Syrian poet Adonis accuses France of betraying the French Revolution

The Syrian poet Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said), one of the most celebrated Arab poets ever, accused France of “betraying the principles of the French revolution” by backing the “fundamentalist movements” constituted by the Arab Spring; he referred in particular to the Syrian revolution. The Paris-based Adonis said, “Whoever follows the current politics of France will see that it is betraying the principles of the French revolution.” Speaking to the French magazine Africa-Asia, Adonis added, “Instead of backing civil and democratic currents that promote values of difference and multiplicity with a view to developing an inclusive revolution that pushes Arab societies, which are still caught in the Middle-Ages, into modernity, it backs the fundamentalist and retroactive movements in the name of human rights.” Adonis is known to oppose the current revolutions in the Arab region, seeing them as “religious revolutions”, especially the one taking place in Syria, which he left to Lebanon in 1956 before moving to France in 1985; he is a professor at the prestigious Sorbonne University.