France Albert Camus anarchist comments as "Camus said he was an anarchist at heart and a social democrat of reason". In a documentary broadcast this Wednesday January 22 at 9:05 p.m. on France 3, Georges-Marc Benamou attempts to sketch the complexity of the famous writer's multiple political commitments.

Georges-Marc Benamou is a French film producer and journalist. He directed the documentary "The lives of Albert Camus", broadcast this Wednesday January 22 at 9:05 pm on France 3.

What is striking when we look at the short life of Albert Camus (since he won the Nobel Prize at 43 and died at 46) is his intensity and the multiple fronts that will deploy there very early. First of all thanks to his masters: first there is the famous teacher Germain, who helps him out of the misery of Belcourt; his philosophy professor Jean Grenier who encouraged him to write.

France Albert Camus anarchist comments

Camus is a novelist, he is a journalist, he is a playwright, philosopher, actor of the Algerian drama, he is the friend and then the enemy of Sartre ...

His tuberculosis is also important, since it prevents him from playing football which was his passion and brings him to writing. My project is not to do a thesis on Camus, but I wanted to try to understand this work-life, which is multiple by the modes of expression and the political commitments that he made. Camus is a novelist, he is a journalist, he is a playwright, philosopher, actor of the Algerian drama, he is the friend and then the enemy of Sartre ...

His legacy is claimed by both the left and the right. Did he belong to a camp or was he unclassifiable?

Albert Camus is fortunately unclassifiable. It does not correspond to traditional canons. He is a figure of the anti-totalitarian left, with whom a part of the left is in conflict and who ultimately finds himself allied with a certain right on specific themes. Camus said he was "an anarchist at heart and a social democrat of reason". In fact, his positions on communism as an ideology, on totalitarianism in general, on the Americans' use of nuclear weapons or on the Algerian war made him unclassifiable because he was a free man. In Algeria, he was one of the first intellectuals, at only 23 years old, to denounce colonialism, notably in his article "Misère de la Kabylie" in Alger Républicain. He was also the first to sound the alarm in the 1950s when terror came. From this point of view, Albert Camus is both visionary and just. With Raymond Aron, he is probably the only French intellectual who has not gone astray in the deadly ideologies of the 20th century.

Is it his unclassifiable side that makes him an intellectual apart? Can it be said that he fought against single thought?

It has long been more fashionable, in a way, to be wrong about totalitarianism or the Algerian war with Sartre ... rather than side with Camus. This film proceeds from a readjustment, in order to revisit the share of responsibility that many French intellectuals have had.
Read also: Albert Camus, Journey to the end of the absurd

Because Camus distinguished himself from the left of his time. First there is a real friendship between Sartre and Camus, which begins with their meeting in 1942, until the fatal annoyance at the time of the exit of The revolting man. Simone de Beauvoir played a role, which I believe to be very harmful, in this scramble which is at the same time theoretical, ideological but also romantic. There is a lot of theoretical, ethical and romantic in their opposition.

Why was his position on Algeria so misunderstood at the time?

It was the political conformism of the time ... Camus sounded the alarm in 1945, at the time of the events in Setif, which heralded the revolution. He tries to propose a federal solution, in a way similar to what will become of Mandela's South Africa, by imagining that Mendès France will be able to install it as he had done in Tunisia. But in 1956, he encountered political reality: the Fourth Republic capitulated to his army and the machine of terror was launched.

Camus sees the tears coming, he understands the Algerian misfortune.

He wanted to defend a real alternative project, notably through the Call for a Civil Truce which was his great project launched in January 1956, in the hope that Mendès France would come to power. But it’s Guy Mollet who wins ... Camus sees the tears coming, he understands the Algerian misfortune. He understands that the worst FLN will win, that is to say an Islamo-Marxist FNL. He sees Bouteflika coming, at the same time as Sartre explains that to kill a pied-noir is to kill a colonizer and that frees an oppressed.

So when the Third and the Fourth Republic lacked political audacity and imagination, Albert Camus was anticipator.

Camus reasoned out of loyalty to his own?

He was a figure hated by the supporters of French Algeria who did not understand the complexity of his message. He has undergone assassination attempts by certain Algerian counter-terrorist groups. It’s a very complicated story. We only really grasped recently the complexity and the exigency of its position, and also its heartbreak.