French Patriotism,

Trilogy by Louis Perez y Cid

One might have thought the question of patriotism relegated to the background, like an old, almost embarrassing matter. Yet it returns, unannounced, as the world hardens.

War has once again reached the borders of Europe. Balances are shifting, uncertainties are taking hold, and what seemed certain—peace, stability, a sense of belonging—is once again an open question.

In this context, patriotism ceases to be an abstract idea. It becomes a concrete question again, no longer just about where we come from, but about what we hold dear.

In the previous editorial, we tried to understand French patriotism. Now the question arises: how to rebuild patriotism in France today? Rebuilding is not about “bringing out the past,” but about making it habitable for the present.

But first, we must know what we're talking about.
Patriotism is not nationalism. The former unites, the latter confines. Patriotism accepts criticism, nationalism fears it. As for identity, it cannot be decreed; it is built, transformed, and sometimes weakened.

To confuse these three concepts is to condemn any serious reflection.
If we want to rebuild patriotism, we must first rediscover what holds a nation together.

First and foremost, education. It can neither idealize nor instill guilt, but it can transmit. A national narrative is not a catechism; it is a continuity. And it must be accessible. A society that no longer knows what it once was struggles to understand what it is now.

Then, language. It is a silent but crucial link. Where it weakens, the common good recedes. Sharing a language is not just about communication; it's about inhabiting the same world.

And then there's the shared experience. A nation isn't held together solely by principles, but by lived experience. National service, in a form that needs rethinking, served this purpose: to bring people together, to challenge them, to force them to step outside themselves. Without this, patriotism becomes abstract.

But these foundations are insufficient if they don't engage with reality.

Integration, first and foremost. It can no longer remain implicit. Becoming French is neither a matter of status nor of origin. It presupposes a language, codes, and a minimum level of commitment to what holds the whole together. Without demands, there is no belonging.

Sovereignty, next. Patriotism without a grasp of reality becomes mere rhetoric. Deciding, protecting, controlling—without these capacities, attachment to the country becomes an incantation.

Finally, we must accept an obvious truth too often ignored: a nation is not a space free from tensions. Conflict is not its failure, but its condition. It is essential, however, that it not lead to fragmentation.

Then what remains is the essential: the narrative.
No nation endures without telling its story. But how? Too much nostalgia confines, too much forgetting dissolves. We must hold both together, embrace a complex history without freezing it or denying it.

This narrative cannot be solely about yesterday. It must also express what we want to achieve together. For we do not belong permanently to a past, but to a project.

Perhaps this is where everything hinges. A modern patriotism will be neither a reflex nor an automatic inheritance. It must be understood, embraced, sometimes debated, but above all... shared.

Otherwise, it will disappear, not through rejection, but through indifference.

And a nation that is no longer even rejected is already a nation that has been abandoned.