LETTER FROM PARIS:IRISH FRANCOPHILES may celebrate tomorrow when the National Centre for Franco-Irish Studies is officially launched at the Institute of Technology in Tallaght (ITT). The first and only organisation of its kind, the centre will promote the study of France from an Irish perspective and vice versa. It is born of the conviction of its director, Dr Eamon Maher, that the two countries have a lot to learn from each other.
For example, Ireland "needs to learn how to deal with wealth", Dr Maher explains. "The French have had a lot more of it for a lot longer. They've built proper infrastructure, public transport, efficient health and educational systems. And they've preserved a high quality of life, while we seem to go around in a mad, frantic rush."
Ireland has long derived "intellectual nourishment" from France, and will continue to do so, Dr Maher predicts. He would like to see public intellectuals gain a status in Ireland comparable to their prestige in France. In the meantime, a generation of Irish university graduates has been influenced by French thinkers including Baudrillard, Derrida, Foucault and Lacan, he says.
"People like Derrida show you there are no givens, that it's not sufficient to passively accept things that seem to be true. You need to analyse them, deconstruct them," Dr Maher says.
"When the Irish reacted to revelations about clerical child abuse and corruption among some of our politicians, it seemed as if they were using the tools of French intellectual theory to break down and critique society."
The thing France most needs to learn from Ireland is a certain flexibility. "There is no such thing as a definite 'no' in Ireland," Dr Maher explains. "You can always negotiate, whereas in France, 'non' means 'non'." That need for flexibility is particularly acute in business, along with the need for less bureaucracy, more entrepreneurial initiative and a social partnership similar to Ireland's.
The former French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin's "brave stance" in opposing the US invasion of Iraq in the UN was extremely different from "Irish pragmatism, or moral cowardice" in allowing the US military to use the airport at Shannon, Dr Maher says.
He also believes France's policy of forcing immigrants to integrate may be more effective than Irish multiculturalism. Dr Maher is not sure whether the French will follow President Sarkozy's lead in cosying up to the US and Britain: "A lot will depend on his ability to delivery on the economy."
The fact that both countries are predominantly Catholic and republics has strengthened their friendship, Dr Maher says. Though it may be coincidental, he sees a convergence between President Sarkozy's recent efforts to promote "positive secularism" in France and Bertie Ahern's denunciation of "aggressive secularism" in 2006. "He figured we were losing sight of the positive aspects of Catholicism," Dr Maher explains. "Nicolas Sarkozy and Bertie Ahern are on the same wavelength. Both of them are extremely sensitive to what the public thinks, and they realise not everybody is happy with a society completely governed by secular values."
Dr Maher studied history and French at NUI Galway and wrote his doctoral thesis on the French priest writer Jean Sulivan. He has concentrated on literary representations of Catholicism, including the French Catholic writers Georges Bernanos, François Mauriac and Julien Green. "I'm fascinated by the fact there never emerged a Catholic novel in Ireland. Why?" he asks. "We were probably too close to it. Maybe now the time is right for a Catholic novel to emerge in Ireland."
The novelty of the Centre for Franco-Irish Studies is its multidisciplinary approach, says Dr Maher, facilitated by the fact that ITT houses schools of business and humanities. Themes taken up by postgraduate students at the centre include the influence of secularism on Catholic practice in Ireland; women and the city in the poetry of Charles Baudelaire and Peter Sirr; and a Lacanian (after the psychoanalyst Jacques) reading of the works of three Irish novelists.
Dr Maher and his two chief cohorts, Dr Grace Neville of University College Cork and Dr Eugene O'Brien of Mary Immaculate College Limerick, have strong literary backgrounds. But they want the centre to delve into other aspects of Franco-Irish relations.
One of Dr Maher's colleagues is researching the lack of effort put into the marketing of French wine in Ireland. A chapter in Maher, O'Brien's and Neville's last book, Reinventing Ireland Through a French Prism, explores the work of French writers on Irish rugby.
The centre is financed by the French embassy in Dublin and by ITT. Dr Tim Creedon, the president of ITT, will give the first speech at the launch. The presence of the French ambassador Yvon Roë d'Albert and Ireland's Ambassador to France, Anne Anderson, "shows the commitment of both governments to the project," says Dr Maher. At the reception, 70 guests will be treated to "French wine, French champagne and French cuisine, but Irish craic".
