In his parents' Paris apartment, dissidents from the Eastern Bloc came and went. Raphaël Glucksmann, born in 1979, is the son of André Glucksmann, the best-known representative of the "New Philosophy" alongside Bernard-Henri Lévy. It turned away from Marxism and converted intellectuals to anti-totalitarianism. Wars for democracy were waged in his name. Glucksmann fought the pacifists of the peace movement as "Jews of the Third World War". He defended Jacques Chirac, who, despite worldwide protests, had the last French atomic bomb tested.

Jürg Altwegg

Freelance writer in the feuilleton.

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While still a student (Sciences Po), Raphaël Glucksmann became involved in Chechnya. He made documentaries – in 2004 about the genocide in Rwanda, for which he demanded an apology from France. This was followed by a three-part series on "Putin and the resurrection of the empire". Glucksmann was an eyewitness to the invasion of Georgia – but no one wanted to face the reality of which his films testified.

Experiences on the Maidan

Out of disillusionment, Glucksmann became a politician. He worked as an adviser to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, whose goal was to join the EU, and married Interior Minister Eka Zguladze. After Saakashvili's loss of power, the couple lived in Kiev and took part in the Maidan, which Glucksmann experienced as a "democratic revolution". In Paris, he founded the "Place publique" movement. In the European Parliament, Glucksmann heads the commission that deals with the "interference of foreign powers" and disinformation. At the head of a delegation, he traveled to Taiwan. Glucksmann tirelessly reminds us of the fate of the Uyghurs.

Now Raphaël Glucksmann has written a book about Putin's "war against democracies", in which he organises chaos: "It is the story of a continent that fell to its knees before the tyrant. He wanted peace and got war." For Glucksmann, Putin's regime is fascist because it would collapse without the enemy – the "collective West" – and the wars in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine. Glucksmann believes that Putin will hold out for a long time: the people are behind him, his regime does not wobble.

Matthias Warnig in his sights

"La Grande Confrontation" (Allary Éditions) is a tragedy in three acts. The first is about the "corruption of the city". Glucksmann defines it with Machiavelli: it begins when the common good is subordinated to individual interests. The essay reads like a thriller: "Cash and Caviar." One of the leading roles is played by Matthias Warnig, who has so far received little attention in France. One month after the annexation of Crimea, Warnig and Putin celebrated Gerhard Schröder's birthday in St. Petersburg. As chancellor with the "green pacifists" in the government, Schroeder had pushed through the nuclear phase-out, in return he got Russia's cheap energy – Glucksmann calls it a "suicide with gas".

Glucksmann does not want to be a writer: "As such, I would deal with the question of how well Schroeder sleeps." Or with the remorse of former French Prime Minister François Fillon when he goes to confession: "I am only interested in the salvation of nations." For the resistance he outlines in the third act, he does not plead as a "romantic of human rights who fell in love with the Caucasus". He was regarded as such in Brussels and Paris. But the emergency he warned of has arrived. He has turned Glucksmann into a realpolitiker.

He explains the blindness to Putin with the "end of history", in which only Europe believed. The war in Iraq, which his father only recognized as a mistake in retrospect, "was a disaster." A "hubris" is the claim to enforce democracy with weapons. But where there is a "democratic revolution", it must be supported. They never existed in Afghanistan. Ukraine and Taiwan, however, must be helped – without directly waging war.

This is a tragedy because "defeat is impossible" for both sides: "For us, Russia must lose. Our model is just as ideological as Putin's." Cassandra was not mistaken. "In Ukraine," says Glucksmann, "for Europe it is a matter of being or not being."