The sight of his signature delighted booksellers. On the podium of the most read French authors, the works of Michel Bussi have been translated into 34 languages and several of them have been or are in the process of audiovisual adaptation. The day after the first round of the presidential election this Sunday, April 10, the writer agreed to deliver his analysis on the lessons to be learned.
Because in his other life, Michel Bussi was also director of research at the CNRS and professor at the University of Rouen (now on leave), specializing in electoral geography. In the early 2000s, he notably participated in several articles on the Le Pen vote during the presidential election with the pollster Jérôme Fourquet. The “king of thrillers”, recently author of a science fiction novel at the Presses de la cité, New Babelanalysis for L‘Express the major trends of the 2022 election and the changes in France that emerge from it.
L’Express: What lessons do you draw from this Sunday’s election?
Michael Bussi: At first glance, we can see in the results a completely unprecedented recomposition of French political life, with historically low scores for parties such as the Socialist Party or Les Républicains. But we can also read what happened as the continuity of what we have seen coming for several years: a recomposition of political life into three blocks, one on the right, one on the left and one on the extreme. right, with each of the very marked value systems. Until the last fortnight before the end of the ballot, we observed an election with a great dispersion of votes, a pseudo-uncertainty which ended up dissipating. At the end, we saw appear three useful votes in the people of Jean-Luc Mélenchon, Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. For this reason, the vote in the presidential election seems to me today to be very out of step with a political life that is more diverse than what the ballot imposes.
Does this useful voting reflex seem more omnipresent to you than before?
We had already met him five years ago, with the same second round poster. The only difference is the absence of a Republican candidate as strong as François Fillon in 2017, for the simple reason that Emmanuel Macron recovered this electorate. But basically, the configuration of the three blocks that we cited was already there. I am also convinced that if François Fillon had been in Emmanuel Macron’s place today, we would not have had a profoundly different second round: the leader of the right-wing bloc would undoubtedly have found himself facing Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon in the first round.
So you reject the analyzes opposing on the one hand the “popular block”, rather inclined towards Marine Le Pen, and the “block of the elites” of Emmanuel Macron?
This model is quite simplistic. It presents a struggle between two models of society: on the one hand an open, trusting bloc, supported by people who do not have too many difficulties; on the other, a closed, restricted model, with people having problems making ends meet. Put forward by the camp of Marine Le Pen to present the cleavage elite against people, it risks being recovered, differently, by that of Emmanuel Macron, who would then stage an open society against a closed and demagogic camp. But this confrontation is quite artificial, and is more linked to our voting system with two finalists than to a reality on the ground. If we take the example of the useful vote in the first round cited in the previous question, we see that the electorate of the nine other candidates was often divided into three blocks.
In the same way, the electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon will not go directly to Emmanuel Macron or Marine Le Pen, but will undoubtedly be divided between the two candidates, the blank vote and the abstention. Consequently, it is impossible, for me, to say that two clear blocs oppose each other in France. It would be terrible and excessively caricatural to think so. We are not in the United States: France has a tradition of a multiparty system, with many associations, intermediate bodies, activists… It is impossible to reduce the popular electorate to an extreme right vote, as the vote is not systematically conditioned on the level of diploma: many over-educated people do not recognize themselves in the politics of Emmanuel Macron, for example. There is this widespread idea that the presidential election would be a snapshot of the state of France. But which France are we talking about?
Do you think that the reflex of the “republican front” against the National Rally, erected in 2002 and 2017, can still work today?
We were talking about the three blocks. The left bloc is in great hesitation, with in particular a third of abstainers and blank votes possible… There is a real dilemma that has never been so strong before. I am one of those people. In 2002, voters on the left voted for Jacques Chirac for the most part, and without any reservations. They did it because there was the specter of Jean-Marie Le Pen opposite, that the Republican front still wanted to say something. Five years ago, there were more abstentions, white votes, but the concern about the possibility of Marine Le Pen coming to power was still great.
Today, we are in an unprecedented situation. On the one hand, we have five years of Macronism, experienced from the point of view of a left-wing voter as five years of liberal politics. On the other hand, this possibility that Marine Le Pen will come to power, and the need for an absolute blockade. I was listening to France Inter this Tuesday morning, where Marine Le Pen recalled, for example, that she would ban the wearing of the veil in the street. The vast majority of left-wing voters are completely opposed to a measure that they would consider liberticidal. But how to consider the social proposals it can make, when we have fought Macronism for five years?
You say you live in a “moral dilemma”. Have you decided on your vote in the second round?
For the moment, I watch, I see, I wait because I know that things will change in the next fortnight. For the first time, the two programs will have to bend to seduce the voters opposite.
I have always voted, I will vote, that’s for sure. But I can’t give instructions to people. What I will put in the ballot box is up to me, while my position has always been to say what my political sensitivity was without supporting a candidate. All I can tell you is that my sensitivity leans more towards a left-wing, humanist society, one of reduction of inequalities and which is concerned about the fate of the planet. Once I have said that, everyone will be able to estimate that such and such a candidate is best able to achieve these objectives. That being said, my decision is probably already made. But the fact remains that the moral dilemma we were talking about earlier is still present.
What do you think of the geographical divide between the electorate of Marine Le Pen, which would be particularly concentrated in rural areas, and that of Emmanuel Macron, more urban, even metropolitan?
The geographical divide is no more important than it was in previous elections, and is even a little less so. Historically, the National Rally has always had very low scores in the city, while the city center has always been divided between the right and left bloc. The criterion of hyper-rurality is not, in my opinion, decisive for Marine Le Pen either: she achieves high scores in the peri-urban area, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon wins votes in the rural South-West, or Emmanuel Macron in the West, winning over the right-wing electorate. I don’t think it’s relevant to speak of a duality between the city and the periphery.
The age criterion, on the other hand, is undoubtedly the most spectacular, with Emmanuel Macron at more than 41% among those over 60 and Jean-Luc Mélenchon who appeals to more than a third of 18-24 year olds. . Marine Le Pen takes the rest. This division is very striking: the generational divide is the one that most seems to echo the three-block division we were talking about earlier.
This criterion also makes it possible to decipher the situation in the light of the analysis according to which we would have a centrist bloc, carried by Emmanuel Macron, facing two extreme blocs. The electorate of Jean-Luc Mélenchon seems more carried by young people who have a certain vision of the world, by a part of the population qualified enough to think more about the end of the world than at the end of the month. For this reason, it is difficult to speak of extremism of this electorate.
A game of three that is therefore difficult to express in a ballot which, in essence, has two finalists…
Our voting system does not necessarily correspond to people’s feelings: in a presidential election, the identity question is for example overvalued, whereas the theme does not appear in local elections. In these polls, another France appears, where the ecologist candidates or the classic republican right have a good place.
For this reason, we must be careful not to consider our country in the light of a very televisual election, which gives pride of place to the most telegenic candidates, at the image bonus. Sunday’s photo is a bit skewed and quite upsetting. It reflects only a small part of people’s political consciousness.