It was January 13, at prime time, as millions of people were watching television : Pawel Adamowicz, Mayor of Gdansk, a modern Conservative to say it short, stabbed in the heart by a 27-year-old man, released from prison a few months ago.
I thought of Jo Cox, the young Labor MP, who was murdered in fairly comparable circumstances on June 16, 2016, just days before the Brexit referendum.
In both cases, low-ceilinged extremists, exhibitionists of violence, manipulated by unscrupulous politicians who have erected systematic lies in political strategy. We have the same in France, I’m pretty sure you know who I am thinking about …
In February 1955, Roland Barthes wrote an article about Albert Camus’s novel The Plague, which described the reference to the context of the Second World War as a “misunderstanding”. Camus replied in an open letter in these terms: “The Plague, which I wanted to be read on several staves, however, has as obvious content the struggle of the European resistance against Nazism. The proof is that this enemy who is not named, everyone has recognized him, and in all the countries of Europe … “
The Plague eternalizes these days of darkness, this “collective passion” of a Europe in madness, diverted as Oran can be diverted of the sea and its measure.
The Plague ! Here we are …
Let’s invent in a relentless dialogue the tools that will unravel the red and brown liars.
Iconography: Paweł Adamowicz’s funeral on 19 January in Poznan, Poland © Piotr Skornicki / Reuters
After working as an international banker for emerging countries, Laurent Lascols became global head of country risk / sovereign risk (from 2008 to 2013) then global director of public affairs (from 2014 to 2019) for Societe Generale. In 2021, he founded Aristote, an advisory firm and training organization dedicated to environmental economics, sustainable finance and impact finance.