A reminder for those who forgot recent history that there was a time - not that long ago - when France used to have its own independent view of the world. A time when France's range of acceptable opinion on China was wide enough that its flagship news magazine (not at all known for its communist leanings) hailed Mao as "a giant of history, poet, strategist and prophet" on a 1976 cover 👇 And a time when a centre-right French president - Giscard d’Estaing - mourned him as "a beacon of world thought" ( Today, saying something even remotely positive - or even neutral/nuanced - about China immediately gets you branded as a "CCP propagandist paid by China to bring down the West" 😅 I laugh but it's actually pretty sad when you think about it: not that France should go back to calling Mao - or Xi - a prophet, but, almost by definition, a country whose range of acceptable opinions has so dramatically shrunk in so little time has entered a new dark age, branding every dissonant voice a heretic and every attempt at understanding an act of treason. Which means, somewhat paradoxically, that those who refuse the doxa and still dare to express nuanced opinions, and get called traitors for it, may actually be the most patriotic of the lot, those who believe in France the most.