We have seen massive protests in recent weeks. Brutal parliamentary debates. Insults, jeers, slamming desks. And now, after a 49.3 rejected by the majority of the French, outbursts of nocturnal violence in our streets. We attack the forces of order with stones, petanque balls, Molotov cocktails. Despite the remarkable professionalism of the vast majority, a few police officers give free rein to the most basic hatred and violence, and in doing so, throw mob vengeance on all their colleagues.
From this chaos, only the Rassemblement national emerges strengthened, if we are to believe the clear progress that it records in the survey of voting intentions in the legislative elections of Ifop carried out for the JDD (nearly 7 points more than the 19.2% obtained in the elections last June).
Withdrawal or Politics
The rejection of institutions is growing, and with it the temptation of violence, the ultimate means of being heard for those disappointed with democracy. When each passing day seems to reinforce the promise of the worst (without anyone really knowing how to define what the worst is, in a country that has experienced the Covid and the attacks, which watches the climate peril grow and the war unfold in the gates of Europe), two options are offered to the spectator appalled by the collective hysteria.
On the one hand, the temptation to withdraw. Abandon this sad world to its fate, and find in the comfort of the cocoon of family and friends the serenity that seems to have deserted the public sphere. To secede with the tumult of the news, the brutality of the political world, the hypocrisy and the contempt in which so many self-proclaimed important people wallow with relish.
But, on the other hand, there is another loophole. Less comfortable, less obvious, probably also less rewarding. This outcome is (re)doing politics, with a capital P. By dint of hating politicians, we have forgotten the obvious: violence is not the fruit of politics, it thrives on its chess.
Doing politics means betting on dialogue, against sterile violence. It is to prefer a sincere disagreement to a hypocritical compromise. It is betting on openness to the other, to understand them instead of despising them or fighting them blindly. The challenge of complexity and nuance, against the ease of caricature and anathema. We must neither refuse to see the world as it is, nor resign ourselves to following the course of things. However, more and more representatives of the people lock themselves either in the flattery of the “people”, or in their negation in the name of the constraints that are beyond us – globalization, public deficits, complexity of the world, geopolitical and climatic issues…
It’s not in tune with the times, but it has to be said: if more of us were involved in politics, we wouldn’t be here. We would not be on the verge of a regime crisis, bogged down in a tangle of ideological and identity disputes. Paralyzed by a sum of suffering for which we no longer even know who to attribute responsibility to. We would not be at such levels of hatred of elected officials, foreigners, police officers, and rejection of any figure of authority. We wouldn’t have so many managers and so few visionaries. The political world does not include so many convinced puppets that virulence is the mark of strong convictions. Our horizon would not look so much like an Excel table, and the news would not look like an episode of House of Cards under acid.
The biggest mistake we could make in this ordeal would be to overestimate the strength of our institutions. The temptation is nevertheless great, especially when one contemplates the news well sheltered from the palaces of the Republic… But their solidity does not lie, as so many analysts claim, in their seniority. It is only to be found in the confidence placed in them by our fellow citizens. Consent to authority, in a democracy, cannot be decreed. It is built through dialogue, arguments, mutual respect between the leaders and the led. And by dint of putting them to the test, let us be careful that our institutions do not simply end up shattering.