A new cleavage is literally invading the political debate before our eyes: the one that opposes identitarians to those who maintain a universalist and republican conception of citizenship. The escalation of identity claims contributes to the collapse of public debate and the disintegration of our democracy.
Everyone seeks to find their place in society, it is a basic human need. However, for a long time republican universalism was able to respond to this need by recognizing equal rights and duties for everyone, not because of their wealth, their origin, their religion or their sexual orientation, but because of their status of citizen. This answer, in the eyes of many French people, clearly failed. A growing number of citizens, faced with the deterioration of public services, the precariousness of the labor market, the persistence of discrimination, the rise of incivility and violence in our society, feel that they are no longer respected and considered by their employer, by public services or in the streets and public places.
Faced with the manifest inability of successive powers to defend the triptych “freedom, equality, fraternity”, a certain number of activists, intellectuals and political leaders believe they have found the key to responding to the aspirations of those who, often very legitimate way, feel aggrieved, discriminated against, or ignored. The demand for rights in the name of everyone’s identity, and therefore the right to be different, is gradually supplanting the demand for equality. This “wokism”, an imperfect and ideologically connoted term to which I prefer “identitarianism” or “communitarianism”, is imported from the United States and directly impacts the functioning of our institutions and our democracy. Debate becomes impossible, and the very principle of representation is attacked.
Everyone becomes locked into their identity
You are now disqualified not on the basis of your arguments, but of what makes your identity: you are not black, Muslim, you do not belong to any minority? So you don’t have the right to talk about discrimination, racism, xenophobia, because you don’t feel it in your flesh. Therefore, a white person cannot represent the interests of “racialized” people, men cannot defend women well, or the rich carry the voice of the poor… And so, with the best intentions in the world, each sees himself not freed from his particular condition, but locked into his identity. Can we be surprised that both are constantly brought back to their religion or their skin color, when they base their claims on their identity?
The share of French people engaged in this deadly logic for our democracy is fortunately less important than the political and media landscape sometimes suggests. But all the same: 23% of French people – and 31% of 25-34 year olds – think that an elderly person cannot understand the daily life of young people and is therefore not legitimate to defend them. 27% think that a white person cannot understand the daily life of black people and is therefore not legitimate to defend them, including 41% of 25-34 year olds. 28% of French people think that a man cannot understand the daily life of women and is therefore not legitimate to represent them, including 42% of 25-34 year olds and 36% of women. 28% of French people think that a heterosexual person cannot understand, and therefore represent, homosexual or bisexual people, including 38% of 25-34 year olds. Finally, a very French particularity which says a lot about our relationship with money: 56% of French people consider that a person from well-to-do categories cannot understand the daily life of people from working-class categories and is therefore not legitimate for represent.
This new divide is weakening our democracy day by day. The “non-identitarians” – those who absolutely never give in to this logic – still weigh 40% within the presidential majority or among Les Républicains, and 27% among LFI sympathizers or 22% in the RN. No political family is therefore spared by the phenomenon. The identitarian logic – those who systematically answer yes to the questions of the OpinionWay survey quoted here – weighs only 8% within the population, against 31% who are absolutely universalists and republicans. But young people are yielding more and more to the communitarian temptation – 13% of 25-34 year olds, against 3% of over 65 year olds. The phenomenon, which will accelerate, will inevitably lead to the dislocation of the debate and to the questioning of the fundamental principle of representation. It is a danger that we still too often overlook. It is high time to open our eyes to this peril that threatens our democracy.
* Chloé Morin is a political scientist associated with the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, specialist in public opinion