1- For our readers who don't know you yet, can you present yourself ?
“ Hello, I'm 44 years old, married, father of two children and since 2008 I live in Moscow where I've founded a recruitment and human resources agency.
I've being knowned by my pen name for 13 years and I've took many public position papers on Russia and I'm managing a blog in which I've written more than 1200 articles on Russia, translated in 10 languages.
The blog is about Russia on the geopolitical, political, demographic, cultural, religious aspect and of course treats of the media war and the misinformation in the French media.
I have been for a long time, between 2010 and 2016, one of the most constant French bloggers of various Russian news agencies (RIA-Novosti, Voice of Russia, Sputnik ...).
I wrote a lot from 2008 to 2016 with many interventions in the French, Russian and other media and I'm also the author of 3 books on Russia, the last one being: " un printemps russe " published in 2016 by Les Syrtes, which is about the history of Russia from 1991 to 2016.
I consider myself as a Frussian which is a term I've created and which could perfectly become the label of a new community of French people in Russia. I consider myself mostly as a conservative on the moral aspect and the societal and civilizational aspects as well but a progressive on the scientific and technical aspects."
2-: Tell us a little about your youth, where are you from? What has been your career path?
"I was born in the south of France and did my schooling in Africa, at the French high school of Pointe Noire in Congo. My life in Africa was dedicated to sports, mainly surfing which was my great passion. Far from metropolitan France (where I only went for vacations during summers), back then I had no political or civilizational consciousness.
After the french baccalaureate I went back to France to study law and Slavic languages in the city of Bordeaux. During the decade that followed during my studies, I was able to witness the degradation of the general situation in Bordeaux and in France.
In 1999 I got involved in humanitarian work for Serbia and my various stays there during the years that followed awakened me about the East and greatly boosted my desire to leave France and its new realities. This is what I did at the end of winter 2008, my final departure from France was done, by chance, on the day of the proclamation of the independence of Kosovo, quite a symbol."
3-: What are your past projects and successes? What led you to launch your projects?
"I guess the first of the projects/successes is starting a family and endorsing the responsibility of a family. Children are what makes you a real adult.
Another was to move to Russia. Moving and integrating in Russia is complex. You don't necessarily find quickly what you think you will, it's a complex country that is changing very fast, you have to master the administration, the climate and 1,000 other unexpected difficulties, but there is a counterpart, living in a free and sovereign country that is developing, it's a feeling that gives hope.
I believe that Russia appeared as "a choice", quite simply. Then to undertake. Being an entrepreneur is to choose to be free, to take risks, especially in a complex country like Russia where you can be at the mercy of external events, unxpected events that disrupt the economic ecosystem. To be an entrepreneur, you need strength, resilience, and the ability to work, but above all, you must accept the consequences of your decisions and actions.
Few people know it but historically the word entrepreneur comes from the world of chivalry: the "entrepreneur knight"in the courtly novel, is the one who carries out heroic actions of combat, aimed at defending a just cause."
4-: Can you explain to us more in details what are your projects aboutand why are you doing what you're doing ?
"My plans today are simple: to raise my children, to take care of my family, to continue to live in Russia, in Moscow without any doubt and to write of course...
From a more creative or political point of view if I may say so, I am indeed relaunching my blog DISSONANCE after a break of almost 4 years. It will be on the theme; "diary of a Frussian". The objective is to continue to talk about Russia and to explain what is happening there, what evolutions the country is going through and how Russia is in many aspects an open-air laboratory and probably a political model to survive the current century and its great challenges.
I also plan to publish a fourth book, the second in French language, in 12 or 18 months."
5-: What are your main sources of inspiration ? Who or what have had a big influence on you ?
"I read quite a lot. As well as political and philosophical thought as geopolitical analysis, novels ... These last few years I read less because of a lack of time, I content myself with Russian literature, classical and modern but also non-Western Russian thinkers such as Berdiaev, Tchaadaïev, Gumilev but also Sourkov for example.
Also some French authors like Houellebecq for example.
And also some science-fiction.
The older I get, and as a Frussian living in Russia in 2021, the fewer models and sources of inspiration I have. I think that historical models and historical thoughts are no longer relevant.
We will never go back to what was. Never again.
Instead, we need to build new models, new thoughts, new political algorithms with new logics adapted to the modern world. We must be rational. And above all, we need to get out of historical regrets, the "before was better" or leaps forward to simplistic and reassuring shortcuts.
We have to take into account the dizzying new historical dynamics underway. I believe that few people realize what is happening and the gigantic and historic upheavals which are taking place right now. We are in the century of the great demographic and civilizational shift; in the post-Western world; in the world of genetics and technoscience, in the world of Data, of artificial intelligence, of a new page of space conquest... What is happening is vertiginous and the next decades will undoubtedly be merciless.
So I observe and try to understand the events, the reasons for events and above all, especially to take a rational look at the world."
6-: What is conservatism in your opinion? And do you think it is important today?
“For Nicolas Berdiaev « the meaning of conservatism is not to prevent going forward, but to prevent going backwards and falling back into the dark chaos and the primitive state ».
I think this is the best definition I have read and I would add that it perfectly allows for a pairing in adequacy with science and technology. Science and technology are ways in my opinion to allow conservatism to continue to exist."
7-: What do you think of the current context of society in Europe? And on a global scale?
"I think that since the deep evolutions, the heavy trends are accelerating.
We are still living in the world that emerged in 1945, and this world is dying. It is dying because it rests on an architecture based on the domination of the West, and in particular of America, which is at its heart. This pax-americana is cracking.
Clearly, a pax-asiatica with a Chinese heart is emerging and the transition between these two ecosystems is likely to be painful and complex.
Europe is in the worst possible situation. It is an unfinished political entity, an unasserted civilizational entity, and its dogmatic alignment with American positions makes it a mere recording chamber for Washington's decisions.
Moreover, it is the victim of a colossal migratory shock which began half a century ago and which, logically and by accelerating over the next half century, coupled with the collapse of the birth rate of the native populations, could definitively transform Europe, at least in the West side, into a new "Eurafrica", while in the East it is Eurasia which is rising. Europe is paying and will pay very dearly for the mediocrity, cowardice, incompetence and submission of its political elites.
The Covid crisis has given us a good glimpse of this trend, when we see the inability of Western and South American nations, and therefore of the Christian world, to cope to the superior management of Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist civilizations... In the long term, it is probably Asia that wins, with China in the lead."
8-: If you had to give 5 elements that every French person should seriously work on at the individual level, what would they be?
"The first would be to build a real family culture, it is a long-term project that involves a lot of effort.
Nothing works without effort, so develop a culture of hard work.
Then to get educated and stay up-to-date, to know what is going on in the world, outside France and the world of Brussels.
Then continuously train, learn, increase your skills... Learn languages and master the technique, especially IT tools. Finally, to extract yourself from your microcosm, to extract yourself from your tribe, from your certainties, from your biases and to question yourself by taking a step back and above all by getting out of the existing political frameworks which are already totally sterile, obsolete but also and sterilizing."
9-: Can you share with us your feelings about today's youth?
"I left France 13 years ago, so I'm a bit cut off from French youth but aware of their realities.
I believe that young people in Europe today are more and more divided between young Europeans who can't take it anymore and young Europeans who have given up.
Two blocks that face each other and should continue to do so in the future.
Russian youth, if we talk about it, is evolving quite well.
Of course one lives differently in Moscow than in small towns, in Slavic and European Russia one lives differently than in ethnic and religious republics etc.
But overall, Russians have never lived so well, historically speaking. They have never been so rich and free. Russian youth is rather conservative, they vote rather Putin or nationalist and the blind and excessive attraction towards Western Europe has decreased at the rate of the frequency of travels of this same Russian youth to the big European capitals."
10-: Many young French people are looking to reconnect with their heritage, what do you think is the best way to do so?
“To reconnect with the history of France, of course, requires knowledge of French history and culture.
But to revive the French heritage when France is no longer France, when the French people are threatened with pure disappearance on their own territory seems to me utopian.
We can of course transform the France museum, but I think that unfortunately exile is the only solution, or rather the only choice."
11-: What are the main dangers that threaten European civilization in your opinion?
"I believe and maintain that the main problem is demographic. This demographic collapse, which has multiple causes, is occurring in a historical sequence that sees a demographic explosion in the South, in Africa, and the beginning of migratory pressure that will inevitably accelerate and profoundly modify Europe on the civilizational level.
Then I believe that the problem is political and that Europe is dying of its elites. The mediocrity of the French elites for decades, if we compare them to the Chinese, Russian, Korean and Japanese elites, is absolutely terrible. It is inexplicable how we could have come to this point. The French elites of today are hardly better than the Ukrainian elites.
Finally, the problem is precisely civilizational. The processes of national deconstruction and European integration have not been accompanied by a dynamic of civilizational tightening, but rather by a feeling that it was a step towards the global village. So I think that it was necessary to assert the European civilization, without concession."
12-: What are the main hopes and levers to overcome these threats?
"If we take the example of France, I do not know if saving France is still possible, in the sense that the main enemies of France today are the French themselves.
I believe that to save France it would be necessary before anything, to have a total rupture with the current structures of governance resulting from the world of May 68, of elites stuck in the 1945 software which have destroyed the sovereignty of our country and lead it towards the war.
It would also be necessary to bring to power a new elite, pragmatic but above all one that is destined to save our country, and this at any cost. In clearer terms and for the insiders, to allow the establishment of a sovereign democracy and an authentic vertical of power in order to save France.
To make a comparison, Russia was on the verge of extinction in the 1990s and Alexander Prokhanov summed up this Russian moment in these terms: " The state, that great secret substance of Russian history which in 1991 fell into the abyss and was reduced to ashes, has risen again, slowly, surely, more and more rapidly, unshakeable and invincible in its upward movement. For in him acts the destiny. And this state has chosen Putin to lead the historical process in Russia. It is not he who builds the state, it is the state that builds him. »
It is therefore necessary that this substance to rebuild the French national historical process should be rekindled. But how to do it?
Then from an individual point of view it is necessary that the Europeans impose on themselves the mission of wanting to survive and consequently decide to make children so that Europeans live in Europe in the next 20 / 30 / 40 years without being a minority at home"
13-: What are the personalities, authors, initiatives or organizations that seem worthy of interest today in your opinion?
"Vladimir Putin is obviously a modern De Gaulle, but Russian.
Chinese governance is just extraordinary over the long term and it is One, if not THE model: the Chinese Communist Party creates brilliant elites, who succeed one another without decreasing in quality, and who work over the long historical period in the same direction.
But, there are many brilliant, conscious, awake people, but they live a terrible political solitude with few political parties or associations worthy of the name. A political solitude and a civilizational isolation."
14-: Is there a subject that you feel has been neglected today or that you feel you do not see enough of in the media or the public debate?
“If we're talking about French television, I haven't watched it for the last 10 years, so I don't have to endure Hanouna or BFM.
If the French take pleasure in being intoxicated by their journalists, that's their problem. The level of the public debate in France and of the French television and cultural production does not even deserve to be talked about, what is worrying is how the French people could be so dumbed down to suffer it without saying anything.
I believe that fundamentally the questions of civilization, identity and demography are the great absentees of the debate and intentionally.
In Russia this is less the case, almost everything is discussed in the media."
15-: Can you give us a book, a movie and a music that you think represent you, or that you care about?
“What comes to my mind is Interstellar as a movie and as an allegory of the great departure; I try to watch only SF these days to think only about the future. And I fundamentally believe in the conquest of space, a subject on which conservatives are totally out of touch.
As music these days I'm listening to M83 a lot again. It's French after all 😊
There are so many books. And at the same time so few, because a lot of what has been written is getting old. A book ... I think for example of "Why Greece? " by Jacqueline de Romilly."
16-: What do you think you can bring to someone who is just discovering you?
"I hope to persuade him that it is possible to think outside of pre-installed and obsolete software. And get out of sterilizing ideological frameworks.
And encourage him to think Russia.
In this regard, within the framework of my professional activities related to Human Resources in Russia I have developed a realistic module designed to prepare for expatriation in a practical way in Russia that I have been doing since 2015 and it works."
17-: What are your plans for the future? In the next weeks and months, in the short term, but also your long term vision.
"I will continue to write a lot, and more and more, about Russia.
Publish a book within th next 12 / 18 months.
Finally I'm thinking about a YouTube channel to comment on Russian news."
18-: Where can we follow you? On which media or social network are you the most active?
First of all, there is my blog http://alexandrelatsa.ru/
And Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexandrelatsa
19-: A word for the end ?
Greetings from Moscow!
