“January 6, the capture of the Capitol, was a high point, but also a cliffhanger”

“Through this journalist, I told my story on American television, with a call to find the boy who cut the rope. In an ideal journalistic world, finding him would have been part of my farewell story. It was quite a brave act on this boy’s part, as a black boy at a protest with mostly white men. He symbolized for me this other side of the United States. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard anything from him or her.

“Eventually the noose will be in the National History Museum, but it will take a long time. At Biden’s inauguration, I turned him over to an FBI special agent. He is now part of the investigation on this day. It is not yet known who placed this symbolic gallows – it would not have worked – there.

Do you still follow what is happening in the United States?

“Not everything, but the stories that aren’t over yet. The Capitol uprising was the apotheosis of my correspondence, a historic event. On such a day, you make a brand new report, you write the first lines of history, and you have to settle for what you see and know at that moment. But after that, I remain curious to know what the exact circumstances were and what the consequences will be. It’s a story with an open ending, and in fact with an open beginning. I always want to know how things are, what are the causes and the consequences, so I remain curious about it. January 6 was a high point, but also a cliffhanger.

‘Very good reconstructions have been made of this day, for example of The New York Times and The Washington Post† It is clear that Trump and his entourage tried to prevent or delay the formal confirmation of the election results by Mike Pence. But the exact link between these attempts and the capture of the Capitol remains unclear. What was organized, what happened spontaneously? For example, what did Roger Stone do, an influential intriguer who crossed the city the same day, surrounded by a militia of former soldiers, who acted as bodyguards? What did he discuss with Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani and other fringe Trump administration figures at the Willard Hotel, where they sort of crisis unit decorated? What did Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, know and what did Trump’s congressional stalwarts know?

Trump and his associates try to keep these calls secret, but you hope things like this will happen one day. Many of these characters are actually extras, but they came to the center of power during these four years of Trump. They showed that bluffing has become an important factor in the American system.

Why does this day fascinate you so much? The US media itself is already busy with Biden’s struggle with his billion dollar plans.

“I think this moment says more about the country than the political battles that are going on right now in the White House or in Congress. The growth of January 6 is more structural than it seems. It represents more, has greater consequences. If only because more and more Republicans subsequently came to deny it, or thwarted the investigations. I think that makes it even bigger: there are forces at play that feel the need to deny that a historical event has taken place.

“It was also an important day for my position as correspondent. I had already written a few stories about the possibility of things going wrong. That of insisting on fraud, of questioning the results of the elections in advance; I wondered if the American democratic system could withstand that. In previous years I had noticed how run down it was. The constitution does not guarantee a peaceful transfer of power, but assumes it.

“As a journalist, you’re not a fortune teller, but if there’s a series of scary signs on the wall, you should write it down. When we described a Trump coup as worst-case scenario in October, we got a lot of comments about it. Even within the newspaper, some people didn’t see it going that fast. But I sat there and talked to people and I I saw that it didn’t take so many people to shake up an unstable system. The fact that such a system has existed for two hundred years is not proof that it cannot collapse. Maybe no one has ever tried?

‘So it’s good, in a somewhat cynical way, to be right. I want to do my job as best I can, and you expect each piece to last more than a day. Above all, you don’t want to be someone who created unnecessary panic.

Why do we find it hard to believe that a seriously disturbing development is taking place?

“In psychology, this is called a normality biasPeople have a certain prejudice that everything will go back to normal anyway. This is generally true: disasters or excesses often don’t happen for a long time. But that doesn’t mean there’s a guarantee that everything will be fine.

“Surprisingly, journalists often tend to blow things up at first, but then very quickly say: it’s not so bad, it’s normal. It seems at odds with our supposed sensationalism, but as a profession we like to keep things as an incident: it’s clear and enough to put the big head on it. Go to the next topic. I think an incident should always be a challenge to investigate if there are structural issues.

Once the vice is suspended in the windows of the National Museum of History, will you be eager to visit it?

“I have already told the museum director: when this exhibition is unveiled on January 6, we want to be there. This seems to me a very good excuse to return there, as a journalist or tourist. So hopefully the story of the African American boy is on the accompanying panel. I think it would be great for the museum, for American historiography, if they could tell that story as well.