After 42 years as a journalist at the French left-wing newspaper Libération, Jean Quatremer is calling it a day. He no longer recognises himself in a left that has gone completely off the rails.
The woke and Islamo-left behave like fascists, but they are the ones who have taken over the left, Quatremer concludes in a public farewell letter published on 29 July in the conservative French news magazine Le Point.
Libération is not just any newspaper; it is the newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973, not long after the upheavals of 1968, and which to this day has remained something of a principal organ of the left in France. And as a mainstay for decades, Quatremer is not just any journalist.
But something had happened to his surroundings. Gradually, antisemitism became respectable among his kindred spirits and colleagues, as did an authoritarian climate of opinion. There is therefore no doubt that his goodbye to all that stings particularly hard for an increasingly radical French left.
7 October 2023 changed everything. Quatremer rejected the claim that Israel, which he considers democratic, has committed genocide in Gaza. That did not go down well with his colleagues at Libération.
The 69-year-old begins his farewell letter with a warm portrait of the newspaper as it was in the beginning, as a ‘free, chaotic, dissident and nonconformist newspaper’.
There, unexpected and passionate people coexisted, people who spent their time arguing in public – something that would have been impossible at other rigid and institutional newspapers – only to reconcile over a drink or dinner afterwards. We were afraid of nothing, and least of all of those who did not think as we did; on the contrary, we sought confrontation with them. We would never have censored anyone or anything (with a few exceptions, it must be admitted). It was forbidden to forbid, a legacy of May 1968 of which we could be proud, even though there were occasional lapses which ‘Libé’ had the courage to acknowledge, unlike many other newspapers. And it was perfectly acceptable to smash the crockery and put one’s feet on the table.
But all good things come to an end, he observes as he says farewell. He thanks the management, the owners and ‘most’ of his colleagues, before explaining why he is leaving.
I belong to the social-democratic left that fights religious obscurantism in all its forms, racism, antisemitism, discrimination, hatred of Muslims, sexism, homophobia, social injustice, authoritarian regimes, etc. The one that regards individual and collective freedoms, particularly freedom of expression, as sacred, and that does not compromise on the rule of law and the Republic.
But this left has not merely become a minority; it is disappearing, Quatremer observes.
For fear of being accused of ‘Islamophobia’ or neo-colonialism, or – more cynically – in order to secure votes from particular groups, part of the political and media left tolerates homophobic, misogynistic and transphobic attitudes, tolerates attitudes opposed to secularism and freedom of expression, and enters into alliances with a clericalism to which it is opposed.
The latter refers to the alliance with Islam. But is the left actually opposed to Islam?
It is, at any rate, opposed to Jews:
Since the pogrom of 7 October, it has transformed hostility towards the Netanyahu government – which I fully share – and legitimate support for the Palestinian cause into a violent anti-Zionism, which is a cover for unrestrained antisemitism, as Vladimir Jankélévitch so perceptively understood, and which is a repudiation of the values not only of the left, but of the Republic. People demonstrate outside synagogues, attack Jews, shout ‘Heil Hitler!’ during demonstrations, and prevent intellectuals, artists, researchers and journalists from speaking because they are Jews and therefore Zionists and therefore ‘genocidaires’.
And thus the ‘anti-fascists’ have themselves become like fascists:
Everyone, Jewish or not, is branded a fascist if they do not follow this line, by virtue of a new kind of anti-fascism which, in its violence – sometimes deadly – resembles like a twin brother that which it claims to fight.
Quatremer, too, thinks his surroundings are beginning to resemble the Soviet Union:
Just as in the heyday of the Soviet Union and the Comintern, the thought police create an ideological terror by means of denunciations, defamatory accusations and a culture of exclusion. Jews are Nazified, Israel and Jews throughout the world are accused of genocide, just as they were once accused of deicide, Israel’s right to exist is denied – something that applies to no other country – and antisemitism is regarded as, fundamentally, an opinion like any other, rather than a value on which there can be no compromise …
The double standards are glaring:
Yes, all of this is permitted. But to condemn antisemitism and anti-Zionism, to defend Israel’s right to exist, to question the claim that this country is committing genocide or causing famine, to point out that Hamas terrorists use civilians as human shields, to question the Islamists’ exploitation of UNRWA or the UN – no, that is not allowed!
And yet I tell you this, I who am not Jewish: Antisemitism in all its forms, even the most concealed, is an indisputable sign of hatred for the Republic, freedoms, the rule of law, equality and humanism. It is a precursor to totalitarianism.
The left wants freedom only for itself, Quatremer concludes:
This new left, which wallows in antisemitism, defends freedom of expression … to express the same opinion as its own. It distinguishes between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ victims instead of defending all humanity. It insults and smears those who do not serve its propaganda, lies and hatred. Contrary to what the supporters of this left – which is no longer left-wing except in name – have claimed since 7 October, I have never confused Muslims with Islamism, or Palestinians with Hamas and its supporters. Anyone who accuses me of racism, Islamophobia – an accusation that only kills those subjected to it – and fascism is either an idiot or an arsehole, or both.
Quatremer no longer recognises the left, and he can no longer endure the air he has long breathed. It is the ‘Red Guards’ who are to blame.
Admittedly, they are far from constituting a majority at the newspaper, and even less so in the management, but by using methods of harassment well tested on the far left, they manage to make the air unbearable for me. That is why I am withdrawing. I am taking back my freedom, because it is my most precious possession. I have no intention of relinquishing the slightest part of it.
Quatremer is moving to the news magazine Marianne.
To the readers I say: See you on other platforms, where I will continue to make my voice heard and defend the values and the journalism in which I believe.
I hope that the majority of you will continue, as I have tried to do in recent years, to defend Libération against those who wish to take the newspaper hostage in the name of an ideology that runs counter to the newspaper’s values.
Left-wing men of this mould are easy to like – and many of us have known them, associated with them or had them as teachers.
There are undoubtedly many on the left who, deep in their hearts, wish to do as Quatremer has done. But anyone who is to do so perhaps needs an exceptional amount of courage. And anyone who is no longer particularly young must be prepared for a somewhat more difficult life. But neither is it easy to live the life expected of you by people you no longer like.
