France's right-wing leader stands accused of political bodysnatching with a plan to move the author's remains to the Panthéon - burial place of the country's establishmentAlbert Camus had the anguished good looks of a doomed film star, not a writer or philosopher. He died a doomed film star's death, aged 47, when his powerful car skidded on an icy road 100 miles south of Paris and struck a tree on 4 January 1960. Fifty years on, Camus - writer, resistance hero, philanderer and goalkeeper - remains one of the most popular of non-populist writers in the world, and one of the hardest to define. Leftist or libertarian? Novelist or existentialist philosopher? Courageous humanist or heartless womaniser? Like the protagonist of one of his best-known books (L'Etranger), Albert Camus remains an outsider, and any attempt to interpret or categorise him can still cause trouble.President Nicolas Sarkozy, an avid Camus reader since his youth, has blundered into this difficult territory. He wants to claim Albert Camus for the nation, by moving his body to the Panthéon in Paris, the last resting place of great Frenchmen (and of one great French woman). The suggestion has raised a wonderfully French intellectual storm. How dare a right-wing President try to snatch the body of a left-wing hero? (Camus, unlike his sometime friend Jean-Paul Sartre, was never truly a hero of the French left, but no matter). How dare the anti-intellectual President become an intellectual grave-digger and place the Great Outsider inside the secular temple of the Officially Great and Good?
Albert Camus had the anguished good looks of a doomed film star, not a writer or philosopher. He died a doomed film star's death, aged 47, when his powerful car skidded on an icy road 100 miles south of Paris and struck a tree on 4 January 1960. Fifty years on, Camus - writer, resistance hero, philanderer and goalkeeper - remains one of the most popular of non-populist writers in the world, and one of the hardest to define. Leftist or libertarian? Novelist or existentialist philosopher? Courageous humanist or heartless womaniser?
Like the protagonist of one of his best-known books (L'Etranger), Albert Camus remains an outsider, and any attempt to interpret or categorise him can still cause trouble.
President Nicolas Sarkozy, an avid Camus reader since his youth, has blundered into this difficult territory. He wants to claim Albert Camus for the nation, by moving his body to the Panthéon in Paris, the last resting place of great Frenchmen (and of one great French woman). The suggestion has raised a wonderfully French intellectual storm. How dare a right-wing President try to snatch the body of a left-wing hero? (Camus, unlike his sometime friend Jean-Paul Sartre, was never truly a hero of the French left, but no matter). How dare the anti-intellectual President become an intellectual grave-digger and place the Great Outsider inside the secular temple of the Officially Great and Good?
On January 4, 1960, Albert Camus died at the age of 47 in a car accident, cutting short the life of the iconic French writer, philosopher and journalist whose legacy lives on today. In 1957, the author of "L'étranger" ("The Stranger", 1942) and "La Peste" ("The Plague", 1947) became the second-youngest writer ever to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. He remains to this day the laureate who lived the shortest life. In the lead up to the 50-year anniversary of his death, Camus' name has once again been at the forefront of public debate, but this time not for his writing and philosophical views. French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed in November to move the author's remains into the Panthéon, a vast monument in the capital where France's most honoured and revered individuals are buried in Paris. According to Sarkozy, "This would be an extraordinary symbol."
On January 4, 1960, Albert Camus died at the age of 47 in a car accident, cutting short the life of the iconic French writer, philosopher and journalist whose legacy lives on today. In 1957, the author of "L'étranger" ("The Stranger", 1942) and "La Peste" ("The Plague", 1947) became the second-youngest writer ever to receive the Nobel Prize for literature. He remains to this day the laureate who lived the shortest life.
In the lead up to the 50-year anniversary of his death, Camus' name has once again been at the forefront of public debate, but this time not for his writing and philosophical views. French President Nicolas Sarkozy proposed in November to move the author's remains into the Panthéon, a vast monument in the capital where France's most honoured and revered individuals are buried in Paris. According to Sarkozy, "This would be an extraordinary symbol."
