Photo: Photo:Celine Villegas
He got around on foot, by bike, no continent was safe from him: the travel writer Sylvain Tesson, scion of a respected Parisian family, is a best-selling author. Title: “Short report on the immensity of the world” or “Napoleon and I” – he doesn’t do any of that. In times when people have their heads in the screen, he seeks the vastness, the experience of the sublime. Two weeks ago it was announced that the darling of the gods would be the patron of the renowned literary festival “Le printemps des poètes” (kitsch: “Poet’s Spring”). Then a shitstorm arose: Tesson was a “reactionary icon,” said an open letter in the daily newspaper “Libération,” which was signed 1,200 times. Essentially, it’s about his connection to Jean Raspail, who saw himself as an ultra-Catholic royalist and wrote “The Camp of the Saints” in 1973, a book that was important for the New Right: In the novel, refugees allow the West to perish.
In 2015, Tesson did not write a foreword for this work, but for a volume of travel novels; But what made Raspail tick and who he “inspired” had long been known. On Sunday, Tesson spoke up: “I like to be backward-looking, but my critics have found a word that is a word of absolute conformism: right-wing extremism.” This self-proclaimed non-conformist is being helped from the very top: Economics Minister Le Maire defends Tesson; Culture Minister Dati too. Interesting: The festival management was accused of “traumatizing management”. Nothing will change for the better with Tesson. He is busy with himself and the noble, empty word.
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