Michael Dray. One Macron can hide another… – Tribune Juive

“Who is Macron? For some, impressed by his power of seduction and his reformist rhetoric, he would be the natural son of Kennedy and Mendes-France. We can doubt it; the first had more charisma and the second more principles. For others, he would be Brutus, Caesar’s adopted son. The Roman who looks more like Macron is not Brutus, it is Macron”. This declaration is signed – excuse me – by Edouard Philippe on January 18, 2018 in the columns of a major French daily (1) But then, which Macron is he talking about? Would the President by any chance have a lining ?

Let’s be reassured. Emmanuel Macron does not have the gift of ubiquity and he fully assumes his function. Edouard Philippe evoked the other Macron, the one who, first under Tiberius, then under Caligula was prefect of the Vigils (a sort of prefect of police at the time) before becoming prefect of the Praetorium, in other words the man in the shadows controlling the networks most influential in the Roman Empire. Macron lived from 21 BC until 38. Coming from a modest background, he had a dazzling career as a senior civil servant leading him to the highest spheres of the State (hold him too?) You should know that in these times very remote, to access the social ladder, it was hardly necessary to be stifled by scruples. Although zealous and without qualms, Macron-the ancient nothing of a fool (like the Macron made in the 21st century, let us recognize this quality in him) Thus, when it had just been reported to Tiberius that the Jewish prince Agrippa, raised at court to the title of prince descending from the Maccabees, during a banquet “hoped” for the death of Tiberius, held by a groom, Tiberius, as usual, simmers the groom by throwing him in prison. But he summons Agrippa. Macron is present. Tiberius convinced that the groom told the truth, he orders Macron to chain the Jewish prince. Macron pretending not to understand the imperial order (he knows that Agrippa is not just anyone) hesitates and chains the poor groom. Tibère goes into a black rage and tells him that it is Agrippa who must be chained, not the other (2) Macron who knows that the characteristic of the wind is that it always and often turns in the direction in which we does not wait for him, too, faced with an aging and reclusive Tiberius far from the agitations of Rome in his quasi-fortress of Capri, he decides to betray Tiberius. Macron-the ancient for whom power was decidedly second nature (for the other as well) plays the Caligula card successfully. The first order that the “not yet emperor” Caligula gives to Macron is to assassinate the emperor so that he can finally become master of Rome(3). Macron will run ignorant like everyone in the Empire that this new emperor will end up mired in his paranoid delusions will go so far as to name his horse brigadier general. He will die larded with several swords.

Journalists have quibbled a lot about the fact that one of the trademarks by Macron-the ancient was betrayal and that, by pushing the envelope a little too much, said journalists would see themselves rewriting history, drawing inspiration from Macron’s betrayal-the ancient to explain Emmanuel’s betrayal of François Hollande. As far as I’m concerned, and without being a rabid follower of reincarnation, I’m quite dumbfounded by these “two” Macrons that History sends back to us with very strange similarities.

But as my concierge says, everyone sees Macron at their door.

Fortunately times pass and with them certain practices which today would lead straight to the Court of Assizes. Macron made in the 21st century certainly doesn’t taste like blood like its Roman namesake. But, he has the same proclivity for ambition no-limit. In 2001, didn’t he write a thesis for a DEA master’s degree at the University of Nanterre on Machiavelli? Decidedly we do not redo!

Come on, let’s forget about Machiavelli and come back to more current problems like the troubles that are rocking Jerusalem in particular and the Middle East in general. Gold, Macron made in the 21st century, furious irony of history, is confronted with the same questions as Quintus Naevius Sutorius Macron. Indeed, Caligula, who has definitely gone crazy, demands that his statue be placed in the Temple of Jerusalem, a completely unacceptable fact for the Jews, especially since, by imperial edict, Tiberius had reiterated freedom of worship and respect for customs in Judea. Very serious troubles ensued, which Rome intended to quell in its own way. Now, Judea and Samaria has a king, the last king of the Jews in the person of Agrippa I, descended through his mother from the Maccabees. Agrippa I, who wants to avoid a bloodbath at all costs, embarks for Ostia in order to meet Caligula in Rome, whom he has known since childhood, and with whom he has played the four hundred blows; in short, all this should be links. However, the all-powerful Macron, who decidedly wants to be caliph instead of the caliph, does not like this king of the Jews very much. To tell the truth, he believes more in the military power of Rome than in that of Agrippa I who, however, is far from having a phantom army behind him. Moreover Agrippa knows that he is walking on eggshells because no one in Rome is unaware of the level of madness Caligula has reached. The man is totally uncontrollable, megalomaniac, neurotic to the marrow and caught up in delirium that goes beyond anything that can be imagined even from a crank (4) So Agrippa I is perfectly aware that by penetrating in the emperor’s lair and to defend the cause of the Jews there, he risks his neck. Macron taking advantage of this deleterious situation, and knowing better than anyone how to manipulate Caligula, convinces the mentally ill – who was nevertheless the friend of Agrippa I – that the latter seeks to taunt Rome and therefore his own person. Agrippa pleads his case. Caligula unexpectedly lets him go back to Jerusalem (5) but we suspect he has some idea in mind. In fact, mad as he is, he distrusts Macron and sends him to Egypt, in other words, he sends him away. But once in Ostia, when he was about to embark, Macron, for an as yet unexplained reason, was summoned along with his wife to commit suicide. Thus dies Macron-the ancient.

This story is true from start to finish. And curiously, the Israeli Prime Minister comes to meet Emmanuel Macron within 24 hours. They will discuss the troubles in Jerusalem and the Middle East. Suffice to say that there is nothing new in the sun except that under Agrippa I Hamas did not exist and that Netanyahu does not risk much at the Elysée. It prevents. The data remains the same. Caligula wanted to put his statue in the Temple, and Hamas attacks the synagogues. Caligula denies Jews the right to worship and custom just as Macron refuses to recognize Jerusalem as the capital. The two men will have to speak without concessions and nothing suggests a warming of Franco-Israeli relations.

Macron-the ancient ended up under the sword of power. Let’s hope that Macron made in the 21st century don’t end up under pressure from the street.

As my concierge says — decidedly very cultured — O tempora, O mores.(5)

© Michel Dray

NOTES

(1): “Release” of January 18, 2018

(2): Reported by Flavius ​​Josephus in Judaic Antiquities and taken up by Heinrich Graetz, Legrand Jewish historian of the 19th century in History of the Jews, the Herodians: Agrippa I. (published in Germany in 1882)

(3): Historians still debate the death of Tiberius. Many believe that this 77-year-old man died of natural causes. Suetonius in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars categorically leans towards assassination. The succession of Tiberius did not pass so easily but I am grateful to the reader for the regular assassinations which allowed Caligula to accede to the Throne.

(4): While he is campaigning to invade Brittany (today’s Britain) the bad weather that reigns in this region pushes him to abandon the game. It is then that he orders his soldiers to fill their helmets with shells, because, he says, they are nature’s homage to the king of the universe that he is. The fact is proven. We can imagine the slices of laughter within the army!

(5): Flavius ​​Josephus in The Jewish War says that this is a sign of providence. I rather think that it is their friendship since childhood which played in this departure.

(6° Latin formula roughly meaning “another time, other customs”

Historian, Analyst in Mediterranean geopolitics, Michel Dray has been working for many years with universities, writers, civil society actors and researchers as part of a Think Thank outside of social networks on geopolitical analyzes in the Mediterranean.