Tribute to Roland Dumas, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, who died at 101

Tribute to Roland Dumas, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, who died at 101

It was at the canonical age of 101 that Roland Dumas, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Mitterrand, passed away on Wednesday, July 3.

Branded by the Elf affair from which he would ultimately emerge exonerated, this faithful among the faithful of the man with the rose and a resistance fighter from the very beginning against Nazi barbarity was not afraid of going against the dominant doxa, of being called a conspiracy theorist, or of attracting the wrath of the ardent defenders of Israel in France.

In 2010, on the set of Tonight or nevers, the late President of the Constitutional Council declared, not without a certain panache, in the face of formidable adversity: not to believe in September 11 (…) There are a lot of abnormal facts in the official version.” In 2011, while he was staying in Libya at the invitation of Muammar Gaddafi, who was the target of military strikes, he announced his intention to file a complaint against President Nicolas Sarkozy for “crimes against humanity”. Finally, in 2015, he sparked a storm of protest by castigating Manuel Valls, then Prime Minister, whom he strongly deplored and claimed was under Jewish influence”.

Fourteen years ago, Roland Dumas agreed to open his doors to the cameras of OummaTV. He did us the honor of granting us a frank interview, in the privacy of his office, during which he shared his harsh observation: “Yesterday’s Judeophobia has given way to today’s Islamophobia.”

At a time when the great peril of the extreme right is hovering over France as rarely before, there is no doubt that Roland Dumas would not have used circumlocutions to call on voters not to succumb to the strident sirens of the RN.

We invite you to discover three extracts from his remarkable speech, carried out at his home in Paris in 2010: