France's Hitler?

It may be a while before the French stop revering Napoleon. Here's a step in the right direction:

Napoleon massacred more than 100,000 Caribbean slaves and should be remembered as a genocidal dictator and inspiration for Hitler rather than a military genius and founder of modern France, a French historian said yesterday.

"I refuse to bow down before the statue any longer, I have opened my eyes," said Claude Ribbe, a respected black academic and part of a governmental commission on human rights whose book, Napoleon's Crime, is published this week, on the bicentenary of the emperor's great triumph at the battle of Austerlitz this Friday.

From the Guardian. Relevant past post here; David A. Bell on Villepin's "Napoleon Complex" here -- excerpt follows, but well worth reading in full:

What would Dominique de Villepin make of the following scenario? The most powerful country in the world, and the self-proclaimed standard-bearer of the West, makes an unprovoked, overwhelming attack on a large Muslim state and occupies it. The leader of the attack claims to be acting preventively, and therefore, ultimately, in self-defense. He also claims to be bringing Western values, and a new era, to the Middle East. But his path is not entirely smooth: in world opinion he is pilloried for atrocities against innocent Muslims.

What would de Villepin make of this? Well, it depends on which country we are talking about. The description may fit the America of George W. Bush, but it certainly fits the France of Napoleon Bonaparte, who invaded and occupied Egypt in the year 1798 (partly as a preventive move against the British Empire). And it is important to understand that for de Villepin, Napoleon is nothing less than a hero of almost Christ-like dimensions.

MORE on the increasingly mixed feelings of the French towards Napoleon here. And note Amir Taheri on "Villepin's 'World Vision'".

Posted by David on November 29, 2005 9:02 AM