The commission of inquiry aimed at establishing the reasons for the loss of sovereignty and energy independence, subtly chaired by the deputy (LR) Raphaël Schellenberger, offers, let us say it frankly, a sinister image of the functioning of the executive, both on the side of the political leaders who have the responsibility entrusted by the people, as well as the civil servants whose role is to assist the politicians in this mission.
Sinister, and in a sense revolting, because this commission, by studying the degradation of our sovereignty in terms of energy supply, is quite simply interested in one of the vital organs of our national life. That is to say to a subject where the pact of trust between elected officials and the people is most deeply committed. Where is the democratic contract that these themes are treated with absolute seriousness, refusing the margin of error and the approximate. You have to imagine an analogy here with the surgeon you would have to rely on for an open-heart operation.
Where clear, firm, substantiated words should prevail, we have witnessed from Ségolène Royal, Dominique Voynet, Nicolas Hulot, and others, the ball of approximations, the sarabande of “I remember p’ us”, to the infernal round of arguments of authority based on mental fantasies, and of course to the absence of any regret, of any recognition of having slightly contributed to putting the France vehicle in the ditch. Neither responsible, nor guilty. We know the song.
heartbreaking parade
It is fortunate that the French do not connect more massively on the parliamentary channels. They would see cardiac surgeons operating on the sleeping patient with a glass of Ricard in their hand or their eyes riveted on the Roland-Garros final, all in a late-night atmosphere. There are diets that fall for less than that.
Others certainly noted this heartbreaking procession, and what it reveals of the immense autonomy left to politics on vital subjects for the country. Even Élisabeth Borne – not exactly a slacker – had to admit that, as Ségolène Royal’s chief of staff, she had no political leverage over the decisions taken by his minister.
Hence three questions.
First, what regime are we in when decisions with fairly short-term disastrous effects can be taken by authority without scientific or technical support? Democracy is the government of the people by the people, but also for the people. Where is the interest of the people in this improvisation? What is the difference then between a vaguely functional autocracy and a supposedly dysfunctional democracy?
Then, if the lack of seriousness and preparation of these decisions appears in broad daylight, this can be seen for nuclear power due to specific circumstances, but what about other areas? It is obvious that education, research, agriculture, industry, armaments were the object in their time of just as light decisions from which all these sectors suffered but whose effects are only seen quietly, according to a soft collapse to which we pretend to resign ourselves, until the day when…
Finally, behind these choices obviously prevailed not competence but ideology. Not the understanding of a situation but its political instrumentalization. In this case, we must blame the alliance with the Greens, exactly as in Germany, whose aggiornamento is even more brutal than ours. But even behind this ideology, behind these government agreements, behind this alliance of ready-to-think and ready-to-vote, we can see something else: the deleterious influence of intellectual fashion. Being against nuclear power isn’t even an ideology, it’s a kind of emotional spasm that nothing basically explains except the purest group conformism. There is the voluntary submission of the mind and of political responsibility to the mirages of the moment. That is to say the abdication of any informed and defensible long-term vision. We are looking for meeting majorities, we are riding on the trends of the moment, we are contemplating ourselves in this light in the mirror of social networks whose active minorities applaud loudly, and in the process, we will have sabotaged not only the Republic, but France.