Dear all,
For your attention, here’s a short
selection of speeches delivered this month, together with an older abstract you
might appreciate as well.
I would like to thank the colleagues and
friends who forwarded some references for circulation to other speech-fans.
Isabelle
If you only read one speech this month, you will find a good mix of logos,
pathos and ethos in this one: President Tusk, Charlemagne Prize, 13 May
2015
What is then the challenge for the third
generation of European unity?
Nothing less than to deliver on the
promise of Europe with a ruthless determination.
President Tusk, Charlemagne
Prize, 13 May 2015
Start with a ‘bang’
What a beautiful day, what a beautiful
ambience. What an amazing prize winner, what illustrious guests. Despite all of
this, I feel I must begin my address on a dark note.
‘For the first time in post-war history,
the failure of the European Union has become a realistic scenario.’ This sentence hits us like a bombshell. It is by the man whom we are here
to honour today, this year’s winner of the International Charlemagne Prize.
Martin Schulz puts it right at the beginning of his book on Europe.
Bundespräsident Gauck,
Charlemagne Preis, 14 May 2015
Other ways to start and thank in a
speech
The message, when it came at last, was
simple: ‘The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 0241, local
time, May 7th, 1945.’ Signed, Eisenhower.
There was no paean to victory. No
exultation. Too much had been lost for that. […]
Ladies and gentlemen, 70 years after
that great turning point in the history of our world, we remember the sacrifice
that was made to preserve freedom—those who laid down their lives for a better
future. The Americans who won the beachhead at Normandy, inch by bloody
inch. From Britain, “The Few,” who defied the Luftwaffe. The Free
French, who never accepted Nazi occupation. The brave Poles, who fought
“for our freedom and yours.” The Canadian regiments, who pushed across
France into Northern Germany. The resistance movements in every European
country. And, in the East, the people of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and all
the former Soviet states, who endured many of the heaviest losses of the
war.
NS Advisor S.E Rice, V-E
Day Commemoration
'Let me also sometimes have a rhetoric
question'
Prime Minister Orbán has been very clear about this:
he is never intending to put a proposal forward [on
death penalty]. Well
my political question is that if you're never intending to make a proposal why
then have a debate? What is then the reason for the debate? But that is a
different matter and let me also sometimes have a rhetoric question.
VP Timmermans, European Parliament, 19 May 2015
L’art de
filer la métaphore
Ce court
extrait a été porté à mon attention pour l’art de filer la métaphore que l’artiste
– et descendant de la famille Dreyfus – révèle dans ce discours de 1998.
Emile Zola, dont le talent d'écrivain éclipsait
celui du photographe - il possédait une dizaine d'appareils et réalisait des
photos magnifiques - Zola a pris avec l'affaire Dreyfus un instantané de son
époque. Et en développant le négatif pour « l'Aurore », l'image est apparue
en positif sur son papier sensible et il a obtenu un tirage exceptionnel. Il ne
savait pas encore que ce serait pour lui aussi, une épreuve. Un
agrandissement. Dans des proportions gigantesques. Alors ne laissons pas jaunir
ce chef-d’œuvre. Aucune retouche n'est nécessaire cent ans plus tard. Pas un
mot à changer dans « J'accuse ». C'est une photographie de la conscience
humaine.
Yves Duteil, Discours de Médan, Hommage
à Emile Zola, 1998
Tricolons and alliterations – and more
Their ranks include kings and queens,
presidents and prime ministers, popes… and Poles.
President Tusk, Charlemagne
Prize, 13 May 2015
Whether you are from Milwaukee or from
Mumbai, from Chicago or from Shanghai, from Paris or Panama City, …
IMF Managing Director C.
Lagarde, Commencement Address, 16 May 2015
Entendons
le message que [le résistant Pierre Brossolette] avait adressé comme un testament le
18 juin 1943 à Londres : « les morts de la France combattante ne nous demandent
pas de les plaindre, mais de les continuer. Ils n’attendent pas de nous un
regret, mais un serment ; pas un sanglot, mais un élan. »
Président F. Hollande, Hommage solennel de la nation, Panthéon, 27 mai
2015
****