beneath the extraordinary dome for the
first public performance of an unusual
work by Pascal Dusapin, regarded in
the music world as one of the greatest
living composers. Macron personally
commissioned choral pieces by Dusapin
— as well as paintings and sculptures by
Anselm Kiefer, the war-obsessed German
artist, another favourite at court. The
works were ordered to accompany the
“Panthéonisation” in 2020 of Maurice
Genevoix, an author who fought in the
First World War and wrote of its horrors
in The Men of 14. It was the first time in
nearly a century that a French president
had ordered the creation of new works
for this national monument. So thrilled
was Macron by Dusapin’s piece that he
commissioned a second, longer choral
work, which is now echoing all around us.
“I wanted to make the stones sing,”
says Dusapin, 66, a towering figure with
an impressive mane, as we stroll beneath
the 80m-high dome.
Near by are two vast canvases by Kiefer
evoking no man’s land as well as a series
of his installations hinting at the trenches,
with coils of tangled barbed wire andrusting metal enclosed in giant glass cases.
Segments of Dusapin’s original work,
interspersed with the names of thousands
of dead soldiers read by his wife, Florence
Darel, a well-known actress, will now play
every 15 minutes during public opening
hours at the fabled secular temple on the
Left Bank. A computer programme ensures
that no sequence of notes in this eternal
loop is ever repeated, according to Dusapin.
Macron was involved every step of the
way. “I spent a lot of time discussing it with
him,” Dusapin says, referring to meetings
with the president, sometimes over a fine
malt whisky in the Élysée Palace or under
the Panthéon dome. The president, an
accomplished pianist who once won a prize
at the Amiens conservatoire, was in the
habit of dropping in on the work site to
sample the astonishing acoustics for
himself. “From architecture to music and
literature, he is really very cultivated,”Dusapin says. “He has a real respect for
the value and power of art.”
One evening last year the grateful
president invited Dusapin, Darel and the
Kiefers to dinner with him and Brigitte
at home in the palace. After champagne
and turbot, Macron poured them vodka
from a bottle nestling, along with half
a dozen shot glasses, inside an outsized
Fabergé egg, a gift from Putin in happier
days before the war.
Dusapin and Darel approve of Macron’s
efforts to talk sense into the Russian
president in more than a dozen marathon
telephone conversations since his invasion
of Ukraine. “Can you imagine any of the
other presidential candidates talking to
Putin with such confidence or authority?”
asks Darel, 54.
From the beginning of his reign the
ambitious French leader had pivoted to
Putin, inviting him to Versailles, eager to
strengthen European ties with Russia to
secure its co-operation in the dispute over
Iran’s nuclear ambitions and other global
flashpoints. “Pushing Russia away from
Europe is a profound strategic error,
because we will push it either into an
isolation that increases tensions or into
alliances with other great powers such
as China,” he told a gathering of
ambassadors in Paris in August 2019.
Acting now as Putin’s chief European
interlocutor, he takes inspiration from
Sarkozy, who played the same role when
Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. “Someone
has to keep the channels open to Putin and
our president can do that,” says a French
diplomatic source. “In fact he may be the
only one who can.”
Even if Macron’s diplomacy failed, it
has done him no harm. On the contrary,
the war has put pro-Putin populists on
the defensive. Last month Le Pen had
to destroy a million campaign leaflets
depicting her shaking the Russian leader’s
hand. Zemmour, 63, did himself no favours
on a campaign stop by describing Ukraine
as a “distraction” from the more important
“threat from the south”, a reference to
African immigrants. Not realising the
cameras were still running, he was heard
exclaiming “Putain!” — which translates
into various English profanities — when
Sarah Knafo, 28, his campaign adviser, who
is pregnant with his child, explained that
he urgently needed to take back his remark.
Macron, by contrast, has been able to use
all the levers of office to cast himself on a
plane above the vulgar mêlée of those out
to dethrone him. “He believes in strong
leadership — strong leaders are good in
Macron’s book,” says Vincent Martigny,
a professor of political science at the
University of Nice. “And to be strong on
the international stage, you have to show
signs of strength,” he adds, citing Macron’s
extraordinary handshake with Donald
Trump, when he beat the AmericanPRO-PUTIN POPULISTS ARE ON THE DEFENSIVE.
MARINE LE PEN HAD TO DESTROY A MILLION
LEAFLETS DEPICTING HER SHAKING HIS HAND
ALAMY, GETTY IMAGES, BACKGRID, REX, REUTERS
Above: Macron’s main election rivals,
clockwise from top left, Marine Le Pen
(with Putin in 2017); Éric Zemmour; Valérie
Pécresse; and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Right:
getting to grips with Donald Trump, 2017➤The Sunday Times Magazine • 13