Overcoming Everything, or at Least Trying: An Interview with Patrice Franceschi

Patrice, you have just published a new book, Tout surmonter ou du moins essayer (« Overcoming Everything, or at Least Trying »), with Albin Michel. What do you mean by this title?

That it is a small book of apprenticeship, written first of all for myself, on how it is always possible (or almost: that is the book’s subtitle) to overcome life’s trials, since life boils down, in the end, to having to overcome a succession of trials, up to the last one, which is, as everyone knows, fatal. What matters is to be able to say at the end, all the same: we won. From these personal trials, I tried to draw a timeless and universal lesson, positive and joyful, that might, possibly, serve each of us. After all, aren’t writers here to pass on their experience, if they have managed to turn it into awareness?

Do you have an example that illustrates the title?

Of the ten trials I took pleasure in reviewing in this book (betrayal, shattered dreams, conformism, adversity, prison, death, stupidity…, fear, and great disappointed dreams), I will single out conformism and say a few words to define it. In my eyes, conformism is a form of spiritual sickness, especially pernicious under its innocuous appearance. The first effect of this sickness is to thwart youthful vocations when they lie off the beaten path. As a result, the first battle of life in adolescence is to overcome this conformism that fossilizes our societies, the tomb of all dreams, in order to chart one’s own road and create one’s own values.

Among the challenges that threaten us today, which one mobilizes you the most?

The defense of the country, at a time when the storms of history are drawing closer. We are very poorly prepared after decades of neglect. This is the subject of my next book, due out at the time of the presidential elections in order to make it, if possible, an electoral issue, and titled « Ces guerres que nous allons perdre… mais comment les gagner » (« The Wars We Are Going to Lose… and How to Win Them »). It is a manifesto, written with Jean-Christian Kipp, on a precise project for an end state for the defense of France over two or three generations, allowing us to become prey so hard to digest that no one will dare to attack us.

Tout surmonter ou du moins essayer, Patrice Franceschi, Éditions Albin Michel.

Note that Patrice Franceschi is the first author to institute a label against AI, with the words « Book guaranteed AI-free. Humans speaking to humans » on the back of the book.