Following the whim of a president who decided to overturn the table after losing the European elections, a wind of panic is shaking our political landscape. Faced with the imminent legislative elections, dirty tricks and dirty tricks are multiplying, alliances are being made and broken. It is the time for strategists without faith or law, for calculators without honor, and for petty score-settling. Not an hour passes without seeing a reversal of the situation, an about-face or a shake-up that threatens to reshuffle the cards for the distribution of constituencies. In short, we clarify the situation…
In the midst of this chaos, one fact went almost unnoticed. The two favorites in the race for seats have published the broad outlines of their programs. And the least we can say is that they are as absurd as each other. On the RN side, we want to slow down economic immigration while businesses are struggling to find workers; we propose to reduce VAT – the only fairly effective tax – while the deficit reaches records; we promise to reduce the retirement age to 60 years while the Retirement Orientation Council (COR) has just announced that as it stands the system is untenable. And all this, without a tax increase. It’s free.
At the other end of the spectrum, that is to say next door in reality, the New Insoumis Front – because that is what it is – goes even further into the delirium. Increase in the minimum wage to 1,600 euros and a move to 32 hours, when French competitiveness and productivity are declining; ban on evicting tenants who do not pay their rent, unless they find accommodation – no one will pay anymore; retirement at 60 of course; indexation of wages to inflation, just to lead to a price-wage loop worthy of the greatest inflationary catastrophes. But unlike the RN, here, we don’t shave for free! To finance these hundreds of billions and the economic crisis that we are preparing for, we have thought of everything: reestablishment of the ISF, abolition of the flat tax, progressiveness of the CSG, in short, we will get the money where it is; except he will be long gone.
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Flip the table
Basically, the programs are identical since they are unrealistic. In form too, since they don’t even try to hide it. You don’t need to have studied economics to understand that working less, giving more to everyone, increasing costs for businesses and refusing to pay debts form a perfect cocktail to lead to bankruptcy. However, no one seemed surprised by the announcement of these measures. Better yet, they did not have the slightest impact on voting intentions. And this is what should have made the headlines in the media. Some will say that the heart of the projects of these groups lies elsewhere, that the voter does not vote for economics but politics. Inadmissible argument when anger towards the president crystallizes on purchasing power and employment. Citizens say they are revolted by the economic situation and vote headlong for programs that promise them poverty and misery. Even though the assessment of the one they hate is objectively positive.
That no one questions this paradox says a lot about our mental state and even more about our true expectations. Why vote for programs whose failure is certain (and which will never be implemented since as soon as one of these parties comes to power, bond rates would explode, further reducing the government’s resources)? The answer is sadly simple. Voters don’t care about programs. And they also don’t care whether the people who wrote them are just incompetent or totally cynical. Because the stupidity of these programs can only be the work of an idiot or a crook. What does it matter to voters; what they want is to overturn the table too, express their anger and finally be part of a system that they also accuse of all the evils.
Passion for equality and self-hatred
Apparently suicidal attitude, but perfectly rational if we agree to identify its deep motivations. Those who turn to parties that promise anything and everything are not fools. They know well that their situation will not improve. But at least they are convinced that the future will be harder for those who seem satisfied with their current condition; those who have been in power, those who have the means, those who love the society in which they live or at least are content with it. These elites, these rich people, these democrats, all those who have been able to flourish in institutions which promise nothing other than liberty, equality and fraternity. “Well,” they say to themselves, excited by the speeches of these sad figures who represent the anti-system parties, “since I have not succeeded in being who I wanted, you will all be punished. After me the flood.”
This is the origin of the success of these parties and the reason why, whatever their programs and whatever their representatives, they continue their inevitable rise. Because they excite the passion for equality and self-hatred, the two engines of envy, they only need to promise chaos to retain their supporters. Faced with this, it is futile to attack the programs, just as it is futile to try to dissuade their voters. The former are empty, the latter filled with resentment. To avoid the worst, it is up to others to unite.
*Pierre Bentata is a lecturer in economics at the Faculty of Law and Political Science of Aix-Marseille.
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