Stéphane Bern, a television personality in France, had just had lunch with a Senator that day in May 2015 and was leaving the Senate in his car when he almost accidentally hit a speeding pedestrian. It was Emmanuel Macron, then Economy Minister. The young pastor said to him:
“Ah, Stephane Bern! My wife loves it, we always watch Secrets d’Histoire.
Macron asked for the phone. Fifteen days later, Bern had dinner with Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron and a friendship was formed that lasts to this day. But there is another important aspect to this episode. And it was the popular TV show that Stéphane Bern (Lyon, 59 years old) has hosted on French public television since 2007 that started the connection, the spark of friendship.
rode (Mysteries of History) is an approximately one hour and forty minute monthly program about a famous historical figure with a fondness, if not only, for the kings and queens of France of the past. The program mixes the mediation of historical events, documentaries about châteaux and French and European heritage sites, and dramatization of historical episodes with actors.
All this under the leadership of Bern, France’s most famous specialist in the world of royals and at the forefront of this country’s most popular television personalities. An always-smiling guy, a born communicator, with no discernible ideological edges — unless you factor in his monarchical sympathies in the republic that beheaded a king — and well-connected with those in power, be they kings or heads of state. To get an impression of the programme: in the last few months it has been possible to see Secrets d’Histoire dedicated to Nostradamus, the royal D’Artagnan, Louis XVI. or the love between the sculptors Auguste Rodin and Camille Claudel. In the past they had earned the privilege of mentioning only two characters associated with Spain, Isabel la Católica and Juan Carlos I.
The secret of Secrets d’Histoire? Stéphane Bern on the phone from Monaco: “It’s didactic in form, sometimes even playful and definitely easy.” And very rigorous in the background”.
In France, the mix of history and spectacle is a specialty. The most famous example is the Puy du Fou, the amusement park in western France, in the old counter-revolutionary region of Vendée, which landed in Spain in 2019. Like the Puy du Fou, Secrets d’Histoire offers history accessible to all audiences. Like Puy du Fou, it illuminates the epic and dramatic part of the past. It shares an aesthetic kinship with the Puy du Fou: critics would call it kitschy; different, immersive experience. Definitely the will to embody the story in vivid characters and scenes. There are also obvious differences, such as the ideological roots of the Puy du Fou, founded by ultra-conservative politician Philippe de Villiers; or something Stéphane Bern insists: “I don’t do shows and there is no ideology in what I do.”
Host Stéphane Bern arrives at the Élysée Palace in September 2021 for a private dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Chesnot (Getty Images)
What exactly does Stéphane Bern do? Many of the debates that plague France today are projected in Bern’s work and in Secrets d’Histoire. One of these debates is that of the so-called “national history”, a term that describes the project of writing a more glorious history of France that can inspire and unite everything in a divided country. Bern rejects the term “national history” because he says that what he is doing is neither fiction nor national history. And he is also European. But some historians have accused him of conveying a certain vision of France and the past beneath the patina of an entertaining and smiling tale of kings and queens – the love affairs, the dramas, the struggles for power.
In a 2013 essay titled “The Historians on Duty,” a group of historians denounced “a return with the force of.” [un] kind of retrograde and identity history” that tried to “fix historical history forever in a national and heroic framework”. The book was primarily aimed at popularizers and bestselling authors such as Lorànt Deutsch and Franck Ferrrand. But this also included Stéphane Bern, who was ironically referred to as the “cuddly bear” of this trend because, according to the authors, it would be their nicest and most likeable version.
“What we accuse him of is not that he is informative, but that he chooses topics to talk about the history of France and not just France, revolving around great figures, especially kings and queens, to the detriment of a greater social one and shall we say, the most Republican in history,” says Christophe Naudin, co-author of The Historians on Duty, over the phone. This historian considers that the basic argument of the Bern programs is that the golden age of France is the monarchy, that it is the great figures and not the people who wrote its history, and that the revolution is “a moment of violence and violence” is loss of references”. “He has the right to think so,” he continues, “but what he is accused of is the place he occupies in the French media.” However, Naudin adds a nuance: “Since we published the book, there were interesting chapters in Secrets d’Histoires and I feel that the criticism has been reasonably taken into account.”
“I start from the tenet,” says Bern, “that history can be explained through stories we are familiar with, stories about the lives of people who have shared with us the human passions that are love, power, and desire .” Money. That applies from Julius Caesar to Nicolas Sarkozy.” His obsession is that the general public and especially young people are interested in history. “I never said I was a historian! I’m a storyteller!”
Reactionary? “Under the pretext that we’re talking about kings, queens and famous people from our history, that’s considered reactionary, but if you watch the show, I’m not making politics at any point or saying what I think.” No one can guess my opinion I use the same empathy to talk about it[l revolucionario] Danton as of Louis XIV.” When asked how he should define himself ideologically, he replies: “First of all, I am a democrat. I like variety.” He explains his monarchist sympathies with his Luxembourg origins. “Socially,” he adds, “I’m more centre-left: I was pro-gay marriage and against racism and anti-Semitism.” A few years ago, she posed with her partner on the cover of Paris Match magazine.
Another charge he was accused of was his closeness to power. Who knows, maybe a hundred years from now, Stéphane Bern will appear in a Secrets d’Histoire or equivalent when he talks about King Macron’s court.
“I am the king’s fool,” he explains. “The fool is the one who can say anything on condition that he is funny, and that was what guaranteed him impunity. I am not a courtier and the President knows it.”
After coming to power in 2017, Macron tasked him with an unpaid mission to preserve France’s cultural heritage. Today, the talks between the two are about this official order, but topics such as wind farms are also discussed (Macron in favor; Bern against). And sometimes, with Emmanuel, but especially with Brigitte, he talks about the mysteries of history.
“He also makes comments about me,” emphasizes Bern. “Always friendly.”
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