François Furet, the academician of Saint-Pierre-Toirac

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If Cajarc is known by its novelist Françoise SaganCalvignac by the writer Georges BorgeaudSaint-Cirq-Lapopie by the philosopher André Bretonit is a pretty village in the Lot valleyperched on the hillside, named after Saint-Pierre-Toirac which is inhabited by the memory of a renowned historian François Furet who in his time wrote admirable works that became famous such as “The French Revolution” co-written with Denis Richet and “The Past of an Illusion,” two literary successes among many others which received the favor of his numerous readers.

François Furet is buried in the Saint-Pierre-Toirac cemetery. Few Cajarcois know his avant-garde work on the future of democracy which is today a hot topic, his predictions on the turn of events in the United States, in Europe and especially in Russia demonstrate the accuracy of his assessments formulated at the end of the last century. It would be essential to read the last work published by his wife Deborah in 2022, entitled “The ABC of François Furet” published by Éditions L’Observatoireto better understand the historical origins and political divisions of liberal democracy. We recommend this book, which is very pleasant to consult, both erudite and entertaining.

Elected to the French Academy in 1997

“Who is François Furet? » you will tell me. It is a priori difficult to summarize in a few lines the eminent biography of a writer born in 1927 in Paris, who died 70 years later in Toulouse. Elected to the French Academy on March 20, 1997, to chair 1 where he succeeded Michel Debré, he died shortly after in Toulouse, following a fall during a tennis match. His disappearance prevented him from being officially received at the French Academy where he was replaced a year later by the historian René Rémon.

He was an honorary doctor of the Universities of Tel Aviv and Harvard, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. ; in turn he was a history teacher at the high schools of Compiègne then Fontainebleau, member of the Economic and Social Council, president of the Saint-Simon Foundation, journalist at Nouvel Observateurassociate professor in Chicago, without forgetting his stint as assistant professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE).

Among the posthumous tributes, François Furet left his name to a college in Antony (Hauts-de-Seine), to the lecture theaters of the IEP in Lille and the EHESS in Paris, to the library of Saint-Pierre- Toirac for which he was particularly attached. Moreover, like President Georges Pompidou in Prajoux, his second home on the heights of Cajarc, François Furet, in his house in Saint-Pierre-Toirac which he had acquired in 1987, wrote most of his works, conferences and speeches oratories, an invaluable source of inspiration from Lot.

To close the subject presented succinctly, on September 4, 2021, Fernand Tapie, mayor of Saint-Pierre-Toirac, celebrated the marriage of Charlotte Furet (designer) and Matthieu Jobbé Duval (analyst) in the presence of families and close friends. Charlotte is the daughter of François Furet and his wife Deborah.

Michel PALIS

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