“These elections were those of the great denial in the face of the real crises of our time.” Liberal philosopher and talented novelist (his formidable Humus received the Interallié Prize last year), Gaspard Koenig deplores that the legislative elections have overlooked the most burning issues of our time (ecology, geopolitics, AI) in favor of “20th century debates”, such as economic recovery through demand. The current political situation also reinforces his conviction that we must end our presidential regime (“We saw from the evening of the second round that the only obsession of political leaders remains the presidential election”) in order to promote a culture of compromise and coalitions. Finally, he gives keys to flourish in periods of strong identity divisions, inviting us to follow Montaigne’s example and cultivate our “back room”.
The Express: In a chronicle For The echoes, You announced that you would be “on strike” for these legislative elections. Do you have no regrets today?
Gaspard Koenig: I wanted to say that I refused the blackmail of the blocs. In Orne, I voted for an independent local figure. Otherwise, I would have voted blank. The citizen has the right not to always vote against, not to act as a bulwark, not to project himself into complex three-way strategies. He can refuse the system that is offered to him. It is also a political gesture: the ethics of conviction against the ethics of responsibility. Especially since we no longer even know who is allied with whom, what the government might look like, or what the real programs are, which change from one day to the next, are not the subject of any deliberation, and will not be applied. When the system goes crazy, we must abstract ourselves from it.
In your opinion, major current issues have been overlooked. Why?
These elections were those of great denial in the face of the real crises of our time. We witnessed debates, or rather the embryos of debates, that date back to the 20th century. We saw the issue of recovery through supply or demand resurface, as if economic thinking had not evolved since Keynes and Hayek. Universal income, for example, which transcends left/right divisions and outlines a real economic and social alternative, was totally overlooked. We talked about it during the 2017 presidential election, but we backtracked in favor of extremely conventional ideas.
There is an almost reassuring aspect to thinking that the problem of our country is the VAT on a particular product or the exemptions on a particular social charge, as if there were not, deep down, more serious issues in today’s world. During these elections, there was never any question of the geopolitical crisis, the ecological crisis, and even less of the technological crisis with the advent of powerful AI. The violence of the debates is inversely proportional to their emptiness. The left, supposed to defend a form of sobriety, only talked about recovery through consumption… Even the environmentalists gave up on discussing biodiversity and the collapse of life, undoubtedly the most existential subject for our civilization. These elections thus had an almost burlesque, ghostly side. We repeated old mantras that have lost all meaning. “Dead dogmas”, as John Stuart Mill said.
You also deplore the fact that the theme of freedom has been neglected by politicians. Doesn’t the central camp defend it?
The left out of egalitarian madness, the extreme right out of nationalism, but also the central camp out of technocratic obsession and bureaucratic verticality, have abandoned freedom. The ideological advent of the RN is only the consequence of this long renunciation. Dirigisme has triumphed. Who proposes to decentralize the decision-making process, to redistribute power itself? Who still talks about self-management, direct democracy, local autonomy, cooperative enterprise? Where have the liberals, the libertarians, the anarchists gone? We have reached the height of the “democratic despotism” feared by Tocqueville, a mixture of utilitarianism and over-administration. The aspiration to monitor behavior runs through all political currents. Even if a large social-democratic coalition were to form the day after these elections, we would certainly avoid the worst of the extremes, but we would remain in the same paradigm.
But if France becomes ungovernable or passes into the hands of the RN, do you not fear the risk of a financial crisis?
I don’t fear it, on the contrary I call for it! In 2013, I published a novel, Bankruptcy Nightwhere the French State was forced to default on its debt (it was also a certain Emmanuel Macron, Secretary General of the Elysée, who triggered the default!). At the end of The Wealth of NationsAdam Smith explains that bankruptcy is the most honest way for an over-indebted country to draw a line and start over. It mechanically triggers a generational rebalancing, since it eliminates rents and offers opportunities for new entrants. It resets the counters and allows political structures to be reinvented. The most recent was the bankruptcy of two-thirds in 1797; a few years later, Napoleon had all our major codes rewritten… Even if today the ECB dilutes financial responsibility, the Italian episode of 2011 shows that spreads can quickly become uncontrollable. Such a shock can be salutary and allow a renewal of institutions, with no doubt a change of number for our Republic…
Does Macron’s very personal decision to dissolve, as well as the hatred he arouses, reinforce your idea that we need to change our presidential system?
When De Gaulle introduced presidentialism in 1962 – with the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage – he provoked an incredible outcry. It must be remembered that at the time, apart from the United States, all democracies in the world were parliamentary. But this Gaullist coup de force would have global consequences, because the French presidential system would influence Africa in the process of decolonization as well as Latin America freeing itself from military regimes.
The presidential system is no longer about individuals deliberating, which is the beauty of democracy, but about the masses choosing their Caesar. It is very infantilizing. This symbolic power, with a monarchical overtone, has taken precedence over the exercise of real power. There is no point in accusing political leaders (the famous “all rotten”). They are only obeying a perverse system of incentives – in this case, the Constitution.
Emmanuel Macron has taken institutions to the height of hyperpersonalization. There is no longer a party, no longer a doctrine; even his competitors each have their own “microparty”. Much of the rejection of his policy comes from there. The measures taken by his government over the past seven years are not particularly shocking. But the president has established such a direct relationship between “a man and a people” that political passions are determined by his personality. Even I can’t stand him anymore. We have observed in recent weeks that the RN, with the prospect of coming to power, has aligned itself with many of the reforms decided under Macron, including on pensions. No one seems too moved by this: what matters now is less the policies than their author.
This presidential system actually generates a very weak and infantile democracy. We suffer a lot from this Gaullist heritage, which I denounced in my Against a. The French are said to be a very political people. But they see politics as a Netflix series and not as the development of common rules.
We are probably entering a period of great political instability and exacerbated identity divisions. Can philosophy help us?
There is a form of cyclicality in history. Quite regularly, over the centuries, communities redefine themselves according to identity criteria: what anthropologists call “schismogenesis”. In Constantinople, the Blues against the Greens (both sporting and political camps!) At the time of Montaigne, the Catholics against the Protestants. In The wind picks upa beautiful film about the Irish conflict in the 1920s, Ken Loach shows how two irreconcilable camps are constantly reforming: first the English against the Irish, then within the Irish, the supporters of the Treaty of London against the radical Republicans. Today, we have new camps. People vote less to change life than to validate their beliefs. During these periods of identity oppositions, freedom is put aside, and common humanity loses its meaning. All that matters is belonging. And he who does not belong to anyone is considered a traitor by all. As Montaigne wrote nicely: “I was skinned with all hands: to the Ghibelline I was a Guelph, to the Guelph a Ghibelline”… Today, we are commies for some, fascists for others. The long-term trend, already well advanced in the United States, is that of increasingly identity-based political projects, as analyzed by Yascha Mounk in The Identity Trap.
Montaigne provides a solution, at least personal and moral. In troubled times, one must find one’s “back room”, a space of intellectual withdrawal from the passions of the time. This allows one to put them into perspective, to maintain a form of virtuous skepticism. It is not a question of becoming a hermit, but of not getting caught up in the loop of imprecation and controversy, on social networks or elsewhere. Finding one’s back room is also a political resistance, since finding oneself helps one not to give in to the community’s injunction.
How do you see the coming months?
Everyone will start looking for the elusive coalition, and deplore the fact that the French do not have the “culture of compromise” unlike their German or Spanish neighbors. But we must stop fantasizing about eternal political cultures. The French were perfectly capable of forming coalitions throughout the Third Republic! The question is institutional. We saw on the evening of the second round that the only obsession of political leaders remains the presidential election. Governing does not interest them. What they want is to place one of their own in the Elysée. The presidential system builds a system of perverse incentives, where one must either submit or oppose, where any compromise becomes compromise, where the conquest of power is a romantic gesture.
I therefore fear that after several months or years of parliamentary stagnation, the extremes will prevail without even having to tone down their rhetoric. We will have to try to live in the interstices of history and calmly prepare for renewal, which in my eyes can only be based on much more decentralized forms of governance. Freedom and nature!
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