BARRES, ELECTION CAMPAIGN SPEECH 7
MAURICE BARRES
Election Campaign Speech
November 1, 1898
Voters, in opposition to a politics which aims only to satisfy hatreds, and
whose only motive power is the greed to rule, I come to you again with
those national and social ideas which you have praised before and will not
eject today ....
At the summits of society as in the depths of the provinces, in the moral
order as in the material order, in the commercial, industrial, and agricul
tural world and on to the building sites where French workers face com
petition, the foreigner, like a parasite, poisons us.
An essential element of the new French politics should be to protect all
citizens against that invasion, and also to guard against that excessively
cosmopolitan-or, rather, excessively German-socialism which would
weaken the defense of the fatherland.
The Jewish question is linked to the national question. Ranked by the
Revolution with authentic Frenchmen, Jews kept their distinctive traits,
and after having once been the persecuted, they became tyrants. We sup
port the most complete freedom of conscience; further, we would consider
it a grave danger to allow Jews the privilege of appealing to-and that way
appearing to defend-the principles of civil liberty promulgated by the
Revolution. [They] violate those principles through ... their habits of mo
nopolizing, of speculation, of cosmopolitanism. Still further, in the army,
in judicial offices, in ministries, in all our administration, they far exceed
the percentage to which their numbers in the general population may en
title them. They have been appointed prefects, judges, treasurers, of:fir,0rs
ecause they have the money that co
upts .... [We] must do away with
that dangerous inequality and obtain more respect for our authentic citi
zens, the children of Gaul and not of J udaea ....
For the past twenty years, the opportunist political system has favored
Maurice Ba
es, Scenes et doctrines du nationalisme (Paris: Felix J uven, 1902), 432-34.
Note: Translations by Michael Burns, unless otherwise noted.
8 THE EPOCH
the Jew, the foreigner, the cosmopolitan. Those who commit this criminal
e
or explain themselves by saying that exotic foreigners
ing energetic
elements to France. Some fine elements ... which have co
upted us rot
ten! Here is the full truth: The energetic elements that French society re
ally needs it will find in itself, in promoting the rise of the poorest, the most
downtrodden, in raising them up to the greatest well-being, to the great
est professional training.
One sees how nationalism necessarily gives rise to socialism. We de
fine socialism as "the material and moral improvement of the most nu
merous and poorest class."
After centuries the French nation has reached the point of giving its peo
ple political security. Now it must protect them against the economic inse
curity they suffer at every step.