A politician confided to me recently, resigned: “Of course we will have Marine Le Pen in power in 2027. We cannot have 3 out of 20 in physics for years, and be surprised to miss Polytechnique. Well that’s the same thing.” I found the comparison eloquent. It came back to me in recent days, as I saw the public debate roll out the red carpet at the National Rally.
We are caught in the American trap. On the one hand, the “Fox Newsisation” of certain media and politicians unable to put clear words to the unbearable death of a 17-year-old young man, targeted by a police officer who is overwhelmed by the images, and who asks recurring questions . On the other: a majority commentary, in a hurry to show its moral distinction; who prefers to be moved by the radicalism of these Fox News or these French Trumps, rather than facing what the riots that followed the death of Nahel M.
No, we are not witnessing the “cry of anger” or the “cry of distress” of “there suburban youth”. What the images clearly show is a part of this youth yielding body and soul to a violent impulse; letting their contempt for the common good and their hatred of the State flare up to the point of attempted assassination of a mayor and his family in L’Haÿ-les-Roses… I specify “a part of this youth”: because contrary to what Eric Zemmour and Jean-Luc Mélenchon suggest in an ironic convergence of struggles, these young people are not representative of all these neighborhoods. Zemmour, Mélenchon: the insult on the arm of misery. In both cases: the defamation of the ordinary people who populate the housing estates, and who aspire to peace enjoyed by commentators of all persuasions whom they watch (or no longer watch) on TV.
In the meantime, the gap between the violence of the images and the sound of the commentary is an accelerator for RN voting. Much more effective than “trivialization” or “normalization” which the media love to debate in a navel-gazing spiral… Let’s open our eyes. It is the political disasters that we have allowed to persist for decades that “play the game” of the Lepenist party. The rest is secondary. The rest is parlor conversation. And in the register of disasters, that concerning the “cities” of our cities and our suburbs holds a good place.