France has a president who is big on remembrance. Emmanuel Macron has put historians to work on Algeria and Rwanda as well as calling for conversations on colonialism and slavery. Now, exactly a year before the presidential election, Macron is going all in on Napoléon, with a wreath-laying ceremony at the emperor's tomb at Paris's Les Invalides armoury.
His government insists the 200th anniversary of Napoléon's death is a commemoration, not a celebration. We ask our panel about that and the legacy of Napoléon Bonaparte: a reformer who modernised the state or a tyrant who cracked down on dissent and rolled back freedoms borne of the French Revolution?
Every era sees Napoléon in a different light and French history is regularly infused with calls for providential larger-than-life figures. Macron himself promised a Jupiterean presidency when in 2017 he succeeded leaders who were deemed weak. But is another Napoléon what the French really want?
Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.
