(UN)REAL STORY

Paris 2023, Eu­ro­pean Nazi-Ger­many. Adolf Hitler died 48 years ago in bed. The Nor­mandy in­va­sion was a suc­cess at the be­gin­ning, but the Nazis, joined by Fran­coist and a few French col­lab­o­ra­tionist forces, were fi­nally able to push the Al­lies back. The war lasted a few more years, until a peace treaty was reached among the war­ring par­ties, which recog­nised a new union of coun­tries called “Eu­ro­pean Nazi-Ger­many” made up of most ter­ri­to­ries in Eu­rope. Ger­man was de­clared as the only of­fi­cial lan­guage in those ter­ri­to­ries, and the media and ju­di­cial sys­tem were tightly con­trolled by the regime. In France, in the years fol­low­ing the treaty, most dis­si­dents were pros­e­cuted, im­pris­oned and ex­e­cuted, par­tic­u­larly those de­fend­ing the French cul­ture and lan­guage.

Hitler’s death was fol­lowed by a tran­si­tion pe­riod into a more de­mo­c­ra­tic regime. This was a blood­less tran­si­tion, al­low­ing for mul­ti­party elec­tions and higher au­ton­omy from the oc­cu­pied states, which were able to elect their own na­tional par­lia­ments. How­ever, the struc­ture and key po­si­tions in the ju­di­ciary and much of the pub­lic ad­min­is­tra­tion re­mained oc­cu­pied by peo­ple from the for­mer fas­cist regime. What is more, the of­fi­cial head of state, a pub­lic fig­ure that of­fi­cially presided over the whole Union, ap­pointed by Hitler him­self as his suc­ces­sor, re­mained in power and hand­picked his own suc­ces­sor, a mem­ber of his fam­ily.

Under the new de­mo­c­ra­tic-style regime, a whole gen­er­a­tion of French peo­ple that were born in oc­cu­pied France are fi­nally able to use the French lan­guage in pub­lic places and of­fi­cial doc­u­ments, though most cin­e­mas, radio and TV sta­tions con­tinue to broad­cast in Ger­man. Fur­ther­more, there are com­plaints from peo­ple com­ing from other states within the Union that in some schools they are teach­ing in French, in­stead of Ger­man, which they argue, is a “more cos­mopoli­tan lan­guage” that is “un­der­stood by all”.

De­spite the ex­is­tence of the na­tional par­lia­ments, the main de­ci­sions are still taken in Berlin. Fur­ther­more, the Berlin-based supreme court su­per­vises the French par­lia­ment and some­times over­turns laws passed by it. More bla­tant has been the re­cent im­pris­on­ment of sev­eral pro-in­de­pen­dence mem­bers of the par­lia­ment after a mock trial, for or­gan­is­ing a ref­er­en­dum on French in­de­pen­dence. Oth­ers have had to go into exile, and are now able to travel freely any­where ex­cept to Union states. Politi­cians from the French pro-Union par­ties, both con­ser­v­a­tive and so­cial­ists, dis­qual­ify the pro-in­de­pen­dence politi­cians by warn­ing about the “dan­gers of French na­tion­al­ism”, the need to keep France “open” and “not to build more bor­ders”, and to “avoid con­flict with non-na­tion­al­ists”.

An­other griev­ance for French peo­ple is that they pay higher taxes than those in Berlin and ad­ja­cent areas, while much less is in­vested in their ter­ri­tory. Many French cit­i­zens com­plain about the state of non-toll roads, and that the func­tion­ing of trains is worse in Paris than in Berlin. They also be­moan the fact that French com­pa­nies suf­fer com­pet­i­tive dis­ad­van­tages be­cause of higher taxes and less gov­ern­ment sup­port, and that Berlin-based com­pa­nies are favoured by the ad­min­is­tra­tion. Union­ist politi­cians re­tort to such com­plaints by mock­ing the French as greedy whin­ers un­will­ing to show sol­i­dar­ity.

De­spite all the op­po­si­tion, a new im­pulse is felt through­out France, with de­mands for the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and to save their lan­guage. The power of the Nazi-de­scended po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tions, media and tri­bunals is great and ready to be em­ployed by all means to pre­vent it. As hap­pened in the days of the re­sis­tance dur­ing World War II, it will be up to a few coura­geous lead­ers and cit­i­zens to free France as a na­tion. It is the hope of many de­moc­rats that this time they will not fail.

Note: Our dear reader will surely find par­al­lels with the sit­u­a­tion in Cat­alo­nia.