ON A wooded bend of the Seine, as it winds its way downstream from Paris, sits the fine town of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine. Houseboats are moored at the stone quay. Halyards frap against masts. Container barges chug past on their way to the coast at Le Havre. The town’s embrace of the river that joins it both to France’s capital and to the port town in Normandy hints at another sort of connection, too. For it embodies an intellectual current that flows to the new president, Emmanuel Macron, as well as his prime minister, Edouard Philippe.
Conflans-Sainte-Honorine is best known as the place that launched Michel Rocard (pictured), a former Socialist prime minister, who was the town’s mayor in 1977-94. His ambition to create a moderate centre-left set him for years on a collision course with François Mitterrand, a former Socialist president, who was wedded to an anti-capitalist doctrine. Mitterrand won that battle, becoming president twice...Continue reading
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