2022, the populist outbreak delivers an enlightening analysis of “Underground forces” which explain the explosion of this deeply rooted feeling that is the rejection of the elites a few months from the next presidential election. A documented and very complete essay, signed by the political journalist Damien Fleurot and the expert associated with the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, Mathieu Souquière. The latter answered questions from West France.
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Mathieu Souquière, associate expert at the Jean Jaurès Foundation and co-author of the book “La Flambée populiste” with Damien Fleurot. © Daniel Fouray / Ouest-France
How to define populism?
It is a split vision of society with, on the one hand, the rulers, judged null, corrupt, incompetent, centered on their own interests; and, on the other, the “good” people betrayed by these elites. For a very long time, the primary opposition was the class struggle: the dominant and the dominated.
From now on, it is the rulers against all the others. There is a left-wing populism which attacks more the economic elites and a right-wing populism which attacks the political elites more. The two converge in a single critique of media elites supposedly “serving” others. It is the radical and sometimes even aggressive denunciation of the system.
Criticism of elites is healthy in a democracy, isn’t it?
Let there be no mistake: criticism of the elites is the very principle of democracy. This is what allows work-study. But when we go from argued criticism to mechanical denunciation, which borders on the detestation of those who embody it there, we are in something else.
He is the deputy for La France insoumise, Francois Ruffin, who, in the midst of Yellow vests, made a tribune in The world where he addresses Emmanuel Macron by saying you are “hated, hated, hated”. We can see that we are in a mortifying couple. On the one hand: the presumed contempt of the elites towards the people and in response, a form of resentment and even hatred, that is populism.
What explains this particular climate?
As of 2017, there are two underground forces that people may not be observing: and that is the entrenchment of populism. 90% of the French think that the elites make bad decisions, contrary to the interests of the people, and half think it is deliberate.
And the second underground force is the extreme right-wing of French opinion. The rejection of the migration issue is 10 points higher in France than elsewhere. Compared to the Germans, the English and the Italians, the French show a much stronger rejection of immigration.
Why ?
Because in our country, right-wing voters are completely aligned with the positions of far-right voters. The sympathizers of the Republican party think exactly the same thing as the sympathizers of the National assembly on the only subject of migration. And beyond that, last year, for a reason that no one can explain, the death penalty jumped ten points in France. Basically 45% of people are still in favor, it’s been a trend for 15-20 years. And in 2020, that goes from 45 to 55%.
Do you talk about “mood” in your book, feelings that often have little to do with the facts?
Populism thrives on this gap between objectified reality and people’s resentment, the representations we have of reality. The demographer Hervé Le Bras wrote two years ago “Feeling badly in a France that is doing well”, which precisely points out this difference between reality and the perception we have of it.
How to explain this difference?
In opinion studies that measure the social climate, we are always among the last in the world. We are at the level of the Afghans. That is to say, the average Frenchman has as low morale as the average Afghan. However, there is little doubt that we live better in France than in Afghanistan.
In addition, there is a famous book by Henry Rousso and Eric Conan, two historians of the Second World War, named Vichy, a past that does not pass, which traces this notion back to the fact that we thought of ourselves as resistance fighters, heroes in history and it was observed during World War II that the French were not the heroes they thought they were. We told each other this story, from General de Gaulle to François Mitterrand, but one day we had to examine our conscience. He was so violent, so formidable that in terms of national pride, it weighs very heavily.
Till today ?
This examination of conscience took place at the time when the left, which embodied hope, came to power and was greatly disappointing. At that point, we began to doubt. Besides, the great stories – the revolution on the left and religion on the right – all that collapsed. And even if populism does not date from today, this populist narrative is essential because we have no more.
Is that a way of explaining the world?
And an extremely reassuring way! The world is more and more complex and the populist discourse is ultra-simple, allowing everyone to reappropriate a form of explanation of the world. If all goes wrong, if all goes as it is: it is because up there they are all null or corrupt. The populist leader thus places himself as the savior of the people.
Politically, is it profitable?
Extremely profitable. This is what makes all the great democracies there. It is an easy solution that did not wait today to prosper. Populism has been around almost as long as democracy.
It worked absolutely everywhere in the world, pretty much every time, with fever flares. For 20-25 years, it has regained ground because a world that is difficult to explain is a world that is easy to fear. Populism rides a mixture of fear and anger.
You say that the elites themselves have a responsibility in this situation, which one?
The elites have played a lot on the notion of insecurity. I’m not saying that there is no such thing as insecurity, but there is a hiatus between real insecurity and felt insecurity. Right-wing and far-right politicians have played on physical, bodily and cultural insecurity: we are threatened in our physical integrity and in our way of life. But the left, it summons economic and social insecurity and explains for twenty-five years that France is almost a country in the process of third worldization.
We remain the seventh largest economic power in the world, with an ultra-redistributive and more redistributive social model in the world, I am not saying that there is no poverty, no inequalities, but compared to what is happening elsewhere, it is rather contained. France is not that bad. Besides, nobody in the world is convinced that France is zero … Except the French.
In this context, how do you see Eric Zemmour’s candidacy?
He is riding this double wave: first the extreme right-wing opinion, then the entrenchment of populism. It also captures the demand for radicalism. In 2017, it was captured by Jean-Luc Mélenchon first and by Marine Le Pen second. And Eric Zemmour benefits from another major fact: the volatility of opinion.
In 2017, we said to ourselves that democracy is extremely gaseous in France. In 2022, this is even more true. My analysis is that Marine Le Pen is not weakened because Eric Zemmour arrives, he arrives because Marine Le Pen was weakened after a failed five-year term for her, as demonstrated by the municipal and regional elections.
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