At the Olympia, François-Xavier Bellamy between philosophy and politics

At LR, as the European elections approach, political calculations are going well, the suitors' ball is in full swing and, meanwhile, a MEP is talking about beauty at the Olympia. This October 9, François-Xavier Bellamy has the red letters of his name on the facade of the legendary Parisian hall. Outside, those who come to attend this “Philosophy Evening” walk around, waiting, occupying the Boulevard des Capucins almost all the way to the Opéra Garnier. Curious atmosphere, between meeting and alone on stage. Which Bellamy did viewers come to listen to? The politician or the philosophy lecturer? Tonight, once again, Bellamy refuses to decide.

In front of an almost full room of 2000 seats, the MEP appears in his shirt sleeves, between the shadow and the light of a refined staging. The jacket and tie remained in Brussels. Thinkers are honored, from Plato to Bergson, from Montaigne to Nietzsche. A sort of philosophical itinerary through the ages, as organized by the MEP for ten years, punctuated by the interludes of an Armenian cellist. A week earlier, Bellamy assured that the evening would not be a political event, assuming this “step aside” while LR was slow to nominate its head of list. However, the texts were chosen with care. And, for those who would like to read political messages, leave the interpretation free. “There are a few political winks,” says the party’s number 2, Annie Genevard, who came to listen to him.

So Socrates, and his fight against the sophists, is summoned to criticize those “who string together witticisms, the sellers of opinions, the sellers of elements of language”; Péguy, to stand against “the world of relativism where there is only room for ready-made thoughts”; or even stoicism to educate those who are worried by the unstoppable course of things. “If we can neither seek nor avoid what happens to us, then we must be absolutely indifferent to it,” says Bellamy. “If I come off stage thinking I messed up, I’ll switch to stoicism.” Did he, in 2019, while the LR list in the European elections gathered a disappointing 8% of the votes, follow the precepts of Epictetus? At party headquarters, Bellamy admitted that the right “had not succeeded” in convincing people of “hope with France”. Before making up his mind and despite everything leading the French delegation of the EPP group to the European Parliament.

Since then, four years have passed and everyone at LR recognizes the work carried out by the MEP. It remains to be seen whether this is enough to, by 2024, face Jordan Bardella and Marion Maréchal. “No one doubts his intelligence,” remarked a right-wing elected official. “But has he really become a political animal?” He adds: “He lives in the world of ideas, very well. And then ?" At the Olympia, Bellamy, who takes “revenge” with Le Figaro, responds in his own way: “Philosophy is disturbing and it must be disturbing. In this, it requires adversity.” And it is not Jean-Louis Thiériot who will say the opposite: “In the Pascalian sense, politics relates to the order of the flesh, philosophy to the order of the spirit.” MP LR specifies: “We cannot deduce one from the other. Or else, we blind ourselves.” David Lisnard, who came incognito, took his place in the first fifteen rows. The mayor of Cannes, close to Bellamy, is also convinced of the happy marriage of philosophy and politics: “It is a major societal issue because we must rediscover a quality civic life. We must teach our children to decode life rather than computers.” Obviously, the vast majority of the public present at the Olympia on Monday evening is an acquired public, Bellamyst at heart, sensitive to the messages of the European parliamentarian. “Those who only do politics seem a little limited to me,” says this 56-year-old executive. “He has gained maturity and has a real backbone,” appreciates this mother who would however like the Olympia philosopher to be better equipped to “descend into the political jungle”. Too “nice”, too “well-mannered”, “he should be a little more Sarkozy without being totally Sarkozy”, she advises. It's hard to imagine him, seeing him on stage, not in the least intimidated, sometimes leaning on a table on which books rest, sometimes sitting on the platform. Bellamy is obviously not part of this legacy of the right.

The anthology, sometimes, lets slip a doubt in the philosopher. “How our debates today would regain their meaning if we adopted the Socratic requirement, if we could avoid the worst: a ready-made thought, invulnerable to correction…”, muses Bellamy. Before adding: “How our political discussions would regain all our grandeur... But perhaps there is a form of ideal there.” And, a little earlier, this surprising sentence: “Plato said that philosophers always lose elections.” A confession ? A fear ? We find, in the background, the man of 2019 who asked “forgiveness” to the LR activists. When some on the right observe a form of humility, others, on the other hand, are still worried about this tendency of “self-flagellation”, says a MEP.

Bellamy wasn't lying: the event wasn't purely political. But he said something about the man. And while listening to it, we wonder: philosophy imposes a particular relationship with time. It imposes the measure of centuries. When the time of a political campaign is circumstantial. So where is Bellamy? To hear him say, all this is not irreconcilable. “How is it that in this world, where everything is done to diffract attention, there are always so many people who come to draw from the source of philosophy?”, he asks the audience. The answer: “It illuminates the present.” And “confronting oneself with greatness” is making an “act of resistance”.

In conclusion, Bellamy meditates on a text by Simone Weil, Rooting, and looks to the future. “Of all the needs of the human soul, there is none more vital than the past, to plunge back into the most ancient texts, into this magnificent history which made what we are and to which we owe the future that we will write tomorrow.” Smiling, he says: “As for whether we are capable of meeting the challenge... That’s another question.”