One last one for the road – Maryse Dumas' column – December 28, 2024

Last column of the year. Published between Christmas and New Year, it offers you a gift idea for yourself (you are never as well served as by yourself) or for your loved ones. A gift that arouses pleasure, discovery and political reflection, a very beautiful object that we enjoy looking at, touching, leafing through, showing. Obviously it's a book.

Some predict the disappearance of books due to digitalization. This is not my case, even if, to use it myself, I appreciate the extent to which digital technology is disrupting our relationship to reading and more generally to access to knowledge (not to mention many other aspects , Of course). But the printed book is not just a text. It is an object that embodies a story.

Having recently had to tidy up my library, I found books that I thought I had forgotten, but whose cover or smell are enough to take me back to the moments when I read them, to think of the people who recommended them to me, or what I felt while reading them. I am therefore certain that the book published this year by “L’Humanité” to mark its 120th anniversary will have a long life.

“Through their diversity, the contributors bring great richness to the work “120 years, 120 one, 120 views” of Humanity. »

This was already the case with the one published for its centenary. But don't think that there is a duplicate, or that the centenary would have exhausted the subject. I have both at home. I really liked the centenary book and I love the 120th anniversary book. Not for a single minute did I have the feeling of rereading something I had already read.

The 120th anniversary book is first of all a very beautiful object, from its cover to its design. Its content does not differ. The work is divided into periods, which allows you to either read it from start to finish, or to wander around the moments that interest you the most. It is presented on two pages. On the right, he reproduces a front page of “Huma”, not necessarily very well known but carefully chosen and more than once surprising. On the left, a contemporary “personality” comments on the headline in front of us.

The interest in reading is increased tenfold. The contributors are very diverse. The world of politics, trade unionism, culture, sport and the press are solicited. A subtle balance is respected between people who are known to empathize with the battles led by “Huma” and others who are much further away, or even sometimes opposed. That they agreed to contribute shows the unique place that this newspaper continues to occupy in the political, economic and social life of our country.

Each personality freely comments on the headline presented to them and thus reveals a part of themselves. No contribution is conciliatory. Each person made the effort to document themselves, to support their words, to provide elements of knowledge. But each one does it with their own sensitivity. This diversity is very rich and contributes to the interest of the book. We learn a lot there.

And we ask ourselves multiple questions, for example about the nature of the political choices which could have led to highlighting one event and downplaying another, or to talking about it in this or that way. Without saying it, the book sheds light on the nature of the work of writing and composing the newspaper and on the political responsibility of those who carry it out. After reading it, you'll never look at the front page of your newspaper the same way again.