It's the speech of a lifetime. For the one who declaims it and those who wrote it. Ten years ago to the day, Prime Minister Manuel Valls took to the podium of the National Assembly for the first time since the attacks against the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, Hyper Cacher de la Porte de Vincennes, Montrouge , and the distressing hunt for fleeing terrorists. France is exhausted and awaits strong words, they will fall that day, with authority.
“It’s been ten years, and I feel the same feeling of suffocation, a form of apnea, and I have difficulty reconstituting my memories,” Harold Hauzy, former communications advisor to Manuel Valls, also responsible for communications, confides to Paris Match. speech. On January 8, I learned of the attacks via an SMS from Matignon's security alert. “Machine gun fire at Charlie Hebdo. Several victims. » Valls comes down from the platform, at the same time he was presenting a reform of the regime for intermittent workers in the entertainment industry, and I put the phone in his face because I was having so much trouble getting words out. After ? It’s a long tunnel where an earthquake occurs every day…”
The following week, the speech was a “outburst”, written in an afternoon and an evening, without real slogans, other than a statement of the threat to be posed and a concrete response to be made – proposals based on parliamentary work, mainly. For the rest, the heart speaks. “The day after the attacks, François Hollande spoke but it was not the right measure, he was beyond the shock,” remembers Harold Hauzy. I said to Manuel: “France is touched in its heart” and recommended that he keep this sentence. It will be a word in the abyss. Because it had the DNA of France, this speech. Republic, secularism, freedom of expression, right to blasphemy… Afterwards, everything starts from the guts. I will remember it all my life. We arrive in the hemicycle which is usually so noisy, and it is very calm. A Marseillaise is launched by a deputy, the “PM” climbs onto the platform, the emotional charge is very strong. Everyone wants to cry, and parliamentarians will stand up five or six times in unison to applaud. He is first surprised by the first ovation, gets his bearings, then rises to the historic moment. The words held the shock and rode the emotion by accompanying everyone. »
“I would have died for this sentence”
On the bench of ministers, we must see the pale faces again. The very placid Bernard Cazeneuve, then Minister of the Interior, was on the verge of tears when Valls praised his commitment. The moment, inevitably, is historic. And the speech? Fundamentally Republican. “I wanted one sentence, enlightens the ex-advisor : “Yes, France is at war against terrorism and radical Islamism. But not at war against Islam and Muslims. » Obviously both parties were needed. I would have died for that sentence! »
Valls was convinced that it was necessary to embody the unity of France so that it did not collapse
Harold Hauzy, former communications advisor to Manuel Valls
“The best response to terrorists who want to destroy our great democracy is law, democracy, the French people,” chants the Prime Minister again. But what was his real influence, in this text which has remained? “He wrote it with me, with his security advisor, with Benjamin Djiane. All his genius is in the addition of this personal memory: “ One of my closest friends told me the other day, his eyes full of tears and sadness, that he was ashamed of being Muslim. Well, I no longer want Jews in our country to be afraid. And I don't want there to be any Muslims who are ashamed because the Republic is fraternal, it is generous, it is there to welcome everyone. » »
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At the end, at the foot of the platform, Harold Hauzy picks up the speech paper and says to Manuel Valls, “I think you gave a historic speech. ” ” Ah good ? » replies the tenant of Matignon, surprised. “The parliamentarians were waiting for action, wanted to be reassured, and were reassured,” Hauzy continues. Valls was convinced that it was necessary to embody the unity of France so that it did not collapse. After the Bataclan then, he was still worried, will the country hold up? Today we must not give up, the challenge is still there, when we see that 22% of people surveyed believe that the Charlie Hebdo cartoon was racist…”
Schism between the Valls of 2015 and that of 2025
What remains of this speech? “The spirit of January 11 (the historic march in Paris), this capacity of France to reveal itself in adversity, this capacity for unity. We need time and memory benchmarks, especially at this moment, at the heart of a serious democratic crisis. Besides, aren't you also writing this article for this reason? » asks the trained psychoanalyst, who now runs a consulting firm.
Beyond the substance, always burning news (fight against anti-Semitism, secularism, republican unity) watching these 45 minutes with the hindsight of 2025 is to confront an almost disturbing feeling. The schism between the Valls of 2015, sure of himself, of his authority, of the emotion transmitted by his perfectly chosen words that day, and the new Minister of Overseas Territories, a hated political leader, after ten years of winding political journey…
“Valls is a captain made to manage crises,” notes Hauzy. He gets very upset when nothing happens, and the more serious it is, the calmer he is. That day, France needed a man with the “fluid of authority”, he had it. But it can also annoy the authority, in calm times. For the rest, I know the man, know what he's worth. There is a break in the image, it's true. Is it the Labor law, the return trip to Barcelona? We would like it to be that, but I don't think so. He pays for having denounced the renunciations of the radical left, its compromise with anti-Semitism and political Islamism. That doesn't exonerate him from everything, but everyone can recognize with a clear head that in this level of hatred, there is something too much. And many people salute his Republican spine. »
