Who is the charm number for? In recent days, the executive has multiplied the signals in favor of the “middle classes”. On April 27, the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, had mentioned a “tax cut for the middle classes by the end of the five-year term”. During an interview granted to the 20 Hours of TF1, May 15, Emmanuel Macron specified the amount. “I have asked the government to make proposals to me so that these 2 billion euros of reduction focus on the middle classes”, he declared, before specifying: “That is to say the French men and women who work hard, who want to raise their children well and who, today, because the cost of living has gone up, because the wage dynamics are not always there, are having trouble making ends meet end of the month.”
A vague definition, which he seemed to clarify the day before in an interview with Opinion, indicating that they particularly target French people whose income is between 1,500 and 2,500 euros. What finally delineate the contours of the middle class? Not sure. In February 2021, François Bayrou, close to Emmanuel Macron, estimated that one could belong to the middle class by receiving 4,000 euros per month. The large income gap between the two definitions is significant… and illustrates well the problem of qualifying what the “middle classes” are. Protean, used extensively with each tax reform, the concept is one of the most vague concepts in public debate.
“Averaging” and the reign of the hypermarket
To know who belongs to the middle classes, it would already be necessary to manage to delimit them clearly. During the Glorious Thirties, the concept corresponded to the arrival of an intermediate category between the popular classes (employees, farmers, workers) and the wealthiest (senior executives, employers). “The emergence of the middle class in the 1960s in France is above all that of a category of consumers”, analyzes the anthropologist Dominique Desjeux, professor emeritus at the University of Paris.
A new category of French people capable of accessing property, affording holidays and leisure, buying a car and household appliances has thus been formed. And has become large enough to attract the attention of politicians: in 1984, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing addressed the middle classes in an essay with an evocative title, Two out of three French people. This idea translates into the numbers. At the beginning of the 20th century, “the middle 40% of the income scale in France only owned 15% of total wealth, the top 10%, everything else”, estimated the economist Lucas Chancel, associate professor at Political science, In The world, in November 2022. In the 1980s, the share of heritage held by these “middle” French people rose to “about 40%”.
“This ‘averaging’ was particularly illustrated by the reign of the hypermarket, where everyone went to do their shopping, relates Jérôme Fourquet, director of the opinion and business strategies department of Ifop, in an article for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation. Everyone certainly did not put the same thing in their Shopping Cart, but all supplied themselves in the same place.” From its origin, the middle class therefore induced differences: it was more of a range than a category. clear.
No uniform block
To better define it, quantified delimitations have been drawn up. But these indicators differ according to the sources and methods. “The most common definition is to say that we take into account couples whose standard of living is between double and two-thirds of the median income”, explains Claude Poissenot, teacher-researcher in sociology at the IUT of Nancy-Charlemagne. That is to say people who earn… between 1,300 and 3,700 euros net per month. Suffice to say that the majority of the population fits into this definition, since 80% of salaries range between the minimum wage and 3,200 euros per month. If we prefer to consider that the middle class corresponds to the average net salary, this was 2,012 euros net per month in 2021 in the private sector, the date of the latest data available on the Insee website.
But other variations exist. According to the Observatory of Inequalities, for example, middle classes “are between the poorest 30% and the top 20% of the scale”, which he refers to as the “affluent classes”. This would correspond to people earning between 1,400 and 2,600 euros per month.
In the soft underbelly that constitutes this interval, we find very diverse professions: service employees, craftsmen, small traders… Varied situations which further blur the definition of what constitutes a middle class. “In this large intermediate chamber, there is an enormous variety of situations, working conditions, life… So much so that it is difficult to place the individuals who compose it in a uniform block”, estimates Jan Spurk, professor of sociology at the University of Paris-Cité. Unlike workers or peasants, for example, individuals belonging to the middle class have no common denominator – which makes them all the more elusive.
From “ni-ni”
“The middle class is not unique, but is organized around a continuum of consumption, explains Dominique Desjeux. As soon as purchasing power changes, so does its definition. Its composition is therefore often modified. It is a nebula.” Asked about France Inter on May 16the sociologist Julien Damon, professor at Sciences Po and author of a book on the middle classes, has moreover chosen to define them… by emptiness: “They are neither rich nor poor. neither in upscale neighborhoods nor in disadvantaged neighborhoods. These are, in companies, people who occupy neither executive nor managerial positions. It’s neither.
This sociological puzzle is practical for identification. Since no one knows precisely what the middle class is, it is easy to think of being part of it. “The French are reluctant to define themselves as very rich or poor, notes Eric Maurin, director of studies at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. The politician therefore uses the concept a lot to speak to the greatest number.” With a downside, however: in recent years, the share of French people who believe they belong to the middle classes has fallen slightly. According to a survey conducted in October 2011 by Ifop for Fondapol, 52% of French people identified with this category, 29% with the most modest and 13% with the upper classes. Twelve years later, in a study carried out by the same polling institute, 49% of the population belongs to the middle classes. While 31% of French people believe they belong to the most modest category and only 12% to the wealthiest classes.