Réveillez le
président !*
Jean-Hugues Oppel
Rivages/Thriller, 2007
Claude Mesplède
Translation: Helena Chadderton
Réveillez le Président! opens
starkly with the following information : « BOOM !
An atomic charge of a kiloton is as powerful as an explosion of 1000
tons of TNT. A plane carrying an 100 kilton bomb contains in itself
destructive energy the equivalent in ammunition of 15,000 1944 bombers.
To get a megaton you just multiply by ten.” And it continues by reporting
that on the 22 nd May 1957, a US Air Force bomber accidentally dropped
a 9 ton H bomb near the town of Albuquerque. Failing to detonate,
only a cow was killed. But what if it had exploded?
Most everywhere in the world, the superpowers
which hold nuclear weapons are trying to prohibit the possession
of such weapons in Iran, North Korea, and several other countries.
This novel expresses astonishment at the blindness of these power-drunk
leaders, ready to give others a lesson without questioning their
own deficiencies, incompetence and unbelievable egotism. Réveillez le Président! is
swarming with examples of incidents which, all over the world, no
matter which country or which regime, have threatened the security
of the planet. The novelist shows how, as a result of computer malfunctions
or transmission of the wrong orders, nuclear weapons constantly threaten
our security while their production is justified to assure our protection.
This paradox is the main theme of this account, whose starting point,
quite plausibly, sees the French President suffering a stroke and
finding himself inadvertently absent. This is destiny's star moment,
as, by remarkable coincidence, France finds itself on red alert,
that is, on nuclear alert, and nobody seems to know what to do. First
two American generals flounder before beginning to panic. In France
, the only person correctly informed is the female chief of military
who brings together a crisis cabinet including two female IT specialists:
the heroines who go on to solve the enigma. The hypothesis put forward
by Jean-Hugues Oppel is not only the fruit of an overactive imagination.
An electronic or computer malfunction could indeed occur at the moment
when the President (the only person authorized to give the order
or cancel it as a result of the secret code he holds) is out of action.
Certainly, in the case of a power vacuum, according to the French
constitution the president of the senate will stand in, but if he
forgets the secret code he is supposed to memorise, writing it down
being prohibited, what would happen then? We would then be confronted
with a problem, the result of multiple coincidences, but this situation
is still plausible and timely in a world where the paranoia of the
super powers is a reality.
As an epigraph, on the flyleaf, Jean-Hugues
Oppel quotes Russell Banks: “The function of a writer is to ensure
that no-one can ignore the world and that no-one can be ignorant
of it.” Réveillez
le Président! is faithful to this idea. Precise
and well documented, this novel sounds the alarm about a serious
topic while still maintaining humour and describing with irony and
derision those in power whose decisions often betray irresponsibility.
Jean-Hugues Oppel maintains suspense with a fluid
prose, the text is captivating and easy to read despite its technical
aspects, plausible and powerful. Remember that his previous opus,
French
Tabloïd, aimed to find an explanation for the fact
that the candidate for the Front National found himself in second
position in the second round of the presidential elections. What
if all that had been prepared and organised in order to favour the
re-election of the outgoing President? Here again, the hypotheses
evoked by the novelist offer a troublingly authentic account provoking
reflection in the reader once the book is closed. What if it were
true? It is certainly possible!
* Wake the President!
