Juan Carlos I is among the guests at the induction ceremony of Mario Vargas Llosa into the French Academy on February 9th. Vargas Llosa has told EL PAÍS that he has extended the invitation to the Spanish monarch, who has been based in Abu Dhabi since leaving Spain in the summer of 2020, to prevent scandals from damaging the crown. The king emeritus received the invitation and informed the writer of his intention to travel to Paris.
The former head of state, who no longer has open accounts with Spain’s finance ministry or the judiciary, has rarely left his Abu Dhabi residence since leaving Spain. On January 16, he attended the funeral of his brother-in-law Constantine of Greece in Athens. In September 2022 he traveled to London for the funeral of Elizabeth II. In May of the same year he visited the Galician community of Sanxenxo and met his family in Madrid.
The Nobel laureate has said in statements to EL PAÍS that his invitation to the king emeritus is for a “very simple” reason: “To the extent that kings can have friends, I am a friend of his.”
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Vargas Llosa recalls that when Juan Carlos I obtained Spanish citizenship in 1993, he called him at eight in the morning to say that “he was very happy that I was his subject”. When he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, the king emeritus called him the next day to tell him: “I have to give you something, I have to give you a title!” And in 2011 he gave it the Marquesado de Vargas Llosa, which the author “of course” never used.
“He was always very loving to me. At receptions, on official occasions… I thought to myself, since he’s in the doldrums, this invitation would suddenly come in handy.” What did Juan Carlos de Borbón tell you? “He replied that he was delighted and would attend the event with one of his daughters.” It’s about Infanta Cristina, according to the author.
Before saying goodbye, Vargas Llosa emphasizes: “It is a gesture of pure sympathy. I have no relationship with the king, nor do I speak to him, nor do we see each other. Kings don’t have friends, they have subjects. So I say that as far as a king could have, I would be one of them. And since he’s in the doldrums, I remember him”.
Mario Vargas Llosa arriving at the plenary session of the Board of Directors of the Royal Spanish Academy in Madrid on January 19.José Oliva (Europa Press)
The entry of Vargas Llosa into the French Academy, founded by Cardinal Richelieu in the 17th century, will be one of the literary and social events of the winter in Paris. The author of The City and the Dogs is the first writer without a work in French to enter the august institution on the Quai Conti, run with an iron fist by historian Hélène Carrère d’Encausse. The Spanish linguist will also become the club’s first Nobel member since the death of François Mauriac in 1970.
Despite the scandals and despite falling out of favor in Spain after his abdication in 2014, Juan Carlos I remains well respected in France for his role in the transition to democracy. After all, this is a country where a former head of state like Nicolas Sarkozy still enjoys political clout and social respect despite being sentenced twice to prison for corruption and illegal financing (Sarkozy has appealed both sentences, putting them on probation are).
Elected by the French Academy in November 2021 with 18 votes out of a total of 22, Vargas Llosa later had to officially meet with the President of the Republic and protector of the institution, like the Sun King and his successors before their starting gun. The meeting took place in September during a dinner at the Élysée Palace, attended by Vargas Llosa, Carrère d’Encausse and the literary critic, and a new academic, Antoine Compagnon.
The author of La fiesta del chivo and columnist for EL PAÍS for more than three decades will take the 18th place, vacated by philosopher Michel Serres after his death in 2019. Previously, this seat was occupied by, among others, one of the founders of liberal thought in the 19th century, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Marshal Philippe Pétain, leader of France’s collaboration with Hitler during World War II.
Attending the inauguration ceremony will be the academics, including Vargas Llosa, wearing the traditional green suit and sword. The new academics – or immortals as they are known in France – will read a eulogy by Michel Serres. Responsible for the welcome speech will be the writer and academic Daniel Rondeau, who initiated the initiative to select the Spanish-Peruvian novelist.
When he was elected, Vargas Llosa recalled the origins of the initiative: “We had a coffee [con Rondeau]. And he was with us with another academic. And suddenly they told me that the French Academy was waiting for me. And there they practically laid an ambush from which I turned out to be a French academic”.
The choice of the liberal writer aroused some opposition in France. Some doubted that an author who had never written in French could sit in the institution that acts as the custodian of the essence of the language. And in the press he was accused of his political positions in Latin America, his “ardent anti-communism and economic ultra-liberalism”.
But within the institution, the consensus was in favor of Vargas Llosa. “I understand the arguments of those who are against: they are all admirers of Vargas Llosa, but they think that the French Academy is the French language and therefore a Spanish-language writer, no matter how legitimate and important it may be, because she has nothing to do with it are looking for,” explained the essayist and academic Alain Finkielkraut before the vote. “I think we can accept it because it’s Vargas Llosa and he has a totally loving connection to French culture.”
However, the French Academy, which has 40 members, meets under the dome of the Institut de France, an organization that houses other academies such as the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Fine Arts or the Moral and Political Sciences. One of the members of the latter is Juan Carlos I. He was elected “foreign collaborator” in March 1988 and holds seat 11, which Jorge Luis Borges vacated after his death.
With information from Miguel González
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