating the infantile disease that is nationalism.” [10]

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. And since this time it concerns the canon of Polish culture, which the author probably, not to say certainly, knows only second-hand (otherwise he would not have issued such a judgment…), one can say that this is an extremely dangerous phenomenon. It is about ritual accusations of nationalism of the nations of this part of Europe (with Poland in one of the main roles) by intellectuals and media from Western Europe. Even if this objection resonates with certain real phenomena, it demands a critical analysis. First of all, it should be noted that – indeed – such an accusation, for example in France, resembles a conditioned reflex and occurs regularly in situations when this part of Europe is invoked. Secondly, it is necessary to consider to what extent this accusation is an expression of xenophobia, which seems to be the dominant element in the cultural attitude that Western Europe has towards its Central and Eastern part.

If we wanted to summarize this attitude in a way that captures the essence of things without resorting to nuances, it can be done with this formulation – they (those other Europeans [11]) may have a culture, but they certainly do not belong to the circle of our civilization, this close circle. However, a question arises – to what extent do we contribute to the consolidation of such a state of affairs, either through our passivity, or through the way we shape the political debate in Poland, through the way we view Polish affairs ourselves?

Culture, ladies and gentlemen!

I think Poland is not visible as long as you look at it only from an internal perspective. Sometimes it is better seen thanks to remoteness.

In Poland, there are forces trying to persuade citizens that if only they allow them to rule, they will automatically return Poland to the “mainstream of European politics”, so that in this capacity, as a member of this trend, it will be able to effectively influence both its fate and the fate of the entire continent. Well, since the project of building a united Europe was born in the 2nd half of the 20th century, Poland has never belonged to the group of its main promoters. And its status, ever since it was finally liberated from the yoke of the Soviets, has always been the same – that is, that of a barely tolerated state, which at best is treated as a field for the expansion of one’s own interests, which, by the way, seemed to fully satisfy the Poles, for in this way they were able to enjoy the fact that they were able to attract foreign investors armed with the necessary know-how.

Unfortunately, there are still factors that interfere with the harmonious integration of Poland and its culture into the structures of a free Europe that is a global actor. The habitat of these factors is today, as yesterday, geopolitics. Should we therefore conclude that this is the balance of power in the world and in Europe, that nothing can be done and that the wind of geopolitics always blow in the eyes of poor actors, such as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe ? How beautiful life would be if it were not for this geopolitics… Let us say from the outset that individual existence and cultural activity do not hang in a vacuum and cannot be completely cut off from the influence of areas that escape the sphere of democratic negotiation and the search for the common good. Besides, culture itself, through imaginations, stereotypes, affects the consolidation of certain ideas despite their destructive effects. Certainly, passivity is not advisable – that’s why it is worth lowering the level of emotionality to better recognize mechanisms, diagnose distortions, pathologies – and then try to find appropriate remedies, try to overcome obstacles.

I return to the issue of articulation between the sphere of geopolitics and the sphere of culture and individual human activity. Is it really the case that geopolitics takes place in areas where there are frozen divisions, which are only supra-individual and systemic (i.e. detached from the “world of life” and its fluctuations), which means that as individuals we have no influence on them and we can only treat them as a kind of fate, and the only perturbative factor is the war between larger individuals? In principle, however, do not the phenomena in question have their roots in anthropological tendencies that characterize the human species as such and each individual man, each man as an individual?

These trends are:

– the fight for power, for domination over others;

– the race for money and material goods;

– finally, modernization aspirations, which in essence are the Promethean drive of humanity to improve the conditions of life on Earth.

All these things are important – they have their value and meaning. Certainly, many of us have such aspirations, which means that in our lives we do not always agree to be fully subordinated to the centers of power (political, religious, cultural) and other people (we want to govern ourselves and even be able to enforce things from others), have money and not be deprived of it and follow trends that give us a sense of it,  that we participate in mental, technological and stylish transformations of the world.

But how does the sphere of culture relate to these issues? Isn’t it the parent category? On a practical level, it should be recognized that culture is precisely a set of rules and norms through which man tries to control the complicated architecture of human behavior and reflexes just indicated, and in the basic plan it is associated with the question of what is the most important in life.

The power of culture

It seems that none of the tendencies just mentioned can be elevated to the superior level. That they are all destined – together and separately – to be influenced and constantly processed within the framework of a common project that is culture. Culture points to that sphere of human activity in which man strives, among other things, to put in order those tendencies and impulses which are born in him and which cannot be eradicated, but must be domesticated and nurtured.

It happens that these definitions of culture and civilization that we adopt place these concepts in the area of specialized skills. For example, the concept of “culture” is often identified with man’s ability to improve himself, and when we mean “being civilized,” we are referring to those who have been able to pass to a level of existence and human ability that is considered higher, proper to circles that consider themselves to be the most advanced. In this sense, cultural endeavors lead to a culmination that amounts to joining the circle of a higher civilization.

However, culture (and not civilization) can be given a superior value, that is, it can be seen as both a process and a result of the process of ordering the sphere of human behavior and aspirations, using – to use Rudi Laermans’ formula again – “a socially shared resource or a repertoire of signs”.

If any of the anthropological tendencies mentioned above were to be given the role of the overriding factor regulating human relations, the results would be disastrous.

Let’s start with the factor on which we are inclined to pin many hopes – namely, modernization. What would happen if it were the most important, which some of us might be willing to agree to? Is modernization a fundamentally positive process, and therefore one that, if we brought it to completion, would solve all human ills, which would mean that it would be best to deprive it of borders and brakes? In other words, would a world subjected to complete, complete modernization be a paradise on earth?

Replacing people with robots would undoubtedly be proof that modernization has taken place, and one of the more spectacular kind. But would it fulfill our dreams of paradise on earth? For the rest, as Pascal Gielen and Thijs Lijster write, “wealth accumulation and economic growth beyond a certain level begin to contribute to lowering this indicator. As the saying goes, happiness cannot be bought.” [13] Culture, on the other hand, is associated with the moment when we discover that what is most important in life results from the fact that our life is finished, that sooner or later it ends in death. It is the awareness of our own mortality that appears as the most powerful regulator of our behavior, their Sevr pattern.

The Binarian Trap

Poland itself is determined not only by internal aspects, but by how it influences Europe and the world, and how its image is shaped, the ideas about it, which place Poland and Poles are assigned in the hierarchy of civilizations.

How a given culture influences its environment is a factor that is an integral part of its identity, its essence and the way in which its internal affairs are shaped, because the type of relationship between the subject itself and the subjects with whom he co-creates reality or creates to some extent a common – but always nevertheless common – reality, the type of this relationship influences  who you are yourself and who you and the given societies become.

Therefore, Polish issues are not decided only by Polish-Polish relations between Poles, but also by the nature of relations between Poles and the environment external to Poland.

Of course, since Poland is primarily a part of Europe, Poland and Poles are primarily determined by relations with this area. Of course, the concept of Europe is not unambiguous and it can, and certainly should be understood in many ways, but this does not change the fact that it is the area and the very concept of Europe that has the privileged status of the main regulator in shaping Polish affairs.

Individuality

Individuality, specificity, is undoubtedly a great opportunity. But it is also a formidable challenge that, when left unaddressed, takes revenge and turns into ballast and obstacle.

Meanwhile, Polish distinctiveness in the European order is struggling with a periphery syndrome. Western Europe, and certainly such an old power as France, considers the situation of Poland and Poles themselves in terms of “being between”, and even more so “on the edge”, i.e. “in the East”, “on the periphery” or “frontiers”. Poland is still seen as a subordinate area. On this ground, there is a risk of being an isolated, lonely and incomprehensible culture for those who set the tone. Regaining independence for oneself does not mean that a given entity has become sovereign in the eyes of others. As much as internal problems and problems, this phenomenon should determine and prioritize our actions, determine the type of tasks that we should urgently face.

In the light of such observations and the resulting hierarchy of priorities, how to assess the way Poles understand themselves?

Many would like to lock us in the grip of a false alternative, I think. These are voices that warn: either Poles will become European by denationalizing the community within which they have been moving so far, or they will die. It seems that this approach to the problem determines the typically peripheral status in which the proclaimers of these slogans sink. On the other side of the barricade, things look more complicated – there are at least two options. We can see there both those who are trying to affirm Polish separateness within the European community, as well as those who, sulking at Europe and railing against its ideological and moral changes in recent decades, are inclined to defend the model of closing in on themselves and proclaiming some manic superiority of the native community over the rest of the world.

Trapped in binarism

The fundamental fallacy of attitudes at opposite ends of the alternative that we’ve just outlined is that their adherents think of themselves primarily in relation to themselves, thus forgetting that “my image and my autonomy depend on how I define myself in relation to the culture shared with others.” The rule I have just recalled assumes the fulfilment of two postulates in parallel – defining oneself and confronting the culture that we share with others within the framework of the world considered to be common.

Pivotal is the moment when we take up the challenge of confronting others, also with their reluctance, passivity, apathy towards us. There is no doubt that such a confrontation changes our way of thinking about ourselves.

Meanwhile, we tend to present the contemporary debate about Poland as a struggle of “two camps”, which we consider as binarism. In my opinion, this is a mistake, because the choice oscillates not between two fundamental, but at least three options.

Thus, we observe a tendency to reduce the triangle just outlined to the fight of two opposing camps. Instead of a triad, a picture of polarization is created, and this as a global phenomenon, apart from its internal effects, contributes to maintaining many existing blockages preventing the development of what I’ve called the “peregrination” of Polish culture in Europe and in the world.

On the one hand, we have the proverb that “harmony builds and disagreement destroys”, but on the other hand, it is impossible to turn a blind eye to the life-giving aspects of disputes, dissensions or crisis, insofar as these phenomena are an expression of the fact that life goes on properly, because there is a clash of different reasons within the framework of building a common world. Anne-Cécile Robert, one of the harshest critics of the EU’s neoliberal course, editor of the left-wing „Le Monde diplomatique” and professor at the Institute for European Studies at Université Paris 8, refers to the authority of Jean Jaures, who – as she reminds – claimed that “the truth lies in the contradiction” and that “those who affirm the thesis, without opposing it with the opposite thesis, are mistaken, falling victim to a narrow,  illusory logic.”[15] And she adds that “the refusal of dissents (being the opposite of consensus) about the content with which society equips the idea of civilization always becomes totalitarian.”[16] Indeed, it is worth asking ourselves to what extent the concept of ideological polarization, which is currently so popular in Poland, contains totalitarian features – it seems to exclude a simple dispute, as on both sides there are tendencies to completely deprive the other of the right to have certain reasons, which creates a climate of mutual ostracism and ideological purges,  and even – in the long run – a real civil war.

1) As the self-appointed progressive camp tries to convince us, is criticising the EU for its functioning tantamount to being anti-European? What does it mean that, in certain circles brandishing the axe of ‘populism’, any critical voice on the EU qualifies as an essentially xenophobic and nationalist attitude?

2) But equally justified are the objections caused by the attitude of their opponents from the opposite pole of this ideological struggle. Is it really possible to completely exclude the risk that the defence of familiarity, of one’s own identity, may lead us towards self-absorption, towards rejecting dialogue with the world and towards a kind of obsession with ownership and purity? Besides, the term “dialogue with the world” seems vague and quite conventional – let’s put it bluntly – our human condition is largely based on confronting things that we do not yet know and that escape our control. Of course, a certain degree of control and a sense of familiarity seems necessary to maintain life, but it will not be unreasonable to ask whether such a state is not rather an exception to the rule both on the plane of existence and on the plane of earthly (which means not only interpersonal) relations, because these constantly go beyond our previous knowledge, beyond the customs and practices we have mastered? Wanting to stop this movement to explore the mysteries of existence in the name of certain of our fantasies about the community with which we identify raised to the level of dogmas may turn out to be a harmful step, not to say deadly…

Instead of blindly deifying those zones that we consider to be more developed or more modern, which results in postponing familiarity, and even attempts to dismantle it, but also instead of persistent closing in on ourselves – it would be better to adopt various strategies of confronting our familiarity, by no means rejected or postponed, with external environments, thanks to which a double postulate could be fulfilled – opening up to otherness and at the same time defending familiarity,  what is native, not only defense, but also treating it as an indispensable foundation.

When we discover that our familiarity for people from the outside is a certain otherness, we begin to perceive it differently – yes – we gain a certain distance to it, but at the same time, if we can see the potential contained in it, extract its strengths from it, we can try to make it a kind of bargaining chip in relations with the world.  What is one’s own is perceived as a potential value also for others, familiarity also becomes a link with the world, which makes it valuable also for us. In this sense, a fuller modernization will take place when Poles will be able to dialogue with the world without complexes, that is, when they will find ways and methods that will give the opportunity not only to shape their own community, but also to take responsibility for Europe and the world, and this is a perspective that requires cultural activity.

By learning ways to convince others, we change our attitude towards what we consider our own

We are beginning to want Poland – also seen in terms of culture – to become a magnet attracting others, strangers with the power of its own light and charm. It can be said that in the situation of supporting the Ukrainian society in its existential hardships and war struggles with the barbaric enemy, this process has already begun.

Meanwhile, we can see how within societies such as the Polish one (i.e. those that are gradually liberating themselves from the period of long dependence) elites are being created, whose title to this name is that they have assimilated – as they claim – these better models, which they are now trying to introduce for the use of the local society from which they originate. A strange syndrome is created – elites antagonistically oriented to their own society, as they themselves – supposedly – emancipated themselves from its vices.

In this context, let us refer again to which addresses the issue of cultural cross-border relations anthology of “Akcent”, which addresses the issue of cross-border cultural relations, and its essay on Norman Davies’ Europe, in which we read: “Unfortunately, it must be admitted,” notes Davies, “that many Eastern Europeans, and especially the intelligentsia, have adopted Western prejudices. Among Poles, Czechs, Hungarians and Romanians, it has long been fashionable to look for models in Paris, London, Berlin or New York, while the eastern neighbors are despised or ignored. ‘Western’ is again automatically equated with ‘best’ here.” [17]

Elites of this kind take into account Europe only insofar as it can be helpful to them in the work of regaining power in Poland, they do not confront what they have gained from Poland, what they represent as Poles themselves, with the common opinions of other Europeans about Poland and its place in the common world. Their attitude to Europe is instrumental, Europe is a handy – in their opinion – tool for pursuing their own interests in the national field, and the field of expansion of these interests is not Europe, but Poland.

A fake alternative

The alternative between familiarity and international patterns is a false choice – both aspects should be considered in their mutual entanglement, and if internationalization were to take place on the basis of a simple exchange, at the expense of a simple denial of familiarity, it would rightly evoke associations with crude social engineering and alienation.

Those who use the slogan of progress and modernization as a whip against Polishness – and this is only seemingly a paradox – also close themselves in (reduced to the shadow of themselves) Polishness. Let’s try to reconstruct their reasoning – the more developed world looks better than us, it means that it is worse in our country, while due to their attachment to what is Poland, fellow citizens prevent them from making a leap towards this better world. This socio-cultural resistance encountered by modernizers becomes their obsession, as well as a kind of alibi not to explore what in the native tradition is a lost, familiar strength. In the end, it turns out that they urgently need Polishness in its caricatured, phantasmatic figure in order to be able to fight it, and to exalt themselves – at its expense. That’s how they lock themselves in it. This approach is a series of missed opportunities. A dismissive attitude towards what is native has a double effect. It leads to the fact that the postulated modernization slogans are treated as a whip on one’s own society, instead of trying to democratically convince the society to its reasons. The lack of moderation, a certain balance, acceptance for any counter-authorities in the modernization process causes that the creative exchange between what is familiar, native, own, and what is outside, has the potential for development, burns on the pans or takes a sinister course.

Since I publish my text in Poland and I wrote it from the Polish perspective, it may not be useless to remind you that such arguments are not only applicable in Poland – in fact, they constitute a kind of leitmotif in the criticism of the evolution of the EU, which is currently being delivered in the intellectual circles of Western elites about… left-wing attitude. In this respect, it is worth referring to a book published in 2013, i.e. in the era before the outbreak of ideological tensions that we are currently witnessing – it is a collection of texts collected on behalf of “Le Monde diplomatique” and originally published in the pages of this magazine. Its authors are mostly scientists, specialists in the field of politics, economics and broadly understood social sciences. The title of the anthology „The End of Europe as We Know” It is very significant and is a preview of a content that may come as a big surprise to an unprepared recipient, because the predicted end equals the liquidation of humanistic and social Europe, to which these left-wing analysts declare their attachment, and blame for such an evolution… the European Union, because of its evolution over the last decades.

Here are their main motives for accusation against this organization and its – indeed – transformations:

(a) “EU social policy has become a means of destroying the institutions of the welfare state and public services and threatens the very idea of society,” [18] writes Belgian political scientist Corinne Gobin, after stating that “over the past thirty years, these collective “inventions” [these are “counter-powers” which give “public authority the autonomy to act in the public order”] have been neutralised or dismantled one by one by public imperatives,  originating from new, supranational, i.e. “supra-democratic” places of power, of which the European Union is one of the most active centres” [19].

(b) Bernard Cassen, however, quoting the words of June 2006 by Jean Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg and President of the Eurogroup from 2005 to 2013, “Europe is not failing at the level of those in power, but at the level of society”, refers at the same time to the assessment of the Robert Schuman Foundation’s scientific director and professor, Thierry Chopin, who stated that “belief in acting for the benefit of society is not synonymous with involving it in the decision-making process”,  to add for themselves: ‘It is as if citizens can only watch an armoured train carrying the European elite without being able to participate in a journey they do not want to take’ [20].

c) Cassen then very harshly criticises both the European Court of Justice’s conduct and the decisions it takes (for favouring social dumping): “According to Vauchez [a researcher at the CNRS, the French Academy of Sciences], a legal theory of integration is developing, which builds from Community law and court the backbone of European politics itself” [21] and, moreover, complains,  that “the Commission, the Court, the European Central Bank” “are already beyond the reach of direct or indirect intervention by citizens” and “have not the slightest desire to share power” [22].

d) Finally, this gives him grounds to present a grim prophecy (it is impossible not to notice that its content corresponds to what is currently happening at the level of Polish relations with the EU): “Since Europe lacks a common public space, […] Political conflicts can turn into confrontations between states. Is it conceivable that, with the crumbs of sovereignty they have left, the countries ruled by the left and their citizens would agree to accept a spanking from the right-wing executive branch of the Union? Or vice versa?” [23], and his final conclusion really makes us think: “What is accepted in the national public space is not translatable to the supranational level, at least never has been so far” [24].

e) In a sense, the already mentioned Corinne Gobin sums up all the threads about the current state of the EU with this statement: “Economic and Monetary Union, announced in the Single European Act (1986) and sanctified by the Treaty of Maastricht (1992), has created a political and economic system that contributes to the delegitimization of all the achievements in the sphere of social law and social democracy achieved within the framework of the “nation states” of Western Europe.” [25]

f) The passage that was written here, long before this accusation was used against the rulers in Poland, and referred to a completely different phenomenon and territory, sounds quite prophetic and interesting: “The fight against European directives is not only the resistance of the people, whose foundations lie with the French Revolution, but also the opposition of traditional hunting to the Europe of officials.” Michi [Julian, an employee of the National, that is, French, Institute for Agricultural Research] does not judge hunters as “bloodthirsty villagers”. He believes that “anti-European protests and the rejection of the European construction by society must be considered in the context of social conditions and the policies that create them. Furthermore, one can regret that this approach is too often labelled populism.’ [26]

The exaggerated cult of modernization, of violent modernization, without regard for the consequences, is fueled by the first two anthropological tendencies that I have indicated, and therefore the drive for power and money. Those who practice this cult seem to base their strategy on a simple empirical assessment – from the point of view of political weight and access to material goods, contemporary Poland is lower than Germany or France. This would indicate that its development was weaker, delayed. However, if we base our assessment on cultural criteria, we will soon come to the conclusion that these indicators are relative, because culture is about harmonious ordering of all aspects of life and about the process of giving meaning, the main driver of which is the awareness of one’s own mortality. Secondly, the development of Poland was as dependent on the global economic situation (wars, communism, etc.) as on internal and national factors (the latter have rather been in retreat over the last centuries), and if mistakes have been made in the past, assuming that they were only mistakes and that all possessions are worth nothing, indicates abuse. On the basis of such observations, quite the opposite conclusions could be drawn – if the situation in the country and the state at this stage seems unsatisfactory to us, then all the more we should protect what has been created and preserved despite the lack of favorable system conditions.

The debate: “either Poland or Europe” is false

Blackmailing Polish with Europe is dramatic. Those who practice this blackmail do not have in mind the overall or cultural development, they want to gain power and stay with it. And Europe, which they proclaim to be the champions of, they reduce to a tool to come to power in their own backyard and at its expense.

The strategy of self-defense, saving dignity, familiarity can be and certainly is clumsy. But while some make mistakes, use clumsy tactics, others turn a blind eye to the destructive effects of their strategy serving primarily to secure their class-ideological interests.

However, it is bad when, in reaction to blind modernizers and violent defenders of Europe, defenders of familiarity proliferate, for whom the main slogan becomes the supremacy of everything that is familiar, and since the world considered to be more developed, civilized, they treat as something that is outside, beyond the borders of the native community, they have a hostile attitude towards it.

I would like to remind you that I do not consider this polarization, this promoted binarism as a category that would precisely reflect the essence of the distribution of ideological forces in Poland, because I pointed to the existence between the extreme poles of the community of those who are trying to affirm Polish separateness within the European community.

Despite the fact that they adopt the opposite strategy from the one currently represented by instrumental Europeists – and therefore all those who use Europe as a tool to blackmail Poland – fanatical or radical defenders of familiarity also do not do our community, society and Polish culture a service. It can be said that they inadvertently supply ammunition to all those who in Western Europe have a hostile or skeptical attitude towards Polish, which gives rise to the suspicion that the element they represent is being fueled by its main enemy in the East, or at least it plays into the hands of this enemy.

Representatives of this attitude of radicalized defence of familiarity, bristling before the outside world, over which they have no advantage, contribute to the fact that the appearance of accuracy gives the main accusation ritually appearing against the Polish community in the West, it is the accusation of nationalism – which has already been mentioned – treated as a symptom of childhood disease, as a kind of infantilism in international relations.

Meanwhile, it should be in the vital interest of the Poles – and the enforcement of this interest should be expected from the elites – to explain to both the elites and Western societies that within the Polish community, i.e. the one whose national existence was threatened, something completely different from primitive nationalism was the struggle for survival, for the right to maintain autonomy (agency). Western countries and cultures often do not know or have forgotten what such a struggle consists of.

I will not elaborate on these threads any longer. I just want to say that allowing such an alternative, for the perpetuation of this kind of clinch, gives rise to a very definite risk, namely that the societies under its rule themselves contribute to maintaining their state of inferiority, because it is a situation that allows stronger players to take advantage of this division and play warring factions against each other. Binarism, polarization become particularly dangerous when they do not provide sufficient space for the emergence of more flexible strategies, i.e. those that are based on complementary principles of cultivating property, accepting invigorating currents from outside and confronting one’s own visions with those of others, and only a combination of such multi-vector tendencies makes possible expansion outside and self-realization within both one’s own community,  as well as the world.

What is blackmailing Polish in the name of an instrumental concept of Europe? I have already written about it, but what does Polishness become in itself, that is, without confronting what surrounds it? Doesn’t such a tendency lead per se de to its degradation, subordination, and even a kind of folklorization? These are rhetorical questions.

Confrontation, or how to get out of the deadlock and the peregrination of Polish culture

A different path becomes possible, then, when we reject the absolutization of familiarity, but also its condemnation in the name of the phantasm of some higher Europeanness, Westernness.

When we think about Poland, it is always worth bearing in mind its original place in the world, because the very concept of Polishness presupposes its connection with the world, such was Polishness at its dawn and throughout its development. These problems with the approach to Polishness, which we are currently dealing with, are the aftermath of the phenomenon of loss of sovereignty, which exposed the Polish community to the loss of national existence by taking away the right to develop it freely, to the destruction of its human, material and intangible resources. These are otherwise well-known phenomena, about which thousands of books and even more testimonies have been written. But when we recall them, it is worth remembering that this type of experience was not part of this happier part of Europe in this respect, which means that Polish phenomena are always worth considering in terms of what they have to say not only to us, but also to others, which changes our own attitude towards them – I am talking here about the double confrontation of Polish specificity with the broad background of Europe,  but also about the confrontation of common opinions in Europe with the Polish experience, because as part of the common European history, it can certainly also prove valuable for others. These are remarks and recommendations resulting from the spirit of comparatism, of which my text is both an apologia and an expression – the effort to find analogies or frames of reference serves as an incentive to see ourselves better on the one hand, and on the other, to make contact, to grow a probe and to impregnate others with ourselves, with interest in us, which triggers creative dynamics. Looking at Poland from the outside, from the perspective of Europe and the world, does not mean diminishing it – on the contrary – it is an operation contributing to the extraction of those elements from Poland that can affect the global order – it is an encouragement to convince both ourselves and others that what is ours can effectively fit into general tendencies.

It seems that the road to such a cultural order is still long, both due to internal Polish and external, European factors. In addition to the openly xenophobic and negative attitude towards Polish affairs, one can also see the lack of any position, especially when we are dealing with a systemic lack of knowledge, i.e. ignorance resulting from insufficient or zero access to sources – this happens in a situation of eliminating Polish elements from general knowledge. Therefore, our field of activity should not rely only on actions arising in response to treatment considered unfair – we should urgently build an information network that in neutral situations, and therefore also outside the areas in which the blade of accusations openly makes itself felt, will complement European knowledge with Polish components and aspects.

The shortcomings in this area are enormous.

The weakness of the previous approaches is that they refer to Poland as an independent object (the only difference is that some assess familiarity negatively, others positively), it can be said that these are narratives that are created for internal use in order to gain the government of souls over Poles, which exposes them to this polarized internal reception, which is not accompanied by the invigorating breath of confrontation with recipients and external partners. Poles often prefer confrontation with each other to creative confrontation with the world, Europe and their close surroundings.

Is the potential that Poland can bring to popular opinions and views on the formation and development of Europe properly appreciated?

If this were the case, our individuality would not appear as a sign of weakness or peripherality, but as an added value to the common history of Europe. As something that can become a determinant of undoubted strength and which should be treated as an asset, a magnet that attracts attention, arouses respect and encourages action.

Someone will say – I do not care about the opinion of these people. Let them think what they want. Of course, we do not have to agree on everything or strive at all costs to be understood (better), but the accumulation of misunderstandings with a certain level of systemic ignorance causes resentment that is the basis on which it will be easier to make a decision… the imposition of financial sanctions under the common system of management.

The ignorance and reluctance of our partners is also a factor that makes it easier for them to refrain from undermining the supremacy of the former hegemon that was Russia. We know these mechanisms from the circumstances of the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. The same happens when international trade indicators do not translate into the quality of bilateral relations.

What is worse is that if a Frenchman wanted to get acquainted with a classic Polish novel about Warsaw, written in Polish, we would not be able to point him to anything in the French translation, because neither „The Doll” by Bolesław Prus, nor „The Evil” by Leopold Tyrmand, nor „Pre-spring” by Stefan Żeromski (Przedwiośnie) are available in editions that are widely distributed [27].

And in FNAC, i.e. a large bookstore network, a shelf with a few Polish items appears under the name “Russia and Eastern countries” (for some time there has been progress in some libraries, because national compartments have been created, although still under the same name, – Romanian, Hungarian, Polish).

It is known that in the perspective of relations with Russia, Poland has long been treated as a nuisance. The warnings of Poles in this matter were not listened to, putting them down to prejudices.

The fact that in their geopolitical visions Western partners are not inclined to treat Poland as a subject is shown by the exchange between the anti-immigrant candidate for the office of the French President, Éric Zemmour, and the then Secretary of State for European Affairs, Clément Beaune. “In the centuries-old dispute against Poland and Russia, in which, moreover, all faults are not Russia’s share, France should play the role of mediator,” Zemmour argued, “Yes, but not without Germany’s consent,” [28] the secretary of state told him.

Was it to be the beginning of another partition of Poland?

This case shows that Polish elites in Europe are still not treated as sovereign hosts who are allowed to co-decide on politics in Europe. Nicole Gnesotto, deputy director of the Delors Institute, in a 2021 interview when asked if there would be a Polexit, replied: “No, and it’s a great pity.” [29]

In the programme ’28 minutes’, a daily evening (geo)political mass with the participation of experts, journalists, intellectuals and creators on the (French-German) channel ARTE, a Portuguese journalist [30] recently hurled harsh rebukes while mocking the Three Seas Initiative, claiming that it is a project that could “sink” the EU and that – horror of horrors – “crosses Europe, separating it from the Russian Federation”. That this project is a “revival of the idea of Mitteleuropa”, which “was born in the cabinets of the American Obama administration”. No one in the studio reacted to correct, even minimally, these statements. Of course, everyone has the right to speak critically, but in this case it is about something more than criticism, and an additional flavor of the whole matter is added by the fact that – as the journalist proudly reports – such an opinion appears regularly in the media, which – as she claims – “must contain a grain of truth”. [31]

Distinct stories in one Europe

Finally, let us pay attention to the phenomenon of other memories resulting from separate stories. What is needed is the effort to explain why we differ on certain issues, even though we belong to the same European community.

In the intellectual circles and societies of the West, the memory of the struggles fought and still fought between labor and capital, whose stake was the acquisition of social protections and privileges, which were then enshrined in labor law, is still very much alive. In Poland, as we know, in this section of socio-political reality, the memory of the struggle against the Soviets and the power of local communists is alive. It was as a result of it that the post-communist situation emerged in the new, now free Poland, and this is certainly not a one-to-one equivalent of the situation of Western European countries today, even those that only in the years 1970-80 freed themselves from the yoke of dictatorships.

Currently, while in Poland there are attempts to persuade us that the socio-ideological situation is doomed to binarism, in Western Europe in intellectual circles opposition to neoliberalism is becoming more and more prominent, which is reflected in the sharp criticism of the EU. The EU is accused of fostering neoliberal licentiousness – and this criticism does not come from “right-wing” circles, although at the same time there are various conservative, up to far-right, variants of criticism of the functioning of the EU. Nevertheless, neoliberalism coupled with globalization raises concerns in circles critical of the growing predominance of the market and its rights (which is manifested in phenomena such as hypercompetition and the takeover of sectors traditionally controlled by the state, such as education, social welfare, health care, public transport, energy management) over the sphere of the state, traditionally cast as a guarantor of social protection and the common good.

What are the recommendations for Poland and for us as citizens, actors in cultural life who take part in exchanges between states, including at the private level?

The first thing I would point out is reminding about the existence in the second half of the twentieth century, next to the People’s Republic of Poland, of a “different” Poland, in order to counter the concept of “other Europe” referred to Central and Eastern Europe. A lot can change in the perception of us realizing that apart from Poland enslaved by communism, there was actually another, second Poland, on the “better” side of the Iron Curtain – it was created by emigrants scattered all over the world, having their centers, but above all being able to boast of spectacular achievements and successes. It is true, it was a conflicted environment – but this aspect goes to the background, when we pay attention to the enormity of what has been done, which makes it possible to appreciate this activity on a European scale – it was proof that apart from the Polish People’s Republic there was a “different” Poland, continuing the traditions of the Second Polish Republic, not only free from communism, but also contributing to building a free Europe,  Western Europe. Such optics allow us to relativize the view that Poland entered this ‘proper’ Europe only after 1989.

Another important aspect is the multifaceted tradition of fighting for freedom, which shows Poland an alternative path to modernity, which cannot but turn out to be fascinating for Westerners. You have to be able to tell it.

An extremely important topic, which cannot be explored in its entirety now, is the question of wise promotion of cultural achievements, especially literary and scientific ones. In the 30s of the twentieth century, Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński drew attention to the fact that against the background of noticeable drought in the area of works for theater written by women, Gabriela Zapolska’s oeuvre is a sensation on a global scale. In 2021, feminist French magazines make the same diagnosis, but they do not know Gabriela Zapolska, because „The Morality of Mrs. Dulska” has never been published in France, and the only French edition of the existing French translation dates back to 2011 and was created in Poland on behalf of the University of Warsaw. It is a play that has never been presented in France, although its critique of the bourgeoisie makes it generally understandable in the West – while what gives it a current and universal overtone is its depiction of the theatricality of life and the opposition to it on the part of those who flee from life. In another plan, if Mickiewicz’s Ballads and Romances became better present in the consciousness of Westerners, it would facilitate the recognition of connections between Belarus and Poland, and Lake Świteź would gain the status of a symbol there.

And finally, a few words about the Polish language. It is not enough to send teachers abroad, we have to come up with a creative, “cool” campaign to promote the language itself (using spots, billboards, etc.) to finally refute the myth of a language that cannot be pronounced. Maybe the era of French journalists ritually preceding every mention of Poles with the statement that they must apologize in advance for the defective pronunciation will come to an end (which, however, in the age of the Internet, especially, is an ambiguous, not to say two-faced, false excuse)?

Conclusion

The founding mistake was the premise that in order for a successful integration of Poland with the rest of Europe to take place, it would be enough to transfer knowledge and skills only in one direction – from Western Europe to Poland, which meant that insufficient care was taken to meet the challenge of re-clarifying and making the area of Central and Eastern Europe available to our partners from Western Europe.

Polish affairs in Europe cannot be understood at this stage, because Poland does not know or respect each other properly. It is reduced to the status of a former satellite of the USSR, a “pays de l’Est”. There is a deliberate coincidence between the geopolitical category and the strictly geographical category. The apparent adequacy of the latter legitimizes survival in the minds of the former. “Pays de l’Est” means a non-autonomous, a subordinate state. If there is to be a transfer, it should go both ways, it is about creating a common good, a common space – this creation must be based on mutual respect and familiarity.

A certain contradiction taking place here: criticism of neoliberalism – identified by some with feudalism – leads to a criticism of the evolution that the EU has experienced, and in the edition of the left-wing intelligentsia it is a crushing criticism. It is worth reminding those who blackmail Poland with the European Union and try to subsume any criticism of it under the accusation of nationalism and anti-Europeanism. It is also worth fighting all the symptoms of closing in on oneself in the name of narrowly understood cultural familiarity.

Finally, it is also worth thinking about Poland, and perhaps even above all in terms of how original it is a contribution to the development of Europe, especially from the perspective of its struggle to regain sovereignty, bringing an alternative to the dominant narrative about the history of Europe in the era of modernity.

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The article was published in Arcana Bimonthly No. 169-170 (January-April) 2023.

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Piotr Biłos

The author is a University Professor, he teaches modern and contemporary Polish literature and is responsible for Polish studies at the Inalco, Paris. He spent his childhood between Algeria, Morocco and Poland. He lives in Paris, Kraków and Warsaw. He is the author of Exil et modernité, vers une littérature à l’échelle du monde (Classiques Garnier, 2012), Jeux du “je”, construction et déconstruction du récit romanesque chez Wiesław Myśliwski (Classiques Garnier, 2016) and Powieściowe Światy Wiesława Myśliwskiego (Krakow, Znak, 2017). He also published in French a comprehensive history of Poland entitled La Pologne, Fantaisie-Impromptu, Le prix de la République (Spotkania Publishing, 2018).

His essays are available at: https://wszystkoconajwazniejsze.pl/autorzy/prof-piotr-bilos/

See bio: https://uwb.edu.pl/nowosci/aktualnosci/prof-piotr-bilos-z-mistrzowska-prelekcja-na-uwb/0d969a06

Inalco’s website: http://www.inalco.fr/enseignant-chercheur/piotr-bilos-pierre

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¹  It originated in the philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey, and was later taken up by Husserl, to be regularly subjected to further reinterpretations from then on.
² I am using here classic concepts from sociology, especially the sociology of culture. Among the many texts on these issues, my attention has recently been drawn to the publication The End of Culture, the End of Europe, edited by Pascal Gielen, Bęc Zmiana Foundation, Warsaw 2016.
³Ibid., s. 23.
⁴ Ibid.
⁵ Ibid., s. 22.
⁶Na pograniczu narodów i kultur. Polska – Europa – Ameryka, wstęp i suplement: B. Wróblewski, wybór i opracowanie: B. Wróblewski, Ł. Janicki, wyd. Czytelnik i Wschodnia Fundacja Kultury „Akcent”, Warszawa-Lublin 2020, s. 423.
⁷Cywilizacja europejska – różnorodność i podziały, t. 3, red. Maciej Koźmiński, Universitas, Kraków 2014, s. 85.
⁸Ibid., s. 423.
⁹ Patrick Boucheron et al., Une certaine idée de l’Europe, Flammarion, Paryż 2019, s. 35.
¹⁰Au cœur des ténèbres et autres écrits, La Pléiade, Gallimard, Paryż 2017, s. XVII.
¹¹ I refer here to the term “une autre Europe,” which is used systemically to define and separate Central and Eastern Europe.
¹² Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Jerzy Giedroyc, Correspondence [in:] Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Dzieła zebrane, tom 12, vol. 1, 1944–1966, Kraków 2019.
¹³Koniec kultury…, p. 52.
¹⁴Ibid., s. 55.
¹⁵Koniec Europy, jaką znamy, red. Przemysław Wielgosz, Książka i Prasa, Warszawa 2013, s. 45-46.
¹⁶ Ibid.
¹⁷Na pograniczu narodów…, p. 424.
¹⁸Koniec Europy…, p. 42.
¹⁹Ibid., p. 36.
²⁰ Ibid., p. 55-56.
²¹Ibid., p. 58.
²²Ibid., p. 62.
²³Ibid., p. 63.
²⁴Ibid.
²⁵Ibid.
²⁶ Ibid., p. 61.
²⁷ Lalka (The Doll) was published in the 1960s, but under the auspices of UNESCO, and this is an edition that never made it to the “normal” – today the book is unavailable outside of specialized libraries. The Evil was also published in the same era, but in a truncated version, without any publicity, and testimonies of its reception are minimal. Przedwiośnie, on the other hand, was published in 2010 by Polka, a separate private person, which, in order to publish Żeromski’s works, established her own publishing house.
²⁸ See: https://twitter.com/KenigsbArthur/status/1358007765126373378.
²⁹ See: https://le1hebdo.fr/journal/avis-de-tempte-sur-l-europe/370/article/la-pologne-ne-partira-pas-et-c-est-dommage-4945.html.
³⁰ Anna Navarro Pedro, Correspondant in Paris for „Visão”.
³¹ Available online (minutes – 18:32-20:19): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xe7z_cD6xZM&t=1085s.

DANIEL NICOLAS FOUBERT

Geo-economist and founder of Excalibur Insight, a Warsaw-based international business consultancy and analysis firm.

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Why did France fall behind the United Kingdom, which was four times poorer and less populated in the 17th century? Why did Louis XIV fail to see the value of settling Canada and building a powerful navy? Why did he absorb France in endless European wars? Why did he sink the kingdom’s fortune into prestige expenses? Why did France have a fleet capable of competing with the English one only at the end of the 18th century? Why did Napoleon alienate the whole of Europe by installing his family on every vacant throne? Why did Napoleon III allow Germany to reunify? Why did France abandon its European security architecture only 7 years after the signature of the Treaty of Versailles? Why did she hand Poland over to Germany in 1939? Why has France persisted since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in a policy of appeasement of Russia that has caused it to lose half of its credibility within NATO? Why did she want a new European security architecture “from Lisbon to Vladivostok”? Why did she insist on promoting a concept of European “strategic autonomy” that was totally disconnected from the reality of European security? Why does France define itself as a “balancing power”, a commercial management concept that only serves to refuse to adopt a relevant international strategy?

What are the reasons for these problems? Is it the culture, the climate, the relief, the geographical location, or even the geological composition of the soil? But first of all, have we really looked at this issue? Of course not. The most obvious problems are more difficult to identify than the hidden ones, because they would not exist if we were aware of them. But the root of the problem is there: it is the difficulty to question ourselves.

We are often characterised as arrogant, cold, unpleasant, rigid, superficial, hypocritical, procedural and even manic. The other side of the coin includes qualities such as rationality, moderation, a sense of aesthetics, patience, ambition, a sense of synthesis, conciseness, precision, self-control, etc. But the aim here is not to flatter us. We have a fundamental problem of communication, which is the first infrastructure.

France is a system, an organism that was created in a certain environment, to survive there with an adapted way of life. It was the first modern state. No country in the world has a cult of the state comparable to that of France (with the possible exception of China). France is paying the price for this today. The first system to adapt to the conflictuality of post-Roman Europe, it is now suffering from its difficulty in adapting to a world operating on liberal principles. Worse still: some organisations have a greater capacity to adapt to new circumstances, whatever they may be. The rigidity of a hierarchical even more than centralised system, inherited from the monarchy, cements a courtly spirit that handicaps criticism and the exchange of ideas. The constant need for the French to filter their words can improve the quality of their sentences as much as dilute them with clichés. Let us remember that the English did not wait until the 18th century to cut off the heads of two kings. The French revolution was inspired by Anglo-Saxon experiences. For France, democracy is an imported system, difficult to acclimatise, which hinders its natural way of functioning and of which it has only a part of the instructions for use. France’s geography alone already seems to condemn it: one only has to look at the disproportionate weight of the Paris metropolis in relation to the rest of the country. If Paris were at the mouth of a river, like Rotterdam, this organisation would at least work on an economic level. France is like an overly specialised organism that can no longer evolve. It is like a wader.

This leads to :

– intermittent strategic planning, with difficulty in setting objectives outside the moments of national recovery that follow major crises.

– a sluggish understanding of the international environment. There is an intelligence problem, information does not circulate with the same capillarity as in the Anglo-Saxon world.

– an excessively hierarchical relationship with the world, which translates into a dull and outdated realpolitik.

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Daniel Nicolas Foubert

Born into a four-generation Franco-Polish family, geo-economist and founder of the Warsaw-based international business consulting firm Excalibur Insight. He works to develop political and economic ties between France and Central Europe. He started as a Business Developer for Europe in the French fintech Lemon Way, and then worked as a Merger & Acquisition Analyst for Suez Poland and Mazars Poland, where he participated in the due diligence carried out by Accor during the sale of its stake in Orbis for €1.06bn. He holds a Master’s degree in Finance from Neoma Business School as well as a Master’s degree in International Relations and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Paris-Sorbonne University.

DANIEL NICOLAS FOUBERT

Géoéconomiste et fondateur d’Excalibur Insight, cabinet de conseil et d’analyse en affaires internationales basé à Varsovie.

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Pourquoi la France a-t-elle décroché vis-à-vis du Royaume-Uni, qui était quatre fois plus pauvre et moins peuplé au XVIIème siècle ? Pourquoi Louis XIV n’a-t-il pas saisi l’intérêt du peuplement du Canada ni celui de la constitution d’une marine puissante ? Pourquoi a-t-il absorbé la France dans des guerres européennes sans fin ? Pourquoi a-t-il englouti la fortune du royaume dans des dépenses de prestige ? Pourquoi la France n’a-t-elle eu une flotte capable de rivaliser avec l’anglaise qu’à la fin du XVIIIème siècle ? Pourquoi Napoléon Ier s’est-il mis toute l’Europe à dos en installant sa famille sur chaque trône vacant ? Pourquoi Napoléon III a-t-il permis à l’Allemagne de se réunifier ? Pourquoi la France a-t-elle abandonné son architecture de sécurité européenne 7 ans seulement après la signature du traité de Versailles ? Pourquoi a-t-elle livré en pâture la Pologne à l’Allemagne en 1939 ? Pourquoi s’est-elle obstinée depuis le début de la guerre d’agression de la Russie à l’encontre de l’Ukraine dans une politique d’apaisement de la Russie qui lui a valu de perdre la moitié de sa crédibilité au sein de l’OTAN ? Pourquoi voulait-elle une nouvelle architecture de sécurité Européenne “de Lisbonne à Vladivostok” ? Pourquoi s’est-elle acharnée à promouvoir un concept “d’autonomie stratégique” Européenne dont on voit qu’il était totalement déconnecté de la réalité de la sécurité européenne ? Pourquoi la France se pose-t-elle en “puissance d’équilibre”, concept de gestion commerciale qui ne sert qu’à refuser d’adopter une stratégie internationale pertinente ?

À quoi ces problèmes tiennent-ils ? À la culture, au climat, au relief, à la situation géographique, voire à la composition géologique du sol ? Mais avant tout, nous sommes-nous vraiment penchés sur la question ? Bien sûr que non. Les problèmes les plus évidents sont plus difficiles à identifier que les problèmes cachés, car ils n’existeraient pas si nous nous en apercevions. Or la racine du mal est là : c’est la difficulté à se remettre en question.

Nous sommes souvent caractérisés comme arrogants, froids, désagréables, rigides, superficiels, hypocrites, procéduriers, voire maniaques. Le revers de la médaille comporte des qualités telle que la rationalité, la modération, le sens de l’esthétique, la patience, l’ambition, le sens de la synthèse, la concision, la précision, la maîtrise de soi, … Mais l’objectif n’est pas ici de nous flatter. Nous avons un problème fondamental de communication, qui est la première des infrastructures.

La France est un système, un organisme qui a été créé dans un certain environnement, pour y survivre avec un mode de vie adapté. Elle a été le premier État moderne. Aucun pays au monde ne nourrit un culte de l’État comparable à celui qui règne en France (à l’exception peut-être de la Chine). C’est de cela que la France paie aujourd’hui le prix. Premier système à s’adapter à la conflictualité de l’Europe post-romaine, elle souffre maintenant de sa difficulté à s’adapter à un monde fonctionnant selon des principes libéraux. Pire encore : certains organismes ont une plus ample capacité d’adaptation aux nouvelles circonstances, quelles qu’elles soient. Or la rigidité d’un système hiérarchisé encore plus que centralisé, hérité de la monarchie, cimente un esprit de cour qui handicape la critique et l’échange d’idées. La nécessité constante et propre aux Français de filtrer leurs propos peut autant en améliorer la qualité que les diluer dans les poncifs. Rappelons que les Anglais n’ont pas attendu le XVIIIème siècle pour couper la tête de deux rois. La révolution française a été inspirée par les expériences Anglo-Saxonnes. La démocratie est pour la France un système d’importation, difficilement acclimaté, qui gêne son mode de fonctionnement naturel et dont elle ne possède qu’une partie du mode d’emploi. La seule géographie de la France semble déjà la condamner : il n’est que de voir le poids démesuré de la métropole parisienne par rapport au reste du territoire. Si Paris était à l’embouchure d’un fleuve, comme Rotterdam, cette organisation fonctionnerait au moins sur le plan économique. La France est comme un organisme trop spécialisé qui ne peut plus évoluer. Elle est comme un échassier.

Cela débouche sur :

– une planification stratégique intermittente, avec une difficulté à se fixer des objectifs en dehors des moments de redressement national qui suivent les grandes crises.

– une compréhension poussive de l’environnement international. Il y a un problème de renseignement, l’information est loin de circuler avec la même capillarité que dans le monde Anglo-Saxon.

– un rapport excessivement hiérarchique au monde, qui se traduit par une realpolitik à la fois émoussée et dépassée.

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Daniel Nicolas Foubert

Issu d’une famille franco-polonaise depuis quatre générations, géoéconomiste et fondateur du cabinet de conseil en affaires internationales Excalibur Insight, basé à Varsovie. Il s’emploie à développer les liens politiques et économiques entre la France et l’Europe centrale. D’abord Business Developer Europe dans la fintech française Lemon Way, il a ensuite été Analyste Fusion-Acquisition au sein de Suez Pologne et de Mazars Pologne, où il a notamment participé à la due diligence réalisée par Accor lors de la cession de sa participation dans Orbis pour 1,06 Md€. Il est diplômé d’un Master en Finance de l’École de Commerce Neoma ainsi que d’une Maîtrise en Relations Internationales et d’une Licence en Histoire de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne.

An Interdisciplinary Reflection About Global Growth, Economic Cycles, and Great Power Competition

“If deep movements are in your favour, you will be served, pushed forward – beyond your merits, beyond even your reflections, and notwithstanding your intellectual abilities.”

Fernand Braudel

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DANIEL NICOLAS FOUBERT

Geo-economist and founder of Excalibur Insight, a Warsaw-based international business consultancy and analysis firm.

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Abstract

This paper is a reflection on deep historical cycles driving the global environment, analyzed through a transversal approach [1] and as a coherent structure, namely the Global System. Three key theses result from this analysis:

–      There is a cycle of the Global System, which consists of the necessary renewal of its 4 pillars: institutions, the international trade system, the regime of accumulation, and connective infrastructure.

–      Global growth is a function of the hierarchy of the Global System. The weakening of the international hierarchy leads to disorder and unproductivity.

–      The US possesses all the necessary fundamentals and capabilities to stay at least on top of the international hierarchy, even though it needs to change its mode of governance.

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Introduction

Does the economy have more influence on the course of history than politics? The fallacy of the “end of history” is the product of this flawed assumption. In reality, these have always been inextricable fields of activity, the two sides of the same coin: wealth is the fuel of power and power is the fuel of wealth. Nevertheless, the second proposition seems to be less well-known than the former and the purpose of this paper is to provide some insight into this matter.

Thinking that we are in a transition phase and looking for huge upheavals ahead is fashionable at the moment, and rightfully so. It seems true that we are at the end of a cycle, if not several. Economists sometimes speak about “secular cycles” without entering into many details, and not much actual work has been done on this topic.

For this purpose, I have explored the world-system theory, which seems to have been forgotten since the 2000s. It was developed on the basis of Fernand Braudel’s work, firstly by Immanuel Wallerstein, then mainly by Andre Gunder Frank and Giovanni Arrighi. Although it was also partly derived from the Marx-inspired dependency theory, it is necessary to distinguish between Marxian analysis and Marxist politics. If Marx had not written Capital, no one would know what capitalism is except a handful of financiers. Capital is one of the founding works of modern political economy, and this does not make every economist a zealot of the Communist Manifesto. The same is true for the World-System theory.

But, first of all, what is capitalism? It is a concept that is at the same time very widely used and deeply misunderstood. For most people, capitalism is confused with the free market. These are in fact two very different things. According to Max Weber, capitalism is a mode of production in which: most of the production is done for profit using privately-owned means of production, labour is hired, and coordination is decentralized. However, this is only the definition of industrial capitalism. From the perspective of history, the concept of capitalism was extended by Fernand Braudel to other ways of managing money on a large scale, which appeared in Italy in the late Middle Ages: merchant capitalism and financial capitalism. In this definition, the purest form of capitalism is the management of capital on a large scale, both geographically and quantitatively. This implies a high degree of capital centralization and often monopolies. It should be noted that the Dutch East India Company, the first large multinational enterprise, was a monopoly. The American economy was also built by monopolies (Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.) and the large American multinational companies of today dominate their markets to a very large extent. This concentration of capital is the corollary of a greater capacity for diversification. Financial capitalism (i.e. high finance) is the most central and most powerful type of capitalism because it controls the other types and can seize them at any moment. In finance, the ability to diversify is the key to success: it reduces risk while multiplying the possible sources of profit. Besides, large companies are a necessary tool to dominate international trade. Global players need to have a global size.

This last definition of capitalism is at the heart of the World-System analysis, which consists of three powerful ideas:

–      The World-System structure, theorized by Emmanuel Wallerstein in the 1970s as an international division of labour assuming that there is a politico-economic chain of command linking the core of the world economy – where high value-added activities are concentrated – to a semi-periphery and a periphery. In this view, the core of the world-economy [2] is the place where capitalism is the most developed. According to K. Ekholm and J. Friedman (The World System: Five Hundred Years or Five Thousand?, p. 61), “the center is the center of most advanced industrial production based on raw materials and semi-finished products imported from the periphery, which in exchange obtains some of the manufactures of the center. The very maintenance of the center depends on its ability to dominate a supralocal resource base”. In fact, the world-system analysis is the analysis of what is called the “value chain”.

–      Short systemic cycles of accumulation: these are successive ~110 years cycles that occurred during the last 4 centuries, each being driven by a capitalist hegemon replacing the former one or re-succeeding itself due to both its conquests and its update of the capitalist system. It is a cycle of the centre of gravity of economic power rather than a pure economic cycle. The first capitalist hegemon was the Netherlands (1580-1688, first stock exchange and first multinational company), then the UK during two cycles (1688-1792; 1792-1914) and finally the US (1914-?) [3]. Thus, the centre of capitalism and global power logically shifted along both successful politics and opportunities to generate larger profits: both are necessary. Industrial capitalism migrates first, often due to aggressive industrialization policies. It is then supported by offshoring and investments made by the capitalist center. At the peak of the cycle, international liberalism is particularly strong, with a very high level of fluidity and deregulation of international finance, which is called financialization. Then the world sinks very quickly into protectionism and war. These are the exact same cycles that the famous hedge fund manager and financial influencer Ray Dalio popularized lately under the “Big Cycles” denomination, without citing Giovanni Arrighi, who theorized them (The Long Twentieth Century, 1994).

–      Long systemic cycles of accumulation, as theorized by Andre Gunder Frank and Barry Gills, are more ancient and longer (a few centuries) cycles that preceded the shorter cycles we just mentioned. However, it is unsure whether those cycles ever ended. They were based primarily, not on the rise and fall of a single hemegon, but on the development of a system of regional hegemons/empires that sustained an international system of trade, until a disruption of the international chain of command ended the cycle (for instance the 14th-century cataclysms [4] that wrecked global trade routes, plunging the whole Eurasian world-system into a turmoil, as did the global anarchy of the 17th century). Such a disruption generally happened because the system couldn’t grow further and reached the limits of what it could produce. The stalling productivity of the system prompted a negative feedback loop: the elites attempted to make profits in a more aggressive manner, the imperial institutions decayed because of their decreased usefulness, and the decentralization of global power happened due to the elites’ resulting weakened sense of belonging to their state.

These cycles’ lengths may vary considerably, but what matters is not how long they are, it is the order of their stages. They have always followed the same pattern. We do not know when the cycle is going to end, but we can find which stage of the cycle we are situated at.

There is no ecosystem without cycles. A system is born under certain conditions, to which its participants are perfectly adapted. Over time the different elements of the system evolve, until one day the changes are so great that the system can no longer function. The destruction of what does not work is then inevitable and a new system is born, based on new principles. The more rigid the system, the faster it bursts. It’s like a pomegranate. At the beginning of the cycle, the power is concentrated. Then it expands, and finally bursts and reconcentrates in other hands, or in the same hands (the UK’s second hegemonic cycle for instance). This phenomenon is so inexorable because no one can control it. Human societies often act more like swarms of bees that move around obeying their unconscious needs than like organisms capable of governing themselves strategically.

The different types of cycles also have different lengths. What causes these differences is the degree of historical importance of the elements they concern. According to the theory of Fernand Braudel, described in his History of Material Civilization, Economy and Capitalism, there are three times in history: a short time that concerns political and economic events, a long time that concerns social phenomena, and a very long time that concerns culture and civilization.

These are the theoretical foundations on which we will try to answer the big question everyone is asking today: towards which political and economic order our global system [5] is evolving? If I have the beginnings of an answer, I consider that providing a framework for thinking is a more important goal. I will therefore develop here an assessment of the respective currentness of the world-system cycles and an analysis of their implications for the evolution of the world-system.

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I.              Short Systemic Cycles

Since the Western economy is reaching its structural limits, the cycles that were unique to it may no longer apply, given that the reasons they developed as they did have disappeared. These reasons were as follows: the industrial revolution, the spread of capitalism and the relatively small size of capitalist hegemons.

A.   The end of the industrial age

There is no “fourth industrial revolution”, which is an absurd concept because digitalization is not industrial. Industrial revolutions were driven by new ways to produce cheaper energy or to use it more efficiently. Green energy is certainly not and will not be cheaper than fossil fuels before a long time. There are still productivity gains today, but they are absolutely not comparable to those obtained thanks to the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, nuclear fission, etc. These technologies transformed our world in a dramatic manner and propelled economic activity in a way that IT will never achieve.

B.   The stalling spread of global capitalism

There is no larger capitalist country than the US since the Chinese system is hardly a capitalistic one, which doesn’t make it an obvious successor to the US. The Chinese “free market for unfree people”[6] lacks the necessary liberal foundations that would allow it to be accepted as a global hegemon and project its soft power efficiently. Furthermore, it is terribly inefficient. If there is an “update of capitalism” somewhere, it is rather the US-led “digital capitalism” / “information capitalism”, which does not immensely increase productivity but reshapes economies as well as generates enormous profits for those who control it. 

C.   The incomparable power of the US compared to its predecessors

European powers formed a very peculiar eco-system of countries, which were structurally unable to sustain their domination over longer periods. Western hegemonies occurred as temporary disequilibria due to the European nations’ short-lived technological edge and the chaotic fragmentation of the European world-economy. It is impossible to compare the US to this. For instance, the Netherlands – due to its economic advance – could almost be considered a “hegemon” despite its GDP being 6 times smaller than that of France or Italy from 1410 to 1800:

The fact that the Netherlands and the UK (at least during the 18th century) could lead European trade and dominate Europe with such an unremarkable level of economic activity – measured quantitatively – is proof that GDP size is not as important a factor as it seems to many analysts of great-power competition. The US is then in a much stronger position than previous capitalist hegemons in terms of quantitatively measured economic activity. More importantly, like all its predecessors it prevails overwhelmingly when it comes to the quality of its economy – that is to say its position in the global value chain. The most striking part of this economic power lies in the control over the electronic chip business and the new kind of capitalism its tech companies are spreading over the world. It is a fact that the world-economy is more fragmented today than it was after the fall of the USSR, but the US cannot be compared to its predecessors. Its sovereignty still is undisputed and will not be disputed for a long time. The economic sovereignty of the capitalist hegemon is in fact based mainly on GDP per capita, as this is the best way to measure the centrality of an economy and its degree of wealth concentration. On this graph, we can clearly see the domination of the Netherlands and their passing of the baton to the United Kingdom:

The end of the industrial age, the stalling spread of global capitalism, and the incomparable strength of the US to its predecessors have changed the global system from a very fast-changing environment with short cycles into a more stable place. Short hegemonic cycles should then be regarded as a unique event in the history of mankind and no forecast should be based on them without questioning the currentness of their causes.

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II.            The Long Systemic Cycle

We are now dealing with long-term exhaustion of global growth (at first sight because of demographic saturation, natural resources scarcity/depletion and the absence of a game-changing energy generation technology), which results in growing global instability and regionalization. However, this exhaustion of global growth is rooted in a more profound factor: the system itself has become unable to allocate resources and exploit them in an efficient and sustainable manner. Could we solve the global growth problem by reorganizing the world in a completely different manner? This is the question that history will answer for us one day. Before it does, let’s assess the solidity of the system as it exists currently, through what I have identified as its 4 most important pillars: institutions, the international trade system, the regime of accumulation, and connective infrastructure.

A.   Institutions

Institutions are the real backbone of any society, of any progress. The graph above shows clearly the runaway development of the UK even before the industrial revolution. This revolution was a consequence of the development of the UK and of the good functioning of its society, not a random discovery. To summarize the situation today: we are sawing off the branch we are sitting on. The West faces many internal disorders, two of which could be lethal:

1.    Our nation-states’ societies are becoming increasingly similar to authoritarian ones, with the multicultural characteristics of empires. As we see today, the US was a multicultural country only to a certain degree, and the EU (a supranational bureaucracy) is encompassing so many different political sub-systems that it cannot evolve into a democratic federation. The increasing multiculturalism of Western societies – whether resulting from immigration or from the forced fusion of Western populations that do not share the same heritage, will create more difficulties to cooperate between people and more opportunities to force them to cooperate (which is a way to define authoritarianism). The ongoing transformation of the two major Western powerhouses will have rippling effects across the rest of the global system, starting from the very nature of societies, states and economies. This trend is inexorable since its logic pertains to the development of the global system: the cycle of lonely nation-states is finished because larger regional structures are now needed to produce growth. It does not mean that nation-states will disappear: it means that they will have to transform and regroup in a coherent fashion.

2.    A relative way nation-states are being alienated is the neoliberal movement that has developed worldwide since the time the US outcompeted the USSR. The end of the USSR, the beginning of the Liberal World Order and the spread of the globalist ideology have meant, from a business as well as geopolitical viewpoint, a transition from system-building to system-milking. Delocalizations, tax havens, low corporate tax rates, the still ongoing financial globalization, and the primacy of economic interests over political ones have all weakened the alliance between capital and the state, which has always been the cornerstone of the development of strong nations. A phenomenon that is less talked about is corruption: it has increased considerably. The links between politics and money have always existed, will always exist, and are inevitable. Only there are different ways to organize them. We must not forget that corruption works in two ways: it can also be a way for statesmen to buy their opponents. For example, Richelieu, Mazarin, Fouquet or Colbert amassed huge personal fortunes by embezzling public funds, which allowed them to finance their fight against the opponents of the construction of the modern French state. In the opposite situation, when the statesmen are bought by the adversaries of their nation, there is nothing left to save.

B.   The International trade system

The main characteristic of the evolution of the international trade system is increasing cutthroat competition, like during the 15th and the 17th centuries, when transformations of the system happened.

1.    The most tangible manifestations of cutthroat competition are:

–       Supply-side mercantilism in Germany and China.

–       The booking of American companies’ profits in tax havens (~50% of all profits booked abroad, Zucman).

–       Ferocious neoliberal fiscal competition through falling corporate income tax rates.

–       Increasingly protectionist policies and the rise of economic nationalism (Brexit, Marine Le Pen, Trump, etc.)

–       Trade wars and financial wars (the US/China competition, the Russian energy war), aggravated by the corruption of certain Western elites (Schröder, Fillon, and other such cases), which makes them more difficult to win for the West.

2.    The most problematic consequences of cutthroat competition are:

–       The fact that resources are no longer allocated purposefully by the system in order to produce global growth

–       The growing reluctance and inability of the US to maintain the Liberal World Order, since it is becoming increasingly expensive to maintain, given the rise of the competition. The covid crisis has shown us their inability to intervene to prevent the global supply chain from fracturing.

–       The influence of neoliberalism on long-term investment worldwide, which subdues the economy to the monopoly of 5-year business plans. While low interest rates should have propelled long-term investments, what has happened is the exact contrary: they have been used for short-term financial leverage.

–       A global dislocation of the trade system, the main symptom of which is inflation, a phenomenon caused by the rise in the price of raw materials and products (given wages growth) produced by the countries of the periphery.

C.   The regime of accumulation

1.    Western capitalism has been morphing into “rentier capitalism”[7]:

a.     First of all, it cannot be ignored that income distribution was skewed in favour of the wealthy during the 2010s (especially in the US). The dominant position of companies, the sky-high return on equity requirement, anaemic interest rates which allowed proportionally huge financial leverage and low corporate tax rates were the main characteristics of this new economic paradigm. This explains the fact that inflation remained stagnant, despite all the public deficit monetization. Wages will not increase as long as the four conditions above stayed in place. On the other hand, hard assets inflation went on, because these assets were bought by those whose income rose at the fastest pace. This resulted in the consumer society on which the system was built no longer contributing to its growth the way it used to. Today, the widening of inequalities continues in an even more brutal way, with the inflation of the price of consumer products, which is proving to be faster than that of wages. Here we see the dramatic impoverishment of European wage earners:

Real Wages Growth (Wages Growth – Inflation):

🇪🇺-8,7%

🇬🇷+2,1%
🇧🇬+1,5%
🇷🇴-2,6%
🇫🇷-2,7%
🇵🇱-3,1%
🇭🇷-4,1%
🇪🇸-4,8%
🇭🇺-5,3%
🇸🇰-5,5%
🇦🇹-5,5%
🇮🇪-6,2%
🇧🇪-6,3%
🇵🇹-6,4%
🇸🇪-6,5%
🇫🇮-6,8%
🇱🇹-8,2%
🇩🇰-8,8%
🇸🇮-9%
🇨🇿-10,4%
🇮🇹-10,8%
🇳🇱-11,6%
🇩🇪-13,1%
🇪🇪-14,9%
🇱🇻-15,7%

(y/y Q3 2022, Eurostat)
1/3

— Daniel Foubert (@d_foubert) December 21, 2022

b.    Hard assets inflation can be also called “wealth inflation”, which brings into light another aspect of the same problem. In one of his very straightforward and quirky Flash Economics, Patrick Artus[8] pointed out that increasing the money supply results in increased wealth rather than inflation if it pours into the “investment money” stock – as opposed to the “transaction money” stock. “Wealth” too can increase artificially then, as consumer prices would. But it does not make us richer; it only means that wealth valuations are now deeply fictional. This is proportionally resulting in and comparable to consumer goods deflation, notwithstanding nominal prices. This phenomenon is new because until now we knew only exceptional cases of asset prices inflation that we called “bubbles”; it is hard to recall a situation where all hard asset prices – from real estate to precious metals – were in a bubble. It is also worth noting that if asset prices rise, GDP rises too. And hard assets inflation is not taken into account into official inflation metrics. Thus, an increasing GDP does not necessarily mean that there is an increase in economic activity. I will not elaborate on the artificial growth topic, but I think there is also a question that can be asked: if GDP growth is 2% and the public deficit is 3% (as a % of GPD), what GDP growth could be expected if there was no public deficit? 

Rentier capitalism, thus, fosters artificial ways of accumulation and weakens the market economy.

2.    Not only is capitalism changing in nature, but it also seems to be at the end of a cycle

a.     The less growth there is, the lower the interest rates, and the more we borrow. Debt is one of the few levers left to produce growth. There is a bubble in sovereign debt, and this should lead at least – someday in a very distant future… – to currency debasement if not to a financial crisis of tremendous magnitude, unless a new growth lever is found, which is unlikely. However, this is a well-known and well-discussed topic, on which I shall not dwell.

b.    Because of globalization, there is now a decorrelation between global value chains and political systems, since there is no corresponding global political system of control, only soft global governance – which is not about control – and the American influence is facing the Chinese challenge. This is problematic, given that the development of the capitalist system has always been sustained by the simultaneous development of the state, and the alliance between capital and the state has always been indispensable for growth. The Liberal World Order does not suffice to maintain control over international value chains on a global scale.

Western capitalism is undergoing a crisis, not because it doesn’t work anymore, but because it does not produce enough growth, and we are progressively destroying it by trying to get this growth anyway in an artificial manner.

D.  Connective infrastructure

Connective infrastructure is transforming worldwide under the effect of two fundamental revolutions:

1.    However largely finished from a technological perspective, many effects of the information revolution upon the world are still to be awaited. The Covid crisis has recently generated a good instance of the power of this transformation. It has brought a dramatic wave of dematerialization, which has enabled the delocalization of more qualified work, further transforming the international chain of command.

2.    The other, maybe even more profound revolution underway, is the reconstitution of a Cohesive Asian Heartland, which could reshape global trade routes[9]. There was a cohesive Asian heartland for several millenaries, based on a few empires, which formed a coherent trade system. The current maritime trade system results mainly from two historical facts:

–       the Silk Road was hugely damaged, first by the Plague, then by Mongol destructions, and finally by the collapse of the Mongols themselves. This created an opportunity for Europe to create its own alternative trade routes.

–       American precious metals and colonial plunders gave Europe a liquidity boost that allowed it to take advantage of the situation at the right time and to solve the international trade problem by multiplying long-haul enterprises, thus also developing capitalism and becoming the centre of the trade system. 

If the Russian economy is connected to Europe (unlikely for obvious reasons) and local hegemons are allowed to rise in the Middle East, then the long-term perspective is that Eurasian trade will be brought back to life and the US will become marginalised. The centre of gravity of the world is moving towards Asia, and it is a commonplace statement to say so. However, this shift is based on certain trends that are of organizational nature, and for this reason is not irreversible.

The decay of Western institutions, the deteriorating state of the trade system, very fast changes in the way the world is connected, and a crisis of capitalism are signs that we are at the end of a long systemic cycle. The system is transforming, because it has to transform. The changes that take place are not characteristic of the end of a short hegemonic cycle, as we have explained in the first part. These changes have much more to do with the end of a long structural cycle, which calls into question the very structures of institutions, trade, infrastructure and accumulation patterns of our global system.

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III.          Our Bankrupt World and the Emergence of a New Global System

A.   An increasingly brutal environment and the new Long Systemic Cycle

Global instability is in the logic of the long systemic cycle. Indeed, we are for now witnessing a relative decentralization of the system through global capitalism, as increasing fragmentation and instability are in the logic of its development. Capitalism paradoxically tends towards the flattening of the international structure, less inequality between the centre and the periphery, and between states, as capital spreads faster to underdeveloped regions than it develops the already developed ones.

Any further weakening of the US may result in a multiplication of regional powers, which will cause the breakdown of the global system, given the weak growth and the cutthroat competition that the absence of leadership will cause. Like in long pre-capitalist systemic cycles, we could witness the creation of a system of hegemonies, but an accepted hierarchy would need to emerge, which normally takes place at the end of a period of cutthroat competition.

China is not strong enough to become the dominant power. The US is solid enough to stay the dominant power, but it is not strong enough to maintain order in the face of the crisis the global system is undergoing. Today’s international relations are less and less about virtuously outcompeting the opponent, and increasingly about cutthroat competition. Global powers will seek to achieve their goals in a coercive manner, that is to say in a manner that violates the rules of the system.

As we can see on the graph below, global growth does not date from the industrial revolution, even if it wasn’t as strong back then. The long systemic cycle can therefore very well continue to apply to the capitalist period as well.

B. The Future is American

Since Short Systemic Cycles no longer seem relevant, the US still has the possibility to grow and to create a brand new Global System. Here are several arguments supporting the hypothesis that the US could stay the dominant power or exert even greater influence over the world:

1.    US federal institutions have been weakened for the last 50 years. However, the US is of course a federal republic, which is made of 50 sovereign jurisdictions. This provides room for resistance.

2.    The centre of gravity of global infrastructure is not necessarily shifting towards Eurasia, given that American strategists are perfectly aware of the necessity to impeach the formation of a cohesive Asian Heartland. It can be noticed that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have not resulted in the creation of powerful Afghan and Iraqi states able to develop or even manage large infrastructural projects, to say the least.

3.    While the World has become more fragmented, the US share of global GDP has been around 23% for the last 10 years, which is the same as in 1995 and in 1980. There is no decline from this viewpoint, even relative. The Great Convergence is actually more about a transfer of power from Europe to Asia than from the US to any other part of the world.

4.    In a world where growth is no longer generated by increasing production but by digital domination, the US is of course far ahead of its competitors, and its technological monopolies are the right tool for it to stay this way.

5.    The buds of a new accumulation regime are appearing in the US, although in a very rough fashion. The evolution of capitalism has consisted in companies becoming able to internalize increasingly greater costs, making the system more efficient[10]. The first to be internalized by the free enterprise were protection costs, then production costs, and the latest were transaction costs (the integration of the whole international supply chain). Automatization and digitalization are now allowing for what could be called “society internalization”: the customer himself becomes partly a worker of the companies from which he buys products, for instance by giving his data for free or by using self-service checkouts. The alliance between capital and the state has been weakened, but the power exerted by capital over society has never been greater, which would make the revival of this alliance much stronger than it ever was.

6.    The slowdown of growth and the dislocation of our world will have to be remedied. This is done through international competition. A reset should occur, resulting in a new, more integrated international hierarchy, which will solve the global growth problem. Global growth will slow down until the losers go bust, allowing for a survivor to emerge. This operation will probably require the US to reorganize its alliances and to become more assertive on the global stage, projecting its global power through means not pertaining to the globalist ideology[11]. Some will be well integrated into the new international order, others will lose their status and others will remain on the sidelines. It is good to keep in mind that some of the most solid allies of the US include Japan, Poland, South Korea, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, Romania, and Ireland.

Since there is now a single integrated world-economy, it should be organized by one hegemon. All the new means of control have been created to make this occur, which has never been the case before. Only the US could be in a position to do so. If it does not, the world will be plunged into a situation of chaos, no global hegemon will emerge from the constant international fight and the global economy will dislocate. I do not believe in this scenario; we always finally figured out new ways to make the Global System work for the last 2500 years, despite periods of global disorder.

[1] Making use of geopolitics, history, economics and finance

[2] A concept coined by Braudel. World-economy: “an economy that is a world in itself” (the European or the Asian world-economies for instance).

[3] George Modelski, Long Cycles in World Politics.

[4] Overpopulation caused depletion of the soils and famines, the Mongol destructions almost cut the Silk Road, the plague ravaged already exhausted populations and the collapse of the Mongol empire itself plunged the world into anarchy.

[5] I prefer to talk about the ‘global system’ rather than about the ‘world-system’ since I consider the word ‘global’ to be better adapted to a transversal approach, independent from any school of thought.

[6] Andrew Michta, 16/11/2020, China’s Promise: ‘A Free Market for Unfree People’, Politico

[7] As defined by Patrick Artus in his Flash Economics from the 08/06/2021: “It is normal for ‘rentier’ capitalism to lead to a loss of growth”

[8] Patrick Artus, Flash Economics, 24/12/2020: “Asset price bubbles are not only the consequence of expansionary monetary policies, but also the only way to ensure fiscal solvency in the longer term?”

[9] Andrew Michta, 13/09/2020, “Can China Turn Europe Against America?”, Wall Street Journal

[10] Giovanni Arrighi, The Long 21st Century

[11] Andrew Michta, 08/03/2021, The Chimera of a Globalist Empire, National Review

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Daniel Nicolas Foubert

Born into a four-generation Franco-Polish family, geo-economist and founder of the Warsaw-based international analysis firm Excalibur Insight. He started as a Business Developer for Europe in the French fintech Lemon Way, and then worked as a Merger & Acquisition Analyst for Suez Poland and Mazars Poland, where he participated in the due diligence carried out by Accor during the sale of its stake in Orbis for €1.06bn. He holds a Master’s degree in Finance from Neoma Business School as well as a Master’s degree in International Relations and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Paris-Sorbonne University.

To my grandfather, who lies in the French section of the military cemetery in Warsaw

DANIEL NICOLAS FOUBERT

Geo-economist and founder of Excalibur Insight, a Warsaw-based international business consulting and analysis firm.

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Introduction

Economically, President Macron’s France is doing well. Politically, the situation is different. This is not at all surprising if one observes the increasing primacy of the economy over all other human affairs for nearly two millennia. What is more worrying is the geostrategic vacuity of a country that prides itself on being a great diplomatic power. France, in fact, seems to ignore two recent facts: the reunification of Germany and the emergence of an independent Central Europe.

It continues to act as if it did not need a financially healthy counterweight to Germany within the European Union, as if the Franco-German couple with France as junior partner could in many cases be self-sufficient, as if Russia were still a major political and economic power that could help France in its quest for independence from the United States, and as if Central Europe were a political desert.

Worse than that, its view of the world remains too often riveted in a realpolitik proceeding from the old European empires (we know where this led Germany and we see where it leads Russia today). As a result, France sees a multipolar world where the Anglo-Saxons see a liberal international order and struggles to adapt to it.

The most bitter failures of French foreign policy over the last thirty years are to be found in Europe: the disaster of the policy of trying (relentlessly) to make Russia a partner and the detestable relations that France has with a number of European Union countries in Central Europe. This does not create the right conditions either for strategic autonomy, or for European power, or for any continuation of European construction.

The French geostrategic tradition in Central Europe

Let us now recall some neglected elements of the French geostrategic tradition, because these problems are also consubstantial with a vast memory lapse.

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, France’s main ally to the east of what was then Germany was Poland. Relations with the Grand Duchy of Muscovy, apart from some occasional alliances, were disastrous. This was for two reasons:

• The eternal anti-Prussian and anti-Austrian interests of the French monarchy, to which the Republic of Two Nations (Poland-Lithuania) was the preferred remedy (Catherine II was a German, let’s not forget).
• The cultural, economic, political and social backwardness of Russia.

The 19th century was not much brighter politically for Franco-Russian relations, between the ephemeral Treaty of Tilsit and the Crimean War. The brutal repression of Polish uprisings by Tsarist Russia as well as the deportation of the Polish elite to Siberia led to French support for the Polish cause and to the recurrent deterioration of Franco-Russian relations.

France still maintained strong ties with Poland, despite the disappearance of the latter from the map of Europe. The Napoleonic era gave some examples of this, through the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and even the fact that Polish troops constituted the best cavalry of the empire – the charge of Polish uhlans during the battle of Somosierra is among its most brilliant feats of arms. In addition, Polish political and cultural emigration systematically chose Paris as its residence. The Père Lachaise cemetery has about 600 Polish graves, including that of Frédéric Chopin, who is perhaps the best representative of Franco-Polish friendship.

Faced with the Francophilia of the Polish elite, Russia’s solution was a strategy of undermining. The Russian elite on the one hand learned French, on the other hand deported and massacred the Polish elite, just as the cuckoo throws away the egg contained in the nest it takes. This strategy successfully led to the agreement of 1891.

France, however, found it difficult to be deceived. Let us observe that there are several kinds of allies, as there are several kinds of enemies. There are allies of circumstance, such as Russia, whose alliances with France have always been fragile and even constrained, and there are natural allies, which, like Poland, endure despite disasters, like the constants of geography (“Great Britain is an island surrounded by water on all sides”…).

To measure the capital importance of the Franco-Polish alliance and of Central Europe in general in our national strategic thinking, let us return to the sources of French geostrategy in the 20th century, expressed in the words of none other than General De Gaulle. In 1919, De Gaulle gave a conference in Warsaw entitled “The Franco-Polish Alliance”, the text of which is as forgotten as it is formidable for “Russian-German” interests (because that is how he saw it). For De Gaulle, it was impossible to dissociate the German problem from the Russian problem: he considered Germany and Russia as natural allies. This natural alliance of Russia and Germany, he saw the keystone in their common interest in oppressing the other nations of Central Europe. Learning from the great mistake of Napoleon III, the man who was then only Captain De Gaulle – but who already did not need a position of power to be right – saw that the joint domination of Germany and Russia over Central Europe constituted a danger of the first order for France, because it conferred on Germany proportions that could only lead to the domination of the continent, putting France at its mercy. To dominate the heart of the European continent – its heartland – is to dominate Europe. De Gaulle did not want this for Germany in 1919, never wanted it until his death, and certainly would not want it today.

The importance of this text – as much as the size of our memory lapse – is such that it cannot be quoted other than unsparingly:

“In France [of the eighteenth century] as in France of all time, the party was many of the politicians who refused, by system, any intervention outside the borders. It was the influence of this party which in the 18th century caused us to lose Canada and the Indies, and which caused us to refuse to give any serious help to dying Poland. […] France has paid a heavy price for her negligence towards Poland. She knows today how much it cost her to have let Berlin and Vienna destroy this natural counterweight to Germanism between Central and Eastern Europe.”

“We want a strong Poland, first of all because it is the solution of justice. This state was powerful at the time when the rapacity of its neighbours dismembered it, and its power, in short, was used only against the enemies of European civilization, thus deserving to keep it. And then, it is our most obvious national interest that the Polish force be formidable. Germany is beaten. But it is already recovering as the armies of our Anglo-Saxon allies move away from the Rhine. Besides, everything must be foreseen: who guarantees us the eternal and above all immediately effective alliance of England and America? In order to keep an eye on Germany, slyly determined to take revenge, to impose it on her and, if necessary, to reduce her once again, we need a continental ally on whom we can count at all times. Poland will be that ally. Every step forward of Germanism to the West is a threat to her, every Prussian advantage gained to the East is a danger to us.”

“Bolshevism will not last forever in Russia. A day will come, it is fatal, when order will be restored there and Russia, reconstituting her forces, will look around her again. On that day, she will see herself as peace will leave her, that is to say, deprived of Estonia, Livonia, Courland, Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Bessarabia, perhaps Ukraine, reduced in a word to the limits of old Muscovy. Will she be satisfied with this? We do not believe so. The same causes producing the same effects, we will see Russia resume its march towards the West and the Southwest […]. On which side will Russia look for help to resume the work of Peter the Great and Catherine II? Let us not say it too loudly, but let us know and think about it: it is on the side of Germany that she will inevitably turn her hopes.”

“I will consider myself very happy, if I can strengthen in your mind the conviction that by serving here, we serve par excellence a national interest. [Each of our efforts in Poland, gentlemen, is a little more glory for eternal France.”

A century later, this text resonates strangely with current events.

Here is the logic of French policy in Central Europe as deduced from the Treaty of Versailles. This treaty, later reinforced by the Franco-Polish alliance of 1921, guaranteed France’s security, just like the treaties of Westphalia in the seventeenth century (that unfortunate humiliation of the Habsburgs caused by the dangerous Richelieu and the deceitful Mazarin…). France provided political and military support to Poland, and Poland guaranteed juicy economic concessions in exchange, in a system comparable to the petrodollar.

This system, unfortunately, collapsed when France signed the Locarno treaties in 1925, due to its lack of resistance to Anglo-American pressure to normalize its relations with Germany. France abandoned its European security architecture, lost its credibility in Central Europe and consequently abdicated its great power status. We know where this led us – collectively. The Anglo-Saxon mistake of wanting to maintain good relations with Germany at the expense of France will thus have poisoned continental Europe for more than a century.

France’s policy in Central Europe

The configuration of the map of Europe in the aftermath of World War II caused France (as well as De Gaulle) to lose sight of both the German problem, which could then be considered solved, as well as the Polish alliance, which could be considered impossible (especially since part of the Polish elite had been decimated by the joint efforts of the Nazis and the Soviets, including 23,000 officers exterminated at Katyń by the latter). With Germany cut in two and occupied, Poland in the hands of Moscow, and France caught in the confrontation of two blocs, Central Europe largely razed by the Second World War disappeared from the French geopolitical chessboard.

In this context, the desire for “independence” vis-à-vis the United States took precedence over all other geostrategic concerns of France and could lead it to soften its relations with the USSR. This is what led the general to speak of an “American protectorate installed in Europe under the cover of NATO” and to leave the integrated command of NATO in 1966, declaring that “France’s will to dispose of itself is incompatible with a defense organization in which it is subordinate.

While solidly committed to the United States, France developed an anti-American sensibility, reinforced not only by the humiliation of the Suez crisis and its colonial interests, but also by the power of the French Communist Party. The United States did not find favor with any of the French political parties during the Cold War, and from the 1980s onwards, France’s general rejection of Anglo-Saxon neo-liberal policies was added to this.

France had and still has difficulty in detaching itself from the conception of Russia as a counterweight to the United States, clinging to what it takes to be sacrosanct Gaullism, whereas it was merely a variation on the theme of the politics of grandeur.

France’s anti-American sentiments remain strong. Among the causes of this situation are the following:

• France sees neo-liberalism as a threat to its paternalistic economic model, which is further exacerbated by the aggressive tax optimization of U.S. firms that pay taxes in Ireland on profits made in the rest of the common market (which accounts for about 70 percent of those profits).
• France’s pro-Arab policy. The best example of this was provided by Dominique de Villepin’s speech to the UN Security Council in 2003 and France’s refusal to participate in the Iraq war.
• The error of analysis that is fashionable in France and which consists in thinking that the United States is permanently weakened in a world that has become “multipolar”, a product of the Primakov doctrine, established during the Franco-Russian convergence of the late 1990s. Our world is indeed multi-polar, but one pole dominates. To think that there is some kind of equality of power between the United States, the European Union and China is a mistake, especially when one forgets the international liberal order. This mistake has led Emmanuel Macron, in the line of his predecessors, to define France as “a balancing power in the service of peace and security” and to run it as a kind of diplomatic bank. This is hardly a good slogan for selling arms on the other side of the planet, but as a summary of a strategy, it leaves one doubtful.
• Occasional but recurring diplomatic crises such as the termination in October 2021 by Australia of the submarine delivery contract it had signed with France in 2016 for 56 billion euros, in favour of a new American-English contract.
• In line with its foreign policy during the Cold War, France is wary of an openly pro-American Central Europe. The participation of Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Latvia and Estonia in the Iraq war was very badly viewed by Paris. The fact that these countries buy most of their military equipment from the United States is a constant cause of France’s irritation towards them. However, it is important to understand that the European structural funds are not a handout and that the common market benefits France as much as it benefits the Central European nations. Poland does not compete with France in any way in the high-tech sectors, French investments generate juicy dividends, and Polish electronic components are worth more than those from China.
• France’s difficulties to internationalize, to adapt to the fluidity of the Anglo-Saxon world, to influence global governance and to participate in the definition of international standards.

The other reasons that may favor Russia in France are mainly corruption and the influence of Russia. For how is it that a former French Prime Minister can sit on the board of directors of a Russian company? In addition, Russia has, for example, apart from associations such as Dialogue Franco-Russe directed by the deputy Thierry Mariani, two media in France: Russia Today and Sputnik News.

As for the economic relations between France and Russia, they are laughable compared to those that France has with Central Europe and are in no way an argument for maintaining good relations with Russia. For example, the total value (goods and services) of trade flows between France and Central Europe (Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Croatia, Estonia and Latvia) reached $80 billion in 2019, while that between France and Russia was only $16 billion. To extend the comparison, the value of trade with Italy, France’s second largest trading partner after Germany (173 billion), was 91 billion, with the United States 90 billion, with China 83 billion, with Spain 82 billion and with the United Kingdom 63 billion … Even with regard to gas, France imports only about 20% of its gas from Russia and can substitute it without any difficulty. The condescension of the Élysée Palace towards Central Europe, compared to its determination to improve relations with Russia, seems all the more absurd.

Moreover, France’s very modest presence on NATO’s eastern flank is incomprehensible in comparison with its efforts in Africa. Two figures suffice to convince us: Operation Barkhane cost France more than a billion dollars in 2020, while the total value of its trade with the African countries where it was militarily present amounted to nearly 7 billion dollars (including 4.5 billion in exports). What can justify such a disproportion? Difficulty in updating its geostrategic thinking and breaking with a certain way of conceiving the world.

The policy of considering Russia as a partner is in any case a failure. Since 2013 France has been gradually undoing all its ties with Russia, but unfortunately under duress and astonishment, not on its own strategic initiative. This while neglecting contact with Central Europe and never consulting Central European governments before negotiating with Russia. France thus has bad relations with both Russia and Poland. Emmanuel Macron received Valdimir Putin in Versailles only three weeks after his election and only met Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki for the first time for a bilateral meeting eight months later, in a basement of the European Parliament. To make matters worse, calling Morawiecki an anti-Semite (despite his Jewish origins) raises questions about President Macron’s ability to formulate geopolitical reasoning that is at least as logical as that of Donald Trump. This is all the more true if he declares at the same time that Vladimir Putin “is not a dictator” and that “insulting him” would not advance the negotiations…

Emmanuel Macron had wanted a “Europe-power” “from Lisbon to Vladivostok”, “strategically autonomous”, without taking into account the security issues of Central Europe. We see today where this has led him – and Europe.

Reorienting France’s foreign policy

Strengthening its ties with Central Europe would allow France to obtain a useful counterweight to Germany and to strengthen its position vis-à-vis the United States, because the latter needs France to:

• support sanctions against Russia and help Ukraine win the war
• support European security more within the framework of NATO, and not in the perspective of aberrant conceptions such as a strategic autonomy from Lisbon to Vladivostok…
• support their fight against China in Europe, in the face of a reluctant Germany
• contain in a general way the harmful influence of German mercantilism on world trade

Without a strong commitment from France, the US will only succeed at arm’s length; without any commitment from France, it will not succeed. The United States also needs a Europe that works without a strong commitment from the United States, which is the key to its strategic reorientation towards Asia.

Either France will establish itself as a reliable and respected partner of the United States, or it will expose itself to increasing isolation on the international stage, and expose the entire West to the Chinese threat. By pretending to do everyone’s interests in order to do one’s own, one ends up doing the interests of one’s opponents.

French policy in Central Europe is all the more aberrant in that there is a sort of disconnect between the behavior of the French political class with regard to Central Europe and the attitude of French companies towards the region. The United States has grasped the political interest of Central Europe very well, despite relatively little investment and a relatively modest economic presence. France’s negative political alignment prevents it from taking advantage of its economic presence. For example, the cumulative value of French FDI in Poland reached 5 billion euros in 2020, just behind German FDI (7.5 billion).

Central Europe could, however, provide France with the contracts it needs to revive its economy; it is the reservoir of growth it is missing. The potential is considerable: arms contracts, energy contracts (nuclear), aeronautical orders, infrastructure… All of France’s cutting-edge products and services can contribute to the development of Central Europe, because it needs France, and all the more so because it needs to gain its economic independence from German production chains.

The region, with a population of 150 million, has experienced unprecedented development over the past 30 years and has enormous potential, but still faces many structural difficulties. These difficulties will be overcome without France if the latter does not react. Central Europe has an infrastructure deficit of about 1.5 trillion dollars. It is incomprehensible that France, unlike Germany and the United States, has not decided to participate in the Three Seas Initiative, designed to transform the region.

The progress that has been made in terms of know-how, skills, and organization over the past 30 years is considerable, but the remaining potential is just as great. Central Europe still has much to learn from France. One only has to look at the Polish accounting books to see this. They are often disorganized; the result is a myriad of small companies, with difficulties in bringing out larger structures.

Conclusion

France’s best ally was never Russia, Germany or England (nor the latter’s annexes), but Poland. This is a historical fact.

France has the choice between :

• continue to conceive of itself as a world power without a true European anchor, fall into insignificance and be the laughing stock of the international diplomatic scene
• become a strong and respected regional power, which it is only half of at present

Containing what lies between the Rhine and the Sudetenland has been the priority of French foreign policy for almost 1000 years. France’s power in the world is first and foremost its power in Europe. France was only strong when Poland was strong, and Poland’s eclipse was a disaster for France. In recent times, France’s policy towards Russia has in fact been that of Germany. If we do not wake up and put France’s interests where they belong, i.e. in Paris and not in Berlin or Moscow, the French people will reshuffle the cards in their own (not necessarily the best) way: 60% of the French voted for anti-European political parties in the last presidential elections, in addition to the fact that Emmanuel Macron did not get a majority to lead the country. Let’s remember that the Lisbon Treaty was a way to force the French to accept the European constitution they had rejected. A strange idea. Besides, what seems to be an inexorable loss of control of the French political and economic elite over their country is perhaps the most obvious symptom of their difficulties in updating their strategic thinking.

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Daniel Nicolas Foubert

Born into a four-generation Franco-Polish family, geo-economist and founder of the Warsaw-based international business consulting firm Excalibur Insight. He works to develop political and economic ties between France and Central Europe. He started as a Business Developer for Europe in the French fintech Lemon Way, and then worked as a Merger & Acquisition Analyst for Suez Poland and Mazars Poland, where he participated in the due diligence carried out by Accor during the sale of its stake in Orbis for €1.06bn. He holds a Master’s degree in Finance from Neoma Business School as well as a Master’s degree in International Relations and a Bachelor’s degree in History from Paris-Sorbonne University.

Mojemu dziadkowi, który jest pochowany w kwaterze francuskiej warszawskiego cmentarza wojskowego

DANIEL NICOLAS FOUBERT

Geoekonomista i założyciel Excalibur Insight, warszawskiej firmy zajmującej się międzynarodowym doradztwem i analizami biznesowymi.

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Wstęp

Pod względem gospodarczym Francja Prezydenta Macrona ma się dobrze. Pod względem politycznym sytuacja jest inna. Nie jest to wcale zaskakujące, jeśli zaobserwujemy rosnący od prawie dwóch tysiącleci prymat gospodarki nad wszystkimi innymi ludzkimi sprawami. Bardziej niepokojąca jest geostrategiczna próżnia kraju, który szczyci się byciem wielką potęgą dyplomatyczną. Francja w istocie wydaje się być nieświadoma dwóch ostatnich wydarzeń: zjednoczenia Niemiec i powstania niezależnej Europy Środkowej.

Nadal zachowuje się tak, jakby nie potrzebowała w Unii Europejskiej zdrowej finansowo przeciwwagi dla Niemiec, jakby para francusko-niemiecka z Francją jako młodszym partnerem mogła być w wielu przypadkach samowystarczalna, jakby Rosja była nadal wielką potęgą polityczną i gospodarczą, która mogłaby pomóc Francji w jej dążeniu do uniezależnienia się od Stanów Zjednoczonych, i jakby Europa Środkowa była polityczną pustynią.

Co gorsza, jej odczytanie świata zbyt często pozostaje osadzone w realpolitik wywodzącej się z dawnych europejskich imperiów (wiemy, dokąd doprowadziło to Niemcy i widzimy, dokąd prowadzi to dziś Rosję). Gdy Francja widzi świat wielobiegunowy, Anglosasi dostrzegają liberalny porządek międzynarodowy, którego asymilacja sprawia Francuzom problemy.

Najbardziej gorzkie porażki francuskiej polityki zagranicznej w ciągu ostatnich trzydziestu lat można znaleźć w Europie: klęska polityki polegającej na próbach (nieubłaganych) uczynienia z Rosji partnera i pozostawiające wiele do życzenia stosunki, jakie Francja utrzymuje z wieloma krajami UE w Europie Środkowej. Nie stwarza to odpowiednich warunków dla strategicznej autonomii, ani dla europejskiej potęgi, ani dla jakiejkolwiek dalszej budowy Europy.

Francuska tradycja geostrategiczna w Europie Środkowej

Przypomnijmy teraz niektóre zaniedbane elementy francuskiej tradycji geostrategicznej, ponieważ problemy te są również współbrzmiące z ogromnym ubytkiem pamięci.

Przez cały XVII i XVIII wiek głównym sojusznikiem Francji na wschód od ówczesnych Niemiec była Polska. Stosunki z Wielkim Księstwem Moskiewskim, poza sporadycznymi sojuszami, były fatalne. Przyczyny tego stanu rzeczy były dwie. Pierwszy – odwieczne antypruskie i antyaustriackie interesy monarchii francuskiej, na które preferowanym remedium była Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów. Drugi – zacofanie kulturowe, gospodarcze, polityczne i społeczne Rosji.

Wiek XIX również nie był politycznie urodzajny dla stosunków francusko-rosyjskich, z efemerycznym traktatem w Tylży, i wojną krymską w tle. Brutalne tłumienie polskich powstań przez Rosję carską, a także deportacje polskich elit na Syberię doprowadziły do francuskiego poparcia dla sprawy polskiej i do ponownego pogorszenia stosunków francusko-rosyjskich. 

Francja utrzymywała silne więzi z Polską, mimo że ta zniknęła z mapy Europy. Epoka napoleońska dała temu kilka przykładów, z utworzeniem Wielkiego Księstwa Warszawskiego na czele. Ponadto polskie wojska stanowiły najlepszą kawalerię w cesarstwie – szarża polskich szwoleżerów w bitwie pod Somosierrą zaliczana jest do najwybitniejszych wyczynów oręża cesarstwa. Natomiast polska emigracja polityczna i kulturalna systematycznie wybierała Paryż jako swoje miejsce zamieszkania. Na cmentarzu Père Lachaise znajduje się około 600 polskich grobów, w tym Fryderyka Chopina, który jest najlepszym przedstawicielem przyjaźni francusko-polskiej. 

W obliczu frankofilii polskiej elity Rosjanie przeszli do strategii podkopywania -> W obliczu frankofilii polskiej elity Rosjanie przeszli do kontrofensywy. Elita z jednej strony uczyła się francuskiego, z drugiej deportowała i niszczyła elitę polską, tak jak kukułka wyrzuca jajko w przejętym przez siebie gnieździe. Ta strategia z powodzeniem doprowadziła do rosyjsko-francuskiego porozumienia z 1891 roku.

Zauważmy, że istnieje kilka rodzajów sprzymierzeńców, podobnie jak kilka rodzajów wrogów. Są sojusznicy okolicznościowi, jak Rosja, której sojusze z Francją zawsze były kruche, wynikające z konieczności, i są sojusznicy naturalni, którzy, jak Polska, wytrzymują pomimo niepomyślności warunków, jak stałe geografii.

Aby zmierzyć znaczenie sojuszu francusko-polskiego i Europy Środkowej we francuskiej narodowej myśli strategicznej; powróćmy na chwilę do źródeł francuskiej geostrategii w XX wieku, wyrażonych piórem generała Charlesa de Gaulle’a. W 1919 r. De Gaulle wygłosił w Warszawie przemówienie pt. „Sojusz Francusko-Polski”, którego tekst jest tyleż zapomniany, co nieprzychylny dla interesów „rosyjsko-niemieckich”. De Gaulle nie oddzielał problemu niemieckiego od problemu rosyjskiego. Uważając Niemcy i Rosję za naturalnych sojuszników, widział zwornik ich wspólnego interesu w ucisku innych narodów Europy Środkowej. Ucząc się na wielkim błędzie Napoleona III, wówczas jeszcze kapitan de Gaulle widział, że wspólna dominacja Niemiec i Rosji nad Europą Środkową stanowi bytowe niebezpieczeństwo dla Francji. Taki rozkład sił zapewniałby Niemcom skalę, która zostawiłaby Paryż na łasce Berlina i otworzyłaby drogę do dominacji nad kontynentem europejskim, wliczając jego heartland. De Gaulle sprzeciwiał się temu w 1919 i sprzeciwiałby się temu niewątpliwie także dzisiaj. 

W tym miejscu warto cofnąć się do konkretnych słów kapitana de Gaulle’a z 1919 roku. Ponad 100 lat po ich wypowiedzeniu nadal dotyczą spraw bieżących:

“W osiemnastowiecznej Francji, jak niemal zawsze w naszym kraju, dominowała partia ludzi, która odmawiała jakichkolwiek interwencji poza granicami. To właśnie wpływ tej partii w XVIII wieku spowodował, że straciliśmy Kanadę i Indie, a także odmówiliśmy udzielenia jakiejkolwiek poważnej pomocy umierającej Polsce. […] Francja zapłaciła wysoką cenę za swoje zaniedbania wobec Polski. Dziś wie, ile kosztowało ją pozwolenie Berlinowi i Wiedniowi na zniszczenie tej naturalnej przeciwwagi dla germanizmu pomiędzy Europą Środkową, a Wschodnią.”

“Chcemy silnej Polski, przede wszystkim dlatego, że jest to rozwiązanie sprawiedliwe. Państwo to było potężne do czasu, gdy rozczłonkowała je drapieżność sąsiadów, a jego potęga, krótko mówiąc, była wykorzystywana przeciwko wrogom cywilizacji europejskiej. Dlatego polska niepodległość zasługiwała by ją zachować. W naszym najbardziej oczywistym interesie narodowym jest to, żeby Polska była silna. Dzisiaj Niemcy są pobite. Ale już się odradzają, w momencie gdy armie naszych anglosaskich sojuszników oddalają się od Renu. Wszystko trzeba przewidzieć: kto gwarantuje nam wieczny i przede wszystkim natychmiast skuteczny sojusz Anglii i Stanów Zjednoczonych? Aby mieć na oku Niemcy, które są chytrze zdeterminowane do zemsty, i jeśli to konieczne, by pokonać je raz jeszcze, potrzebujemy sojusznika kontynentalnego, na którego zawsze możemy liczyć – Polska będzie tym sojusznikiem. Każdy krok germanizmu na Zachód jest zagrożeniem dla Polski, tak jak każda pruska przewaga zdobyta na Wschodzie jest zagrożeniem dla nas.”

„Bolszewizm nie będzie trwał w Rosji wiecznie. Nadejdzie fatalny dzień, gdy zostanie tam przywrócony porządek i Rosja, odbudowując swoje siły, znów się rozejrzy. Tego dnia zobaczy, jak opuszcza ją pokój. Pozbawiona Estonii, Inflantów, Kurlandii, Finlandii, Polski, Litwy, Besarabii, może Ukrainy, sprowadzona jednym słowem do granic starego Księstwa Moskiewskiego. Czy zadowoli się tym? My w to nie wierzymy. Te same przyczyny tworzą te same skutki. Niedługo zobaczymy, jak Rosja wznowi swój marsz na zachód i południowy zachód […]. Po której stronie Rosja będzie szukać pomocy w przywróceniu dzieła Piotra Wielkiego i Katarzyny II? Nie mówmy tego za głosno, ale niechybnie zwróci swoje nadzieje do Niemiec.”

“Będę bardzo szczęśliwy, jeśli uda mi się utrwalić w Państwa umyśle przekonanie, że służąc w ten sposób Polsce, służymy par excellence francuskiemu interesowi narodowemu. […] Każdy nasz wysiłek w Polsce, panowie, to trochę więcej chwały dla wiecznej Francji”.  – powiedział w 1919 r w Warszawie, młody Charles de Gaulle, który, przypomnijmy, rok później walczył w Bitwie Warszawskiej.

Sto lat później tekst ten ma dziwny oddźwięk z obecnymi wydarzeniami.

Taka była logika francuskiej polityki w Europie Środkowej po Traktacie Wersalskim. Układ ten, wzmocniony później sojuszem francusko-polskim z 1921 r., gwarantował bezpieczeństwo Francji, podobnie jak traktaty westfalskie w XVII w. Francja udzieliła Polsce wsparcia politycznego i militarnego, a Polska gwarantowała w zamian znaczące ustępstwa gospodarcze, podług systemu porównywalnego z petrodolarem.

System ten, niestety, upadł, gdy Francja podpisała traktat w Locarno w 1924 r., który wynikał z braku oporu Francji wobec presji anglo-amerykańskiej, dążącej do znormalizowania swoich stosunków z Niemcami. Francja porzuciła swoją europejską architekturę bezpieczeństwa; straciła wiarygodność w Europie Środkowej, a tym samym zrzekła się swojego statusu wielkiego mocarstwa. Wiemy, dokąd nas to zbiorowo zaprowadziło. Anglosaski błąd polegający na chęci utrzymania dobrych stosunków z Niemcami kosztem Francji zatruł kontynentalną Europę na ponad sto lat.

Polityka Francji w Europie Środkowej

Po wojnie, wraz z rozwojem wydarzeń Francja, podobnie jak De Gaulle, straciła z oczu problem niemiecki, który można było uznać za rozwiązany, jak i zarówno sojusz z Polską, będący niemożliwym. Zwłaszcza że polska elita została zdziesiątkowana wspólnym wysiłkiem nazistów i sowietów, co dowododzą 23 tys.  zgładzonych przez nich w Katyniu polskich oficerów. Z podzielonymi na dwie części i okupowanymi Niemcami, Polską w rękach Moskwy i Francją uwikłaną w konfrontację dwóch bloków, Europa Środkowa, w dużej mierze zrównana z ziemią przez II Wojnę Światową, zniknęła z francuskiej sceny geopolitycznej.

W tym kontekście pragnienie „niepodległości” od Stanów Zjednoczonych uzyskało pierwszeństwo przed wszystkimi innymi geostrategicznymi troskami Francji i mogło doprowadzić do złagodzenia stosunków z ZSRR. To właśnie popchnęło generała de Gaulla do wygłoszenia  słów o „amerykańskim protektoracie zainstalowanym w Europie pod przykrywką NATO” i do opuszczenia zintegrowanego dowództwa NATO w 1966 roku, oświadczając, że “wola Francji do dysponowania sobą jest nie do pogodzenia z organizacją obronną, której jest podporządkowana”.

Choć solidnie zakotwiczona na Zachodzie, Francja rozwinęła antyamerykańską wrażliwość, wzmocnioną nie tylko upokorzeniem podczas kryzysu sueskiego i swoimi kolonialnymi interesami, ale także siłą Francuskiej Partii Komunistycznej. Stany Zjednoczone nie znalazły przychylności żadnej z francuskich partii politycznych w czasie zimnej wojny, a od lat 80 dołączyło do tego ogólne odrzucenie przez Francję anglosaskiej polityki neoliberalnej.

Francja miała i nadal ma trudności z oderwaniem się od koncepcji Rosji jako przeciwwagi dla Stanów Zjednoczonych. Trzyma się tego, co uważa za święty gaullizm, podczas gdy była to jedynie wariacja na temat własnej polityki wielkości.  Antyamerykańskie nastroje we Francji pozostają silne. Przyczyn tego stanu rzeczy jest kilka.

Na początek – Francja postrzega amerykański neoliberalizm jako zagrożenie dla swojego paternalistycznego modelu gospodarczego, co dodatkowo pogłębia agresywna optymalizacja podatkowa amerykańskich firm, które płacą podatki w Irlandii od zysków wypracowanych w pozostałych częściach wspólnego rynku (co dotyczy ok. 70% z nich). Drugim powodem jest proarabska polityka Francji. Najlepszym tego przykładem było wystąpienie Dominique de Villepina w Radzie Bezpieczeństwa ONZ w 2003 roku i odmowa Francji udziału w wojnie w Iraku. Trzecim czynnik stanowi modny we Francji błąd analityczny, który polega na myśleniu, że Stany Zjednoczone są trwale osłabione w świecie, będącym “wielobiegunowym”, co jest produktem doktryny Primakowa, powstałej w czasie konwergencji francusko-rosyjskiej pod koniec lat 90. Nasz świat jest rzeczywiście wielobiegunowy, ale jeden biegun dominuje. Myślenie, że istnieje równość sił między Stanami Zjednoczonymi, Unią Europejską i Chinami jest błędem. Ten błąd doprowadził Emmanuela Macrona, zgodnie z jego poprzednikami, do zdefiniowania Francji jak “siły równoważącej w służbie pokoju i bezpieczeństwa” i prowadzenia jej jako swoistego banku dyplomatycznego. Skutkuje to sporadycznymi, ale powtarzającymi się kryzysami dyplomatycznymi, takimi jak wypowiedzenie przez Australię w październiku 2021 roku umowy na dostawę okrętów podwodnych na rzecz nowego kontraktu amerykańsko- brytyjskiego.

Zgodnie ze swoją polityką zagraniczną z czasów zimnej wojny, Francja jest nieufna wobec otwarcie proamerykańskiej Europy Środkowej. Udział Polski, Rumunii, Czech, Bułgarii, Łotwy i Estonii w wojnie w Iraku był negatywnie postrzegany przez Paryż. Fakt, że kraje te kupują większość swojego sprzętu wojskowego od Stanów Zjednoczonych, jest stałą przyczyną irytacji w Paryżu. I wreszcie, Francja znajduje trudności w umiędzynarodowieniu się, w dostosowaniu się do płynności świata anglosaskiego, w wywieraniu wpływu na globalne zarządzanie, a także w uczestniczeniu w określaniu międzynarodowych standardów.

Inne powody, które mogą sprzyjać Rosji we Francji, to przede wszystkim korupcja i wpływy Rosji. Jak inaczej nazwać sytuację, w której były premier Francji (François Fillon) może zasiadać w zarządzie rosyjskiej firmy? 

Gdy weźmiemy pod lupę relacje gospodarcze między Francją a Rosją, to zobaczymy, że są one znacznie mniej znaczące niż te, które Francja utrzymuje z Europą Środkową. Na przykład łączna wartość (towary i usługi) obrotów handlowych między Francją, a Europą Środkową (Polska, Rumunia, Czechy, Węgry, Słowacja, Słowenia, Ukraina, Bułgaria, Litwa, Chorwacja, Estonia i Łotwa) osiągnęła w 2019 roku 80 mld dolarów; podczas gdy wartość obrotów między Francją, a Rosją wyniosła zaledwie 16 mld dolarów. Dla porównania, wartość handlu z Włochami, drugim po Niemczech (173 mld) partnerem handlowym Francji, wyniosła 91 mld, ze Stanami Zjednoczonymi 90 mld, z Chinami 83 mld, z Hiszpanią 82 mld, a z Wielką Brytanią 63 mld. Nawet w przypadku gazu Francja importuje z Rosji tylko około 20%. Z tej perspektywy protekcjonalność Pałacu Elizejskiego wobec Europy Środkowej, w porównaniu z jego nieustającymi wysiłkami na rzecz poprawy stosunków z Rosją, wydaje się tym bardziej absurdalna.

Ponadto bardzo skromna obecność Francji na wschodniej flance NATO jest niezrozumiała w porównaniu z jej wysiłkami w Afryce. Do przekonania wystarczą dwie liczby: operacja Barkhane kosztowała Francję w 2020 roku ponad miliard dolarów, natomiast łączna wartość jej handlu z krajami afrykańskimi, w których była obecna militarnie, wyniosła prawie 7 miliardów dolarów (w tym 4,5 miliarda w eksporcie). Co może usprawiedliwiać taką dysproporcję? Trudność w aktualizacji swojego myślenia geostrategicznego i zerwania z pewnym sposobem pojmowania świata.

Polityka partnerstwa rosyjsko-francuskiego od dawna jest bezowocna. Od 2013 roku upadają wszystkie więzi Paryża z Moskwą, ale niestety dzieje się to pod przymusem, komentowanym zdziwieniem, a nie w wyniku własnej inicjatywy strategicznej. I to dzieje się przy jednoczesnym zaniedbaniu kontaktów z Europą Środkową, z którą Paryż nigdy nie konsultuje własnej agendy względem Moskwy. Francja ma więc złe relacje zarówno z Rosją, jak i z Polską. Emmanuel Macron przyjął Valdimira Putina w Wersalu zaledwie dwa tygodnie po momencie, kiedy został Prezydentem Republiki Francuskiej, a z Mateuszem Morawieckim spotkał się po raz pierwszy na dwustronnym spotkaniu dopiero 7 miesięcy później, w piwnicy Parlamentu Europejskiego. Co gorsza, nazwanie Morawieckiego antysemitą (mimo jego żydowskiego pochodzenia) rodzi pytania o zdolność Prezydenta Macrona do formułowania rozumowania geopolitycznego, które byłoby co najmniej tak logiczne jak rozumowanie Donalda Trumpa. Tym bardziej, jeśli jednocześnie deklaruje, że Władimir Putin “nie jest dyktatorem” i że “obrażanie go” nie posunie negocjacji do przodu…

Emmanuel Macron chciał “strategicznie autonomicznego” “europejskiego mocarstwa” “od Lizbony do Władywostoku”, bez uwzględnienia kwestii bezpieczeństwa Europy Środkowej. Widzimy dziś, dokąd go to doprowadziło.

Reorientacja polityki zagranicznej Francji

Wzmocnienie więzi z Europą Środkową pozwoliłoby Francji uzyskać użyteczną przeciwwagę dla Niemiec i wzmocnić jej pozycję wobec Stanów Zjednoczonych. A Waszyngton potrzebuje Paryża, m.in by poparł sankcje wobec Rosji i pomógł Ukrainie wygrać wojnę. Tym samym dąży do rozwijania bezpieczeństewa europejskiego w ramach NATO, a nie w perspektywie nierealnych i kontrproduktywnych koncepcji w rodzaju strategicznej autonomii od Lizbony do Władywostoku. Co więcej, Francja jest potencjalnie cennym sojusznikiem w powstrzymywaniu wpływów Chin w Europie, czemu niechętne są Niemcy.

Bez silnego zaangażowania ze strony Francji Stany Zjednoczone nie mogą odnieść w Europie pełnego sukcesu. USA potrzebuje Europy, która działa bez silnego zaangażowania ze strony Stanów Zjednoczonych, co jest kluczem do ich strategicznej reorientacji na Azję. Albo Francja ugruntuje swoją pozycję jako wiarygodny i szanowany partner Stanów Zjednoczonych, albo narazi się na coraz większą izolację na arenie międzynarodowej i wystawi cały Zachód na chińskie zagrożenie. Udając, że załatwia się interesy wszystkich, chce załatwić własne, lecz w końcu załatwia się interesy swoich przeciwników.

Polityka Francji w Europie Środkowej jest tym bardziej nielogiczna, że istnieje swoisty rozdźwięk między zachowaniem francuskiej klasy politycznej, a postawą francuskich firm wobec tego regionu. Stany Zjednoczone bardzo dobrze zrozumiały polityczne znaczenie Europy Środkowej, pomimo stosunkowo niewielkich inwestycji i skromnej obecności gospodarczej. Tymczasem negatywne nastawienie polityczne Francji uniemożliwia jej wykorzystanie swojej obecności gospodarczej w regionie. Przykładowo, skumulowana wartość francuskich BIZ w Polsce wyniosła 5 mld euro w 2020 roku, tuż za inwestycjami niemieckimi BIZ (7,5 mld). Europa Środkowa mogłaby zapewnić Francji kontrakty, których ona  potrzebuje, by ożywić swoją gospodarkę – to niewykorzystana rezerwa wzrostu, której jej brakuje. Potencjał jest duży: kontrakty zbrojeniowe, energetyczne (jądrowe), zamówienia lotnicze, infrastruktura. Wszystkie najnowocześniejsze produkty i usługi Francji mogą przyczynić się do rozwoju Europy Środkowej, zwłaszcza że musi uzyskać niezależność gospodarczą od niemieckich łańcuchów produkcyjnych.

Region ten, choć zamieszkany przez 120 milionów ludzi i obdarzony ogromnym potencjałem, boryka się z wieloma trudnościami strukturalnymi, które będzie musiał pokonać z Francją lub bez niej. Dla Francji natomiast istotne jest by była częścią tej zmiany. Europa Środkowa ma deficyt infrastrukturalny w wysokości około 1,5 biliona dolarów. Niezrozumiałe jest, czemu Francja, w przeciwieństwie do Niemiec i Stanów Zjednoczonych, nie zdecydowała się na udział w Inicjatywie Trójmorza, mającej na celu przekształcenie tego regionu.

Postęp, jaki dokonał się w zakresie know-how, umiejętności i organizacji w ciągu ostatnich 30 lat, jest znaczny, ale pozostały potencjał jest równie imponujący skalą. Europa Środkowa wciąż może się wiele nauczyć od Francji.

Wnioski

Najlepszym sojusznikiem Francji nigdy nie była Rosja, Niemcy czy Anglia, ale Polska. To jest fakt historyczny.

Dlatego dzisiaj Francja musi dokonać wyboru pomiędzy:

a) dalszym myśleniem o sobie jako o światowym mocarstwie, w praktyce tracąc na znaczeniu

b) staniem się silnym i szanowanym mocarstwem regionalnym, którym w obecnej sytuacji nie jest.

Równoważenie obszaru, który znajduje się między Renem a Sudetami, jest priorytetem francuskiej polityki zagranicznej od ponad 1000 lat. Nasza siła w świecie to przede wszystkim nasza siła w Europie. W ostatnich czasach nasza polityka wobec Rosji, była w istocie polityką Niemiec. Jeżeli się nie obudzimy i nie umieścimy interesów Francji tam, gdzie ich miejsce, czyli w Paryżu, a nie w Berlinie czy Moskwie, to naród francuski umieści je tam w sposób żywiołowy i chaotyczny, tak jak zawsze to robił – 60% Francuzów głosowało na antyeuropejskie partie polityczne w ostatnich wyborach prezydenckich, w dodatku Emmanuel Macron nie uzyskał większości do kierowania krajem. To powinno dać nam do myślenia. Przypomnijmy, że traktat lizboński był sposobem na zmuszenie Francuzów do przyjęcia odrzuconej przez nich konstytucji europejskiej. Dziwny pomysł. Na dodatek to, co wydaje się być nieuchronną utratą kontroli francuskich elit politycznych i gospodarczych nad ich krajem, jest być może najbardziej oczywistym symptomem ich trudności w aktualizacji myślenia strategicznego.

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Daniel Nicolas Foubert

Urodzony w czteropokoleniowej francusko-polskiej rodzinie, geoekonomista i założyciel warszawskiej międzynarodowej firmy doradztwa biznesowego Excalibur Insight. Działa na rzecz rozwoju powiązań politycznych i gospodarczych między Francją a Europą Środkową. Zaczynał jako Business Developer na Europę we francuskim fintechu Lemon Way, a następnie pracował jako analityk ds. fuzji i przejęć dla francuskich firm międzynarodowych Suez i Mazars, gdzie uczestniczył w due diligence przeprowadzonym przez Accor podczas sprzedaży udziałów w polskiej spółce zarządzającej hotelami Orbis za 1,06 mld euro. Posiada tytuł magistra finansów Neoma Business School, a także tytuł magistra stosunków międzynarodowych i licencjata historii Uniwersytetu Paris-Sorbonne.

À mon grand-père, qui repose dans le carré français du cimetière militaire de Varsovie

DANIEL NICOLAS FOUBERT

Géoéconomiste et fondateur d’Excalibur Insight, cabinet de conseil et d’analyse en affaires internationales basé à Varsovie.

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Introduction

Sur le plan de l’économie, la France du Président Macron se porte bien. Sur le plan politique il en va autrement. Cela n’a rien de foncièrement étonnant si l’on observe la primauté croissante de l’économie sur toutes les autres affaires humaines depuis près de deux millénaires. Ce qui est plus préoccupant, c’est la vacuité géostratégique d’un pays qui se targue d’être une grande puissance diplomatique. La France, en effet, semble ignorer deux faits qui se sont produits récemment : la réunification de l’Allemagne et l’émergence d’une Europe centrale indépendante.

Elle continue d’agir comme si elle n’avait pas besoin d’un contrepoids en bonne santé financière à l’Allemagne au sien de l’Union Européenne, comme si le couple franco-allemand avec la France en position de junior partner pouvait dans bien des cas se suffire à lui-même, comme si la Russie était encore une puissance politique et économique de premier plan pouvant aider la France dans sa quête d’indépendance vis-à-vis des États-Unis, et comme si l’Europe centrale était un désert politique.

Pire que cela, sa lecture du monde reste trop souvent rivée dans une realpolitik procédant des anciens empires européens (nous savons où celle-ci a conduit l’Allemagne et nous voyons où elle mène la Russie aujourd’hui). De ce fait, la France voit un monde multipolaire là où les anglo-saxons voient un ordre libéral international et peine à s’y adapter.

Les échecs les plus cuisants de la politique étrangère française des trente dernières années se trouvent en Europe : le désastre de la politique qui consistait à vouloir (avec acharnement) se faire de la Russie un partenaire et les relations détestables que la France entretient avec un certain nombre de pays de l’Union Européenne en Europe centrale. Cela ne créé les conditions adéquates ni pour l’autonomie stratégique, ni pour l’Europe-puissance, ni non plus pour une quelconque poursuite de la construction européenne.

La tradition géostratégique française en Europe centrale

Rappelons maintenant quelques éléments délaissés de la tradition géostratégique française, car ces problèmes sont consubstantiels aussi à un vaste trou de mémoire.

Tout au long des 17^ème et 18^ème siècle, le principal allié de la France à l’Est de ce qui s’apparentait alors à l’Allemagne était la Pologne. Les relations avec le grand-duché de Moscovie, en dehors de certaines alliances ponctuelles, étaient désastreuses. Ceci pour deux raisons :

• Les éternels intérêts antiprussiens et antiautrichiens de la monarchie française, auxquels la République des Deux Nations (Pologne-Lituanie) était le remède privilégié (Catherine II était une Allemande, ne l’oublions pas)
• L’arriération culturelle, économique, politique et sociale de la Russie

Le 19^ème siècle ne fut pas beaucoup plus brillant sur le plan politique pour les relations franco-russes, entre l’éphémère traité de Tilsit et la guerre de Crimée. Les répressions brutales des insurrections polonaises par la Russie tsariste ainsi que les déportations de l’élite polonaise en Sibérie débouchaient sur le soutien de la France à la cause polonaise et sur la dégradation récurrente des relations Franco-Russes.

La France entretenait encore des liens forts avec la Pologne, malgré la disparition de celle-ci de la carte de l’Europe. L’ère napoléonienne en donna quelques exemples, à travers la création du grand-duché de Varsovie voire le fait que les troupes polonaises constituaient la meilleure cavalerie de l’empire – la charge des uhlans polonais lors de la bataille de Somosierra compte parmi les plus brillants faits d’armes de celui-ci. En outre, l’émigration politique et culturelle polonaise élisait systématiquement pour résidence Paris. Le cimetière du Père Lachaise compte ainsi environ 600 tombes polonaises, dont celle de Frédéric Chopin, qui est peut-être le meilleur représentant de l’amitié franco-polonaise.

Face à la francophilie de l’élite polonaise, la solution de la Russie fut une stratégie de sape. L’élite russe d’une part apprit le français, d’autre part déporta et massacra l’élite polonaise, tout comme le coucou jette l’œuf contenu dans le nid qu’il s’adjuge. Cette stratégie aboutit avec succès à l’entente de 1891.

La France eut cependant du mal à s’y tromper. Observons qu’il existe plusieurs sortes d’alliés, comme il existe plusieurs sortes d’ennemis. Il y a les alliés de circonstance, comme la Russie, dont les alliances avec la France ont toujours été fragiles voire contraintes, et il y a les alliés naturels, qui comme la Pologne perdurent en dépit des désastres, à l’image des constantes de la géographie (« la Grande-Bretagne est une île entourée d’eau de toutes parts »…).

Pour mesurer l’importance capitale de l’alliance franco-polonaise et d’une manière générale de l’Europe centrale dans notre pensée stratégique nationale, revenons aux sources de la géostratégie française au XXème siècle, exprimées sous la plume de nul autre que le général De Gaulle. Celui-ci prononça en 1919 à Varsovie une conférence intitulée « L’Alliance Franco-Polonaise », dont le texte est tout aussi oublié que redoutable pour les intérêts « russo-allemands » (car c’est ainsi qu’il concevait la chose). Pour De Gaulle, il était impossible de dissocier le problème allemand du problème russe : il considérait l’Allemagne et la Russie comme des alliés naturels. Cette alliance naturelle de la Russie et de l’Allemagne, il en voyait la clé de voûte dans leur intérêt commun à opprimer les autres nations d’Europe centrale. Tirant les leçons de la grande erreur de Napoléon III, celui qui n’était alors que le capitaine De Gaulle – mais qui déjà n’avait pas besoin d’un poste de pouvoir pour avoir raison – aperçut que la domination conjointe de l’Allemagne et de la Russie sur l’Europe centrale constituait un danger de premier plan pour la France, car elle conférait à l’Allemagne des proportions qui ne pouvaient déboucher pour elle que sur la domination du continent, en mettant la France à sa merci. Dominer le cœur du continent Européen – son heartland – c’est dominer l’Europe. De Gaulle ne voulait pas de cela pour l’Allemagne en 1919, ne le voulut jamais jusqu’à sa mort, et ne le voudrait certainement pas aujourd’hui.

La portée de ce texte – autant que la taille de notre trou de mémoire – est telle qu’on ne peut le citer autrement que sans parcimonie :

« Dans la France [du XVIIIème siècle] comme dans la France de toujours, le parti était nombreux des hommes politiques qui refusaient, par système, toute intervention à l’extérieur des frontières. C’est l’influence de ce parti qui au XVIIIème siècle nous fit perdre le Canada et les Indes et qui nous fit refuser à la Pologne mourante tout secours sérieux. […] La France a durement payé ses négligences à l’égard de la Pologne. Elle sait aujourd’hui combien lui a coûté par la suite d’avoir laissé Berlin et Vienne détruire entre l’Europe centrale et l’Europe orientale ce contrepoids naturel au germanisme. »

« Nous voulons une Pologne forte, d’abord parce que c’est la solution de la justice. Cet État était puissant à l’époque où la rapacité de ses voisins l’a démembré, et sa puissance, il ne l’a employée en somme que contre les ennemis de la civilisation européenne, méritant ainsi de la conserver. Et puis, c’est notre intérêt national le plus évident que la force polonaise soit redoutable. L’Allemagne est battue. Mais déjà elle se redresse au fur et à mesure que s’éloignent du Rhin les armées de nos alliés anglo-saxons. D’ailleurs, il faut tout prévoir : qui nous garantit l’alliance éternelle et surtout immédiatement efficace de l’Angleterre et de l’Amérique ? Pour surveiller l’Allemagne sournoisement résolue à sa revanche, pour lui en imposer et, le cas échéant, pour la réduire encore une fois, il nous faut un allié continental sur lequel nous puissions compter en tous temps. La Pologne sera cet allié. Chaque pas en avant du germanisme vers l’Ouest est une menace pour elle, chaque avantage prussien obtenu vers l’Est est un danger pour nous. »

« Le bolchevisme ne durera pas éternellement en Russie. Un jour viendra, c’est fatal, où l’ordre s’y rétablira et où la Russie, reconstituant ses forces, regardera de nouveau autour d’elle. Ce jour-là, elle se verra telle que la paix va la laisser, c’est-à-dire privée de l’Estonie, de la Livonie, de la Courlande, de la Finlande, de la Pologne, de la Lithuanie, de la Bessarabie, peut-être de l’Ukraine, réduite en un mot aux limites de l’ancienne Moscovie. S’en contentera-t-elle ? Nous n’en croyons rien. Les mêmes causes produisant les mêmes effets, on reverra la Russie reprendre sa marche vers l’Ouest et vers le Sud-Ouest […]. De quel côté la Russie recherchera-t-elle un concours pour reprendre l’œuvre de Pierre le Grand et de Catherine II ? Ne le disons pas trop haut, mais sachons-le et pensons-y : c’est du côté de l’Allemagne que fatalement elle tournera ses espérances. »

« Je m’estimerai très heureux, si je puis raffermir dans votre esprit la conviction qu’en servant ici, nous servons par excellence un intérêt national. […] Chacun de nos efforts en Pologne, Messieurs, c’est un peu plus de gloire pour la France éternelle ».

Un siècle plus tard, ce texte résonne étrangement avec l’actualité.

Voici la logique de la politique française en Europe centrale telle que déduite du traité de Versailles. Ce traité, renforcé ensuite par l’alliance franco-polonaise de 1921, garantissait la sécurité de la France, tout comme les traités de Westphalie au XVII^ème siècle (cette inopportune humiliation des Habsbourg causée par le dangereux Richelieu et le fourbe Mazarin…). La France apportait son soutien politique et militaire à la Pologne, et la Pologne lui garantissait de juteuses concessions économiques en échange, selon un système comparable au pétrodollar.

Ce système s’effondra malheureusement lors de la signature par la France des traités de Locarno en 1925, en raison de l’absence de résistance que la France opposa aux pressions anglo-américaines visant à normaliser ses relations avec l’Allemagne. La France abandonna son architecture de sécurité européenne, perdit sa crédibilité en Europe centrale et par voie de conséquence abdiqua son statut de grande puissance. Nous savons où cela nous mena – collectivement. L’erreur des Anglo-Saxons de vouloir garder de bonnes relations avec l’Allemagne aux dépens de la France aura donc empoisonné l’Europe continentale pendant plus d’un siècle.

La politique de la France en Europe centrale

La configuration de la carte de l’Europe au lendemain de la Seconde Guerre mondiale fit que la France (tout autant que De Gaulle) perdit de vue à la fois le problème allemand, qu’on pouvait alors estimer résolu, ainsi que l’alliance polonaise, qu’on pouvait juger impossible (d’autant plus qu’une partie de l’élite polonaise avait était décimée par les efforts conjoints des nazis et des soviétiques, notamment 23 000 officiers exterminés à Katyń par ces derniers). Avec une Allemagne coupée en deux et occupée, une Pologne aux mains de Moscou et la France prise dans l’affrontement de deux blocs, l’Europe centrale en grande partie rasée par la Seconde Guerre mondiale disparut de l’échiquier géopolitique français.

Dans ce contexte, la volonté « d’indépendance » vis-à-vis des États-Unis prit le pas sur tous les autres soucis géostratégiques de la France et put la conduire à adoucir ses rapports avec l’URSS. C’est ce qui conduisit le général à parler de « protectorat américain installé en Europe sous le couvert de l’OTAN » et à sortir en 1966 du commandement intégré de l’OTAN en déclarant que « la volonté de la France de disposer d’elle-même est incompatible avec une organisation de défense dans laquelle elle est subordonnée ».

Tout en s’engageant solidement aux côtés des États-Unis, la France développa une sensibilité anti-américaine, encore renforcée non seulement par l’humiliation de la crise de Suez et ses intérêts coloniaux, mais aussi par la puissance du parti communiste français. Les États-Unis ne trouvaient donc entièrement grâce aux yeux d’aucun des partis politiques français au temps de la Guerre Froide et à partir des années 80 s’ajouta à cela le rejet général par la France des politiques néo-libérales anglo-saxonnes.

La France a eu et a toujours du mal à se détacher de la conception de la Russie comme contrepoids aux États-Unis, se cramponnant à ce qu’elle prend pour du sacro-saint gaullisme, alors qu’il ne s’agissait que d’une variation sur le thème de la politique de grandeur.

Les sentiments anti-américains de la France restent forts. Parmi les causes de cette situation, citons les suivantes :

– La France conçoit le néo-libéralisme comme une menace pour son modèle économique paternaliste, ce qui est encore exacerbé par l’optimisation fiscale agressive des entreprises américaines qui paient leurs impôts en Irlande sur des profits réalisés dans le reste du marché commun (ce qui concerne environ 70% de ces profits).

– La politique pro-arabe de la France. Le plus bel exemple en a été fourni par le discours de Dominique de Villepin au Conseil de Sécurité de l’ONU en 2003 et le refus de la France de participer à la guerre d’Irak.

– L’erreur d’analyse à la mode en France et qui consiste à penser que les États-Unis sont durablement affaiblis dans un monde devenu « multipolaire », produit de la doctrine Primakov, établie pendant la convergence franco-russe de la fin des années 1990. Notre monde comporte effectivement plusieurs pôles, mais un pôle domine. Penser qu’il existe une sorte d’égalité de puissance entre les États-Unis, l’Union Européenne et la Chine est une erreur, surtout lorsqu’on oublie au passage l’ordre libéral international. Cette erreur a conduit Emmanuel Macron, dans la droite ligne de ses prédécesseurs, à définir la France comme « une puissance d’équilibre au service de la paix et de la sécurité » et à la diriger comme une sorte de banque diplomatique. C’est à peine un bon slogan pour vendre des armes à l’autre bout de la planète, comme résumé d’une stratégie ça laisse dubitatif.

– Des crises diplomatiques ponctuelles mais récurrentes telles que la rupture en octobre 2021 par l’Australie du contrat de livraison de sous-marins qu’elle avait signé avec la France en 2016 pour 56 milliards d’euros, au profit d’un nouveau contrat américano-anglais.

– Dans la continuité de sa politique étrangère pendant la guerre froide, la France se méfie d’une Europe centrale ouvertement pro-américaine. La participation de la Pologne, de la Roumanie, de la République Tchèque, de la Bulgarie, de la Lettonie et de l’Estonie à la guerre d’Irak a été très mal vue par Paris. Le fait que ces pays achètent majoritairement leur équipement militaire aux États-Unis est une cause constante de l’irritation de la France à leur égard. Seulement il faut bien comprendre les fonds structurels européens n’ont rien d’une aumône et que le marché commun profite autant à la France qu’aux nations d’Europe centrale. La Pologne ne concurrence aucunement la France dans les secteurs de pointe, les investissements français sont générateurs de dividendes juteux, et les composants électroniques polonais valent mieux que ceux qui viennent de Chine.

– Les difficultés de la France à s’internationaliser, à s’adapter à la fluidité du monde anglo-saxon, à influencer la gouvernance mondiale et à participer à la définition des normes internationales.

Les autres raisons qui peuvent favoriser la Russie en France sont principalement la corruption et les relais d’influence de la Russie. Car comment se fait-il qu’un ancien premier ministre français puisse siéger au conseil d’administration d’une entreprise russe ? En outre, la Russie dispose par exemple, en dehors d’associations telle que Dialogue Franco-Russe dirigée par le député Thierry Mariani, de deux médias en France : Russia Today et Sputnik News.

Quant aux rapports économiques entre la France et la Russie, ils sont risibles par rapport à ceux que la France entretient avec l’Europe centrale et ne sont en rien un argument pour entretenir de bonnes relations avec la Russie. À titre d’exemple, la valeur totale (biens et services) des flux du commerce entre la France et l’Europe centrale (Pologne, Roumanie, République Tchèque, Roumanie, Hongrie, Slovaquie, Slovénie, Ukraine, Bulgarie, Lituanie, Croatie, Estonie et Lettonie) atteignait 80 milliards de dollars en 2019, tandis que celle entre la France et la Russie n’était que de 16 milliards de dollars. Pour prolonger la comparaison, la valeur des échanges avec l’Italie, deuxième partenaire commercial de la France après l’Allemagne (173 milliards), était de 91 milliards, celle avec les États-Unis de 90 milliards, avec la Chine de 83 milliards, avec l’Espagne de 82 milliards et avec le Royaume-Uni de 63 milliards… Même pour ce qui est du gaz, la France n’importe qu’environ 20% de son gaz de Russie et peut le substituer sans aucune difficulté. La condescendance de l’Élysée envers l’Europe centrale, en comparaison avec son acharnement à soigner ses relations avec la Russie, apparaît d’autant plus absurde.

En outre, la très modeste présence de la France sur le flanc Est de l’OTAN est incompréhensible en comparaison avec les efforts qu’elle déploie en Afrique. Deux chiffres suffisent pour s’en convaincre : l’opération Barkhane a coûté à la France plus d’un milliard de dollars en 2020, tandis que la valeur totale de son commerce avec les pays africains où elle était présente militairement s’élevait à près de 7 milliards de dollars (dont 4,5 milliards d’exportations). Qu’est-ce qui peut justifier une disproportion pareille ? Une difficulté à mettre à jour sa pensée géostratégique et à rompre avec une certaine manière de concevoir le monde.

La politique qui consistait à considérer la Russie comme un partenaire est quoi qu’il en soit un échec. Depuis 2013 la France défait progressivement tous ses liens avec la Russie, mais malheureusement sous la contrainte et la stupeur, non de sa propre initiative stratégique. Ceci tout en négligeant le contact avec l’Europe centrale et en ne consultant jamais les gouvernements d’Europe centrale avant de négocier avec la Russie. La France entretient donc de mauvaises relations autant avec la Russie qu’avec la Pologne. Emmanuel Macron a reçu Valdimir Poutine à Versailles seulement trois semaines après son élection et n’a rencontré le Premier Ministre polonais Mateusz Morawiecki pour la première fois pour un entretien bilatéral que 8 mois après, dans une cave du Parlement Européen. Pour ne rien arranger, le fait de traiter Morawiecki d’antisémite (en dépit de ses origines juives) conduit à s’interroger sur la capacité du Président Macron à formuler des raisonnements géopolitiques au moins aussi logiques que ceux de Donald Trump. Ceci d’autant plus si c’est pour déclarer au même moment que Vladimir Poutine « n’est pas un dictateur » et que « l’insulter » ne ferait pas avancer les négociations…

Emmanuel Macron avait voulu une « Europe-puissance » «de Lisbonne à Vladivostok », « autonome stratégiquement », sans prendre en compte les enjeux de sécurité de l’Europe centrale. Nous voyons aujourd’hui où cela l’a mené.

Réorienter la politique étrangère de la France

Renforcer ses liens avec l’Europe centrale permettrait à la France d’obtenir un contrepoids utile à l’Allemagne et de renforcer sa position vis-à-vis des États-Unis, car ceux-ci ont besoin la France. Ils en ont besoin pour :

– soutenir les sanctions contre la Russie et aider l’Ukraine à gagner la guerre

– appuyer davantage la sécurité européenne dans le cadre de l’OTAN, et non dans la perspective de conceptions aberrantes telles qu’une autonomie stratégique de Lisbonne à Vladivostok…

– soutenir leur lutte contre la Chine en Europe, face à une Allemagne rétive

– contenir d’une manière générale l’influence néfaste du mercantilisme allemand sur le commerce mondial

Sans un engagement fort de la France, ils n’y arriveront qu’à bouts de bras ; sans aucun engagement de la France, ils n’y arriveront pas. Les États-Unis ont eux aussi besoin d’une Europe qui fonctionne sans qu’ils aient besoin de s’y engager fortement, c’est la clé de leur réorientation stratégique vers l’Asie.

Ou la France s’imposera comme un partenaire fiable et respecté des États-Unis, ou elle s’exposera à un isolement croissant sur la scène internationale, et elle exposera l’ensemble de l’Occident à la menace chinoise. À faire semblant de faire les intérêts de tous pour faire les siens, on finit par ne faire les intérêts que de ses adversaires.

La politique française en Europe centrale est d’autant plus aberrante qu’il existe une sorte de déconnexion entre le comportement de la classe politique française vis-à-vis de l’Europe centrale et l’attitude des entreprises françaises envers la région. Les États-Unis ont très bien saisi l’intérêt politique de l’Europe centrale malgré assez peu d’investissements et une présence économique relativement modeste. L’alignement politique néfaste de la France l’empêche de tirer profit de sa présence économique. À titre d’exemple, la valeur cumulée des IDE français en Pologne atteignait 5 milliards d’euros en 2020, juste derrière les IDE allemands (7,5 milliards).

L’Europe centrale pourrait cependant fournir à la France les contrats dont elle a besoin pour relancer son économie, c’est le réservoir de croissance qui lui manque. Le potentiel est considérable : contrats d’armement, contrats énergétiques (nucléaire), commandes aéronautiques, infrastructure… Tous les produits et services de pointe de la France peuvent contribuer au développement de l’Europe centrale, car celle-ci a besoin de la France, et ce d’autant plus qu’il lui faut gagner son indépendance économique vis-à-vis des chaînes de productions allemandes.

La région, peuplée de 120 millions d’habitants, ayant connu un développement inégalé pendant les 30 dernières années et dotée d’un potentiel gigantesque, connaît malgré tout encore de nombreuses difficultés structurelles. Ces difficultés, elle les surmontera sans la France si celle-ci ne réagit pas. L’Europe centrale a un déficit d’infrastructure d’environ 1,5 trillion de dollars. Il est incompréhensible que la France n’ait pas décidé de participer, contrairement à l’Allemagne et aux États-Unis, à l’Initiatives des Trois Mers, destinée à transformer la région.

Les progrès qui ont été faits sur les plans du savoir-faire, des compétences et de l’organisation depuis 30 ans sont considérables, mais le potentiel restant l’est tout autant. L’Europe centrale a encore beaucoup à apprendre de la France. Il n’est que de regarder les livres comptables polonais pour s’en apercevoir. Ils sont souvent désordonnés ; le résultat est une myriade de petites entreprises, avec des difficultés à faire émerger des structures plus vastes.

Conclusion

Le meilleur allié de la France n’a jamais été ni la Russie, ni l’Allemagne, ni l’Angleterre (ni non plus les annexes de celle-ci), mais la Pologne. C’est un fait historique.

La France a le choix entre :

– continuer à se concevoir comme une puissance mondiale sans ancrage européen véritable, tomber dans l’insignifiance et être la risée de la scène diplomatique mondiale

– devenir une puissance régionale forte et respectée, ce qu’elle n’est qu’à moitié en l’état actuel des choses

Contenir ce qu’il y a entre le Rhin et les Sudètes aura été la priorité de la politique étrangère française pendant près de 1000 ans. La puissance de la France dans le monde, c’est d’abord sa puissance en Europe. La France n’était forte que lorsque la Pologne l’était aussi, l’éclipse de la Pologne a été un désastre pour la France. Ces derniers temps, la politique française vis-à-vis de la Russie aura été en réalité celle de l’Allemagne. Si nous ne nous réveillons pas et ne portons pas les intérêts de la France là où ils doivent se trouver, c’est-à-dire à Paris et non à Berlin ni à Moscou, le peuple français rebattra les cartes à sa manière (pas nécéssairement la meilleure) : 60% des Français ont voté pour des partis politiques anti-européens lors des dernières élections présidentielles, outre le fait qu’Emmanuel Macron n’a pas obtenu de majorité pour diriger le pays. Rappelons que le Traité de Lisbonne a été une manière de forcer les Français à accepter la constitutin européenne qu’ils avaient rejetée. Étrange idée. Du reste, ce qui semble être une inexorable perte de contrôle de l’élite politique et économique française sur son pays est peut-être le symptôme le plus évident de ses difficultés à mettre à jour sa réflexion stratégique.

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Daniel Nicolas Foubert

Issu d’une famille franco-polonaise depuis quatre générations, géoéconomiste et fondateur du cabinet de conseil en affaires internationales Excalibur Insight, basé à Varsovie. Il s’emploie à développer les liens politiques et économiques entre la France et l’Europe centrale. D’abord Business Developer Europe dans la fintech française Lemon Way, il a ensuite été Analyste Fusion-Acquisition au sein de Suez Pologne et de Mazars Pologne, où il a notamment participé à la due diligence réalisée par Accor lors de la cession de sa participation dans Orbis pour 1,06 Md€. Il est diplômé d’un Master en Finance de l’École de Commerce Neoma ainsi que d’une Maîtrise en Relations Internationales et d’une Licence en Histoire de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne.

Pour Nicolas Tenzer

PIOTR BIŁOS

Professeur des Universités, littérature polonaise moderne et contemporaine, responsable de la section de polonais, Inalco, Paris.

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La diplomatie repose-t-elle sur des principes intangibles, autrement dit, est-il possible de circonscrire une essence de celle-ci ? La diplomatie et le droit international doivent-ils s’opposer au diktat de la force ? Quelle est la part de la nature et quelle est celle de l’artifice dans les relations entre ces entités de degré supérieur que sont les nations et les États ? L’argument de la force, de la supériorité serait-il le seul facteur déterminant dans les luttes de pouvoir qui dominent la scène internationale ? Où situer alors l’exigence de justice et de respect des valeurs éthiques ? La force brute, non régulée par le principe de la justice, n’est-elle pas amenée à s’autodétruire ? Faut-il considérer l’ordre comme une fin en soi ou garder à l’esprit que ce qui importe vraiment est le respect de la dignité de l’homme et la création continue de conditions lui permettant de mieux s’accomplir ? Que vaut en effet la puissance d’un État si sa politique n’est pas animée par la recherche du bien de ses habitants en harmonie avec l’ordre universel ? Voici les questions auxquelles tente de répondre une œuvre majeure de philosophie politique européenne, l’Essai sur la diplomatie d’Adam Jerzy Czartoryski.

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Une erreur fréquente consiste à lire la situation polonaise à l’aide d’outils conceptuels se rapportant à la France. Or l’histoire récente de la Pologne a été à bien des égards le pendant alternatif de celle de la France : cette dernière allait connaître une envolée à partir du règne de Louis XIV (1638-1715) ; la Pologne, appelée Respublica depuis 1569 (après l’Union de Lublin), fait l’expérience d’un XVII^e siècle funeste à cause en particulier de la révolte cosaque de Khmelnytsky (1648) et du Déluge suédois (1655-1556). Ces deux menaces, trame de la fameuse Trilogie de Henryk Sienkiewicz, prix Nobel de littérature, ont fini par être surmontées, mais leurs conséquences pèseront lourd sur les destinées de ce pays au cours des trois siècles à venir.

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Joseph Conrad

Fondée sur des principes pionniers tels que le parlementarisme, l’électivité du roi et – last but not least – l’union des peuples, la Respublica, comme l’a écrit Joseph Conrad, ne devait pas sa forme ni son extension à des guerres de conquête. Cet État européen, jadis le plus étendu territorialement, est né de la décision mûrement réfléchie des « représentants de la Pologne et des terres de langue lituanienne et ruthène » de constituer un organisme commun, autrement dit, de faire corps. Conrad rappelle le préambule du premier traité de l’Union (1413) : « Cette Union, étant le résultat non de la haine, mais de l’amour » et parle d’une « combinaison unique dans l’histoire du monde » ; nous, nous savons que la Respublica est aussi un ancêtre de l’Union Européenne actuelle dans l’Europe du Centre-Est d’alors. Aux antipodes des tendances absolutistes, le système politique polonais prenait appui à l’intérieur sur la promotion des libertés y compris religieuses (d’où le soutien apporté au paganisme persécuté comme ce fut le cas dans la lutte contre les Teutoniques[1]) et se caractérisait sur le plan de la politique extérieure par une série de fusions volontaires, résultats de compromis forgés à la faveur de rencontres et de débats entre les parties engagées.

Ainsi les « unions » de Krewo (1385) et Horodło (1413) marquent une énième étape dans l’approfondissement de la coexistence partagée au sein d’un organisme politique communément consenti avec la Lithuanie et la Ruthénie, un processus dont l’Union de Lublin de 1569 constitue le parachèvement.

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Le grand Conti

Fait symbolique, et qui mérite d’être rappelé en France : François-Louis de Bourbon-Conti, le grand Conti, poussé par Louis XIV, est élu en 1697, Roi de Pologne par une majorité de la szlachta (nom donnée à la noblesse polonaise, égalitaire dans son statut et plus nombreuse que dans les pays d’Europe de l’Ouest ; depuis, 1572, elle élit viritim son roi). La Russie épaulée par l’Autriche et le Brandebourg impose alors, en violation des résultats du vote, son candidat. C’est le début d’un long processus : au XVIII^e siècle, la Pologne va devenir de fait un protectorat tsariste à l’issue d’incidents aussi spectaculaires que choquants tels que la Diète muette (en 1717) ou, par la suite, le rapt organisé par l’ambassadeur Repnine (en 1767-1768) de certains parmi les plus hauts personnages de l’État. La défense des libertés polonaises sert alors de prétexte pour les puissances étrangères dans leurs menées visant à asservir davantage le pays.

De telles épreuves ont pour effet d’encourager à une prise de conscience de la cause de la liberté, mais elles dévoilent aussi une tradition bien plus dérangeante : l’appât des gains privés (en polonais : « prywata ») auquel cèdent certains grands personnages de l’État l’emporte sur leur attachement à la liberté nationale : c’est ce que va incarner le tristement célèbre épisode des confédérés de Targowica : hostiles aux avancées de la Constitution du 3 mai 1791, ceux-ci vont de leur propre gré se laisser manipuler par Catherine II car ils croient naïvement que la Tsarine va les aider à conserver leurs privilèges. Leur action aura pour résultat l’entrée de l’armée russe en Pologne. L’asservissement du plus grand État d’Europe a donc été réalisé avec le concours de certains représentants de la szlachta ou de la magnateria (la noblesse enrichie et disposant de charges, en rupture avec le principe d’égalité statutaire), les couches sociales les plus élevées.

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La Fayette et Joachim Lelewel

Finalement, à la suite des Partages (le dernier se produit en 1795), la Respublica disparaît de la carte, ce qui entraîne une mobilisation sans précédent des élites et des masses en vue de retrouver la liberté. Au XIX^e siècle, la cause polonaise se confond avec la lutte pour la liberté, d’abord celle des peuples, préalable indispensable à celle des individus. Un historien exceptionnel, Joachim Lelewel (1786-1861), professeur d’histoire à l’Université de Wilno, qui a compté parmi ses disciples le géant romantique et pèlerin de la liberté, Adam Mickiewicz, forge la formule : « Pour notre liberté et la vôtre ». En 1830, l’Europe est secouée par l’effervescence révolutionnaire. Les Belges se soulèvent contre les Pays-Bas. L’insurrection qui éclate le 29 novembre 1830 à Varsovie bloque l’aide militaire que la Russie proposait d’envoyer aux Pays-Bas. Les Polonais ont ainsi servi directement la cause de l’indépendance belge.

Le général La Fayette, engagé dans l’aide aux réfugiés polonais aux côtés de Lelewel, accueille ce dernier dans son domaine de La Grange. Joachim Lelewel est d’abord arrêté, puis, à la demande de l’Ambassadeur russe en France, expulsé de France. Il s’établira en Belgique où il poursuit son engagement politique en faveur de l’émancipation de la Pologne qu’il associe intimement à l’idée d’égalité entre citoyens au sein d’un système démocratique et républicain (il dirige notamment l’organisation « Jeune Pologne » qui collabore étroitement avec le mouvement « Jeune Europe » de Guiseppe Mazzini et dont l’action aboutira au « Printemps des peuples » en 1848). En parallèle à cette activité politique fervente, Lelewel s’adonne à des recherches scientifiques d’envergure européenne. C’est ce que montre actuellement l’exposition « Lelewel, un graveur polonais » organisée par le Musée National de Cracovie (section de la Halle aux Draps, « oddział Sukiennice »)[2] : outre ses recherches sur l’histoire de la Pologne, Lelewel s’intéresse à la méthodologie de l’histoire, à l’antiquité, à l’histoire orientale, à l’histoire de la Scandinavie, l’archéologie, l’héraldique, la sfragistique (l’étude des sceaux), l’histoire du droit, la bibliographie, la linguistique, la cartographie et la géographie, à la gravure ainsi qu’à la numismatique. L’exposition de Cracovie permet de voir certaines parmi les 270 gravures à l’eau-forte et sur cuivre réalisées par Lelewel.

Au XIX^e siècle, autre fait qui mérite d’être rappelé dans une perspective française, Paris va devenir pour les Polonais une véritable capitale culturelle et politique de remplacement et en exil : tout ce que la Pologne compte d’esprits libres et décidés à jouer la carte de l’opposition active à la tyrannie et aux monarchies réactionnaires converge alors vers la ville Lumière.

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Fryderyk Chopin et « la Grande émigration »

Fryderyk Chopin arrive à Paris à l’automne 1831. Il vient de quitter Stuttgart où il a composé l’Étude Révolutionnaire en ut mineur en réaction à la chute de l’Insurrection et où il a également noté dans un Journal (qui, en dehors de la correspondance, est son unique œuvre littéraire autonome) ces mots révélateurs : « Dieu ! Tu existes mais Tu ne te venges pas ! – Tu n’as pas assez de massacres moscovites – ou – Tu es Moskal, Toi-même ! ». A Paris, Chopin rencontre le pianiste et journaliste musical Wojciech Sowiński, le Comte Komar et son épouse ainsi que leur fille, la belle Delfina Potocka, le Comte Ludwik Plater, le Prince Walenty Radziwiłł qui lui fait connaître ses premiers opéras parisiens. Dans ses lettres écrites en polonais à sa famille restée au pays les noms des Polonais de Paris abondent : Kondratowicz, Kunat, Plichta, Morawski, Niemojowski, Brykczyński, Biernacki, Oleszczyński etc. Mais c’est aussi à Paris que Chopin fait la connaissance des plus illustres représentants de « la Grande émigration », à savoir les exilés politiques ayant fui la Pologne frappée par les répressions consécutives à l’Insurrection de 1830-31. Il s’agit des généraux Rybiński, Dwernicki et Bem, et des membres du Gouvernement National condamnés à mort par contumace par les Russes tels que le Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Joachim Lelewel, Bonawentura Niemojewski, Teodor Morawski. Il s’agit également d’un groupe formé par les plus éminents artistes et intellectuels que compte alors le pays : le critique littéraire et musical, l’historien et le philosophe, Maurycy Mochnacki, l’un des fers de lance des Lumières polonaises, Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz déjà âgé, les chefs de file du romantisme Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki et Zygmunt Krasiński, mais aussi des compagnons de Varsovie, eux aussi poètes de talent, Stefan Witwicki et Józef Bohdan Zaleski.

On notera ces mots de Danuta Mucha qui se rapportent à la relation entre les Polonais de Paris et leur compatriote-compositeur : « Ce sont eux qui invitaient Chopin chez eux pour des fêtes religieuses ou nationales ou sans occasion. C’est pour eux qu’il jouait ses mazurkas, polonaises, nocturnes, valses, scherzos et chants composés pour les poèmes des poètes polonais, en transportant les pensées de ses auditeurs vers leur Patrie perdue. Un compositeur allemand et ami de notre artiste, Robert Schumann dit que : « Si le Tsar Nicolas Ier savait quel ennemi se cache dans les œuvres de Chopin, dans ces mazurkas toutes simples, il interdirait de jouer ces œuvres dans ce pays – ce sont des canons cachés dans les fleurs. » »[3]

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Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, ministre des affaires étrangères et ambassadeur sans lettres de créance

Une césure fondamentale de l’histoire polonaise au XIX^e siècle aura été l’insurrection de 1830-31 ; ayant éclaté le 29 novembre 1830, elle est appelée « Insurrection de novembre » en Pologne, « Powstanie listopadowe », et son échec, en dépit d’un rapport de forces défavorable aux Polonais, n’était pas préprogrammé. Désormais, les prérogatives octroyées aux Polonais durant le Congrès de Vienne seront systématiquement jugulées ; s’instaure une période de répressions ayant pour conséquence une émigration massive d’officiers et de soldats vers les pays d’Europe de l’Ouest, la France en particulier. On estime qu’ils seront environ 6000 hommes à rejoindre la France, rien que dans les années 1830. C’est aussi en France, à Paris, que prend alors ses quartiers le Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (en 1843, il rachète l’hôtel Lambert sur l’ile Saint-Louis et le rénove à grands frais de façon à assurer une base matérielle et symbolique à son action). Éduqué dans le culte du libéralisme et formé aux conceptions utilitaristes britanniques, il avait été envoyé enfant par sa mère à la cour des tsars de Russie dans l’espoir qu’il pourrait un jour peser sur la politique russe dans un sens favorable à sa patrie opprimée. Il se voyait également confier la mission d’obtenir la levée du séquestre mis sur les biens, considérables, de la famille Czartoryski par la tsarine Catherine II. De fait, Czartoryski accèdera aux plus hautes responsabilités en matière de politique étrangère russe sous le règne du tsar Alexandre I^er : durant 3 ans, il dirigea le ministère bien qu’il n’eût pas obtenu formellement le titre de ministre. Pendant un temps, Czartoryski crut à la possibilité d’une restauration de la Pologne en lien avec la Russie, l’un des facteurs à l’origine de sa méfiance à l’égard des plans napoléoniens de conquête (y compris lorsque son père, en 1812, voulut le convaincre de se rallier à l’Empereur) avec, à la clef, la possibilité d’être associé aux travaux du Congrès de Vienne. C’est à son action que la Pologne devra d’obtenir une constitution dans le cadre de ce qui fut appelé le Royaume du Congrès. Toute sa vie, Czartoryski œuvra pour une restauration de la Pologne (et d’une libération des nations slaves) qu’il envisageait comme conditionnée par une rénovation des relations internationales ; dans la première partie de sa vie, antérieure à l’installation en France après 1830-31, partant du principe que la Russie est un État doté d’un vaste territoire, Czartoryski considéra que la Russie n’avait aucun intérêt à chercher à élargir indéfiniment ses frontières mais qu’elle devait s’engager dans les affaires européennes sur la base de l’universalisme des Lumières et de la défense des libertés.

Sa démission du ministère des affaires étrangères russe en juin 1806, marque un tournant décisif et irréversible dans sa prise de conscience du caractère illusoire de ces vues. Il se consacre alors à son poste de superintendant de l’éducation dans les territoires des confins de l’ancienne Pologne directement accaparées par la Russie (il s’agit essentiellement des terres de l’ex-Grand-Duché de Lituanie, correspondant aujourd’hui aux pays baltes, la Bélarus et l’Ukraine occidentale). C’est dans le cadre de ces nouvelles fonctions qu’il exerça celle de curateur de l’université de Wilno (aujourd’hui Vilnius) déjà évoquée, le plus grand établissement d’enseignement supérieur au sein de l’Empire russe[4] dont l’enseignement était assuré… en polonais et dans un esprit façonné par les Lumières polonaises de l’époque des réformes entreprises par le roi Stanislas Auguste Poniatowski. Celles-ci, ayant abouti à l’adoption de la Constitution du 3 mai 1791, avaient entraîné les nations spoliatrices et partageantes de la Pologne à redoubler d’efforts pour neutraliser un État qui menaçait dangereusement de relever la tête. La mort du tsar Alexandre 1^er que Czartoryski avait servi et l’avènement de Nicolas 1^er firent voler en éclats ses espoirs d’une Russie capable de se réconcilier avec la Pologne et considérant ses intérêts propres comme directement associés à ceux de la Pologne et de l’Europe. Dès lors, Czartoryski deviendra le chef de fil de la tendance libérale-conservatrice de l’opposition légale en Pologne, prenant la défense de la nation et de la société polonaises ainsi que des droits des nations et des individus en général contre l’arbitraire, la tyrannie et le despotisme russes. Sur ces points, en dépit de ses accointances avec la Russie, de ses liens personnels directs avec les élites et la culture russes, il rejoindra les positions d’Adam Mickiewicz pour lequel, lors des cours qu’il professa au Collège de France, la Russie était devenue « le gendarme de l’Europe » et « la prison des peuples ». L’image de la prison structurait déjà en profondeur « la Partie III » du drame romantique Les Aïeux (« Dziady »), l’un des chefs d’œuvre de Mickiewicz : le système oppressif de persécutions mis en place par la Russie tsariste s’y incarne dans le personnage du sénateur Novossiltsov (Nowosilcow), quant à la figure du « gendarme », nous la retrouvons notamment dans la scène finale de « l’appendice » de « la Partie III » intitulé « Voyage en Russie » où une voiture carcérale (« kibitka ») dévale une rue et conduit à Pétersbourg un prisonnier dont on ignore l’identité mais qui pourrait être « le roi de France », « le roi de Prusse » ou « de Saxe » :

La kibitka vole ; un gendarme frappe du poing le cocher, le cocher cingle du fouet les soldats, les soldats se ruent les uns sur les autres…

 Mickiewicz lui aussi avait connu la Russie de près à l’issue de son inculpation lors du procès truqué des associations clandestines polonaises de l’université de Wilno (les Philomates et les Philarètes) et une condamnation à l’exil en Russie pour une durée de 4 ans. A cette époque, la pensée politique polonaise est traversée par la question : la reconquête de la liberté et de la souveraineté nationales doit-elle s’appuyer sur les efforts et les capacités des Polonais eux-mêmes ou convient-il d’œuvrer en appui sur les forces actives de progrès et de liberté à l’échelle de l’Europe, voire du monde entier ?

De fait, les Polonais étaient loin d’être la seule nation opprimée et soumise à un pouvoir étranger, spoliée de ses biens ainsi que de son droit à forger la forme de son destin et à fixer les directions de celui-ci. L’époque est marquée par les aspirations nationales des Belges déjà évoqués, Grecs, Bulgares, Croates, Serbes, Roumains, Hongrois, Finlandais, Italiens, Irlandais, mais aussi, comme Czartoryski le reconnaîtra lui-même dans une lettre à l’historien et au romancier et dramaturge Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, des Lithuaniens et des Biélorusses. Il est vrai qu’une proximité particulière s’instaure avec les Italiens et les Polonais sont nombreux à combattre aux côtés de Garibaldi tandis que certains Italiens tels que Francesco Nullo ou Luigi Caroli se rendent sur les terres polonaises afin de soutenir le nouvel effort insurrectionnel polonais de 1863. On peut dire que Czartoryski entend dépasser l’alternative ne compter que sur ses propres forces ou agir de conserve avec les autres combattants de la liberté, ce qui l’amène à concilier les deux positions : d’un côté, il s’efforce de porter la question polonaise à l’attention des gouvernements anglais et français et, plus largement, les élites politiques de ces pays, de l’autre côté, il envoie des émissaires à travers l’Europe et afin de contrer l’influence russe et soutenir les préparatifs militaires en vue des conflits à venir. Ainsi, Michał Czaykowski, nommé chef de la mission d’Orient, s’installe dans l’empire ottoman où en 1842 il acquiert des terres et où sera fondée une colonie polonaise destinée à fournir une assise matérielle et logistique aux réfugiés de l’insurrection de 1830-31. Cette colonie sera nommée Adampol en hommage à Adam Jerzy Czartoryski.

L’ « Essai sur la diplomatie », un ouvrage fondamental de philosophie politique

Si nous revenons à la figure d’Adam Jerzy Czartoryski aujourd’hui, ce n’est pas seulement afin de mieux comprendre l’histoire de la Pologne ainsi que les liens qui rattachent ce pays et sa culture à la France. C’est aussi, dans une optique universaliste, en raison d’un ouvrage que Czartoryski a consacré à la question de la diplomatie et des relations internationales. Car L’essai sur la diplomatie constitue une vaste synthèse philosophique sur les notions de droit naturel, de droit des gens (des nations), de système international où les principales idées de la philosophie politique du Moyen Âge, de la Renaissance et des Lumières ont été fusionnées de manière originale et rapportées aux idéaux hérités du christianisme[5]. Cet ouvrage (rédigé en français) n’ayant pas bénéficié au moment de sa parution de circonstances favorables[6] devrait susciter l’intérêt de quiconque s’intéresse aux questions générales soulevées dans le cadre de la philosophie politique et de l’ordre politique international, mais aussi – de manière plus ciblée – à l’enjeu que représente aujourd’hui l’architecture des relations entre l’Union Européenne et la Fédération de Russie, en particulier sous le règne de Vladimir Poutine. Selon Czartoryski, le droit international doit prendre pour base l’existence des nations à titre de réalité intangible, et c’est au nom de ce principe qu’il appelle de ses vœux une réforme de la diplomatie. Il conçoit celle-ci comme une pratique à laquelle il n’est pas possible de se soustraire et qu’éclaire la science des mécanismes politiques permettant de réduire la distance qui se creuse sans cesse entre ce qui est et ce qui devrait être chaque fois que les nations entretiennent des rapports réciproques (l’écart entre le fait et le droit). Intangible, le droit des nations (des gens et des peuples) ne cesse pourtant d’être violé ; c’est comme si l’état de nature, considéré comme devant être à tout prix surmonté à l’intérieur des États, était jugé légitime dans les relations des États et des nations entre eux. Comment expliquer ce curieux paradoxe ? Certains n’ont de cesse de trouver des fondements théoriques à l’usage de la force entre les États comme si, appliquée à ce domaine, la force avait la capacité de s’autolégitimer et ainsi de rendre « juste » son imposition aux entités plus dociles ou incapables de faire face aux plus puissantes et adoptant un comportement de prédateur. La soumission des États faibles aux plus forts, en ce qu’elle aurait une assise naturelle, devrait être sanctionnée par le droit…

Czartoryski en rejetant fermement cette conception retrouve les inspirations ayant jadis guidé le chef de file de la représentation polonaise lors du Concile de Constance (en 1414-1418), Paweł Włodkowic, théoricien de la guerre juste et du droit des peuples, patron, aux côtés de Stanisław de Skarbimierz, de l’école polonaise du droit international qui cherchait alors à imposer, dans une Europe chrétienne plutôt rétive à de telles idées, le principe que tous les peuples bénéficient de droits, y compris ceux encore païens, et qu’une christianisation menée par la violence représente une contradiction en soi. Gardant également à l’esprit les Partages de la Pologne et considérant ceux-ci comme un crime, Czartoryski défend l’idée d’une diplomatie morale (politique et éthique sont non seulement conciliables, mais la seconde est la condition du succès de la première) contre un état de fait où la guerre est devenue l’unique moyen du règlement des conflits internationaux. De même que les individus qui ne peuvent vivre entre eux qu’en s’astreignant à des règles, de même les nations doivent accepter le principe d’un usage limité de la force. Dans une formule saisissante, Czartoryski écrit en effet que « l’idée de justice n’est pas un résultat du pacte social », mais qu’« au contraire, » « c’est elle qui a fait la société. » (on peut déceler dans ces conceptions une anticipation du « patriotisme constitutionnel » de Habermas…)

Comme il s’était opposé à une hégémonie napoléonienne en l’Europe, Czartoryski combat à présent l’impérialisme russe qui vise à imposer sa toute-puissance en Europe et au-delà des frontières de celle-ci. Surtout, il met en garde contre une diplomatie qui ne chercherait pas à lier ce qui est utile à ce qui est juste. Son raisonnement qui semble pourtant imparable, mérite réflexion : ce que réclame de nous l’auto-défense, l’autoconservation d’un côté, et le principe du bien général, la cause de l’humanité de l’autre côté, sont intimement liés, ne forment qu’un tout. Mais Czartoryski a bien conscience que si l’homme a accès au bien, il est toujours tenté de faire le mal, aussi bien sur le plan individuel que public, aussi bien à l’échelle des hommes individuels qu’à celle des États et des nations ; c’est pourquoi le théoricien de la diplomatie se pose ouvertement la question d’une juridiction, d’un exécutif de droit international chargé de veiller au respect des principes de justice dans les relations entre les États et les nations car le seul équilibre des forces ne suffit pas. Toutefois, ce n’est pas dans un pouvoir fort, national ou international, qu’il place ses espoirs ; la concertation et la liberté d’opter pour la bonne décision doivent avoir l’ascendant. On notera que ce libéralisme reste suspendu à un principe inaliénable, devant donc être observé par tous : que chacun puisse être maître chez soi, car l’asservissement d’une nation par une autre est une donnée qui vient ruiner toute possibilité d’un fonctionnement de l’ensemble (idées qui entrent en consonance avec le Projet de paix perpétuelle d’Emmanuel Kant datant de 1795), sans compter que l’asservissement des autres a pour corollaire l’asservissement de soi. Pour Czartoryski, cette liberté intérieure qui oriente l’homme vers le bien et la justice, le droit de décider soi-même pour soi dans le respect de principes universels, procède d’une loi naturelle ; elle a été donnée par le Créateur à l’homme. On retrouve sur ce plan la synthèse des idées des Lumières et celles issues du christianisme. C’est cette synthèse qui pousse Czartoryski à privilégier la liberté, et ce malgré ses insuffisances, ses faiblesses et son caractère foncièrement incertain, instable, par rapport à l’autorité et la tentation autoritaire. Sur le plan international et rapportée aux États, cette liberté doit être encadrée par le droit naturel et inaliénable de chaque nation à pouvoir disposer d’elle-même. Pour reprendre le vocabulaire employé dans l’Essai sur la diplomatie : il convient de réaliser une harmonie entre les différentes « sections du genre humain » (les nations et les États) et « l’association universelle qui les unit. » Un tel principe est à la fois éthique et rationnel. C’est ce qui conduit l’auteur à proposer la conclusion suivante : « Le désir sincère du bien peut seul donner des résultats durables. » Nil violentum durabile. Cela revient à admettre que le progrès matériel, civilisationnel et technique n’est pleinement valable que s’il va de pair avec le progrès éthique. Inutile de dire à quel point ce constat reste d’actualité. 

Retour sur l’histoire récente

Dernière observation : si l’on redescend du niveau de ces principes généraux pour se pencher sur l’histoire récente, celle évoquée en introduction de cet exposé, l’histoire des trois (ou quatre) derniers siècles, force est de reconnaître cette vérité : le démembrement de la Pologne, réalisé au moyen de la politique de la force, n’a pas eu pour seule conséquence les malheurs des Polonais ; fondamentalement, il a représenté, selon l’expression de Joseph Conrad, un « crime », soit une régression d’ordre moral et éthique tout autant qu’une catastrophe politique, l’inoculation d’un virus dans les relations internationales, lequel – au terme du processus – s’est soldé par la politique d’extermination menée par l’Allemagne nazie, la Shoah et, de l’autre côté, le régime de terreur, sanglant et négateur de la dignité humaine, du communisme en Europe centrale et orientale. Aujourd’hui, cette leçon d’histoire peut servir de mise en garde, par exemple par rapport à l’Ukraine et à la Bélarus[7], soit, faut-il le rappeler ? deux entités ayant jadis fait partie de la Respublica.

Quelles leçons tirer de ces aperçus historiques et théoriques du point de vue de l’état actuel des relations entre les nations et les États ? L’imposition de la force avec pour objectif la subordination voire l’annihilation de l’Autre relève d’une politique que l’on peut qualifier d’hasardeuse car elle finit, tôt ou tard, par se retourner contre l’agresseur. Ce type de politique n’a rien apporté, à part l’opprobre et la douleur. Une chose est sûre : quiconque s’interroge sur les moyens de surmonter l’alternative entre idéalisme et réalisme dans les rapports entre les nations et les États trouvera de quoi nourrir sa réflexion dans L’Essai sur la diplomatie d’Adam Jerzy Czartoryski.

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Piotr Biłos

L’auteur est Professeur des Universités, enseigne la littérature polonaise moderne et contemporaine et est responsable des études polonaises à l’Inalco, Paris. A passé son enfance entre l’Algérie, le Maroc et la Pologne. Vit à Paris, Cracovie et Varsovie. Auteur d’Exil et modernité, vers une littérature à l’échelle du monde (Classiques Garnier, 2012), des Jeux du „je”, construction et déconstruction du récit romanesque chez Wiesław Myśliwski (Classiques Garnier, 2016) et de Powieściowe Światy Wiesława Myśliwskiego (Cracovie, Znak, 2017).  A également publié en français une histoire complète de la Pologne intitulée La Pologne, Fantaisie-Impromptu, Le prix de la République (éditions Spotkania, 2018). Ses essais sont disponibles sur le site : https://wszystkoconajwazniejsze.pl/autorzy/prof-piotr-bilos/

Voir bio : https://uwb.edu.pl/nowosci/aktualnosci/prof-piotr-bilos-z-mistrzowska-prelekcja-na-uwb/0d969a06

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[1] Voir sur ce point la figure de Paweł Włodkowic, acteur du Concile de Constance (1414) et l’un des pères fondateurs du principe d’un droit des nations nécessitant d’être acté et protégé. Ses textes concernent le principe de la guerre juste, de la défense des païens et élaborent par anticipation le concept de « génocide », crime de masse perpétré contre un groupe ethnique et frauduleusement légitimé par des arguments liés à la foi religieuse. Voir le chapitre : « L’„Essai sur la diplomatie”, un ouvrage fondamental de philosophie politique ». 

[2] Voir: https://lovekrakow.pl/aktualnosci/lelewel-rytownik-polski-nowa-wystawa-w-sukiennicach_44535.html

[3] Danuta Mucha, « Le patriotisme de Frédéric Chopin », Annales de l’Académie polonaise des Sciences, vol. 13, Paris, 2010. 

[4] Daniel Beauvois, « Vilna, la plus importante université́ de l’empire russe de 1803 à 1832,berceau des gloires polonaises du XIXe siècle », Annales de l’Académie polonaise des Sciences, vol. 13, Paris, 2010. 

[5] Essai sur la diplomatie, Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, postface de Marek Kornat, Éditions Noir sur blanc, Lausanne, 2011.

[6] Il paraît une première fois en 1830, avant les événements de juillet, mais de manière anonyme, c’est-à-dire sans que l’ouvrage puisse bénéficier retentissement du nom de son auteur. Il reparaîtra en 1864 au moment de l’écrasement de l’insurrection.

[7] Orthographe privilégiée sciemment : „La Bélarus”.