The Meaning of History

On December 30, 2006, the day before New Year's Eve, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was hanged. Why did the news of his execution plunge Isabelle into such sudden sadness? At 37, she should have been fulfilled: an interesting job, a secure life, an ambitious husband, two handsome sons, a lovely little house in a recently built, tidy residential area on the outskirts of Orléans. So what? What connection did Saddam's death have to her life? February 1991. The University of Paris 8 mobilized against the first Gulf War. Isabelle discovered this unconventional university, its professors with their unconventional teaching methods, its activist students, its labyrinthine, smoke-filled corridors. December 2006. The death of Saddam Hussein echoes for Isabelle the death of her illusions, the illusion of a new world, a different world, a better world that would give meaning to the history of women and men. 1991, hope; 2006, death: is this ultimately the meaning of history? The meaning of her own story, Isabelle's?

Antipodes

What is the narrator fleeing by accepting a position in New Caledonia, 22,000 kilometers from mainland France? At the other end of the world, he discovers this French territory, considered by the UN to be one of the last colonies on the planet. A territory where two worlds coexist, completely unrelated to each other: the "bush" and the capital, Nouméa. Nouméa. A strange microcosm still living in the 1980s. Here, life is good. Very good, in fact. People have fun, play games, and enjoy the sun and the sea year-round. For those who live there, the idea of independence is meaningless. At least, not in the minds of those who matter: in the minds of the white people. They are kind, carefree, and willfully blind to the poverty and misery they encounter in Nouméa. A small town, lost in the Pacific. Yet, it strangely reminds the narrator of another city, far away: Monaco. In the 1980s, when he was a teenager, a wealthy uncle invited him for vacation. Every summer, his uncle's friends came too. People revolted and outraged by François Mitterrand's recent victory and the left's rise to power. Men, exclusively. Or almost. Bitter, unhealthy, contemptuous men. Vicious men, often. Dangerous men, sometimes. Every year, the narrator went on vacation to Monaco. But why? Nouméa will tell him.