Organized in partnership with the daily Le Monde, the last round table of the Rouen Resilience Forum will be held this Tuesday at 6.30 p.m. at 106, in Rouen, on the theme “The city, nature, the living: imagine today the resilient city of tomorrow? “. Author of remarkable essays, David Djaïz takes part in it. Maintenance.
What is the role of an intellectual in our time? Can you still be audible?
David Djaïz: Today the public debate has become cacophonous and hysterical. We can no longer agree and we can no longer even agree on facts. The responsibility of an intellectual is first of all to try to contribute to enlighten the debates, to arrive at a calm and informed public debate. I see this work as trying to find what is best in the sciences – the social sciences and the human sciences in my case – in order to put these elements into shape in a discourse accessible to the general public. Here is the reflection which is mine. I find that it lends itself really well to a reflection on a new model of society.
Climate change, terrorism, violence, immigration… One gets the impression that French society is only reacting to tragedies and catastrophes, but that it is incapable of uniting around positive values. Do we need an electric shock to bring us together?
David Djaïz: This is a question I am often asked. I hope we don’t need a war. We have been at peace since 1962 and I hope we will stay that way. But climate change, demographic aging, globalization with its crises, these are shocks which can be serious, but which can constitute the material for collective recovery. We must rely on disasters, not to be happy, but rather to make them the lever of Archimedes of a new collective model. An example: the aging of the population. It is inexorable. The population is aging. If we take it as a calamity, we are not going to get out of it, whereas it can be a great opportunity to reinvent social links, urban planning, to create wealth and jobs. See the intergenerational district of Saint-Apolinaire in the suburbs of Dijon, the senior serviced residences, the shared apartments between the elderly and students. These are new uses, new ways of bonding. We must seize these transitions and make them the metal of the new model of society that I am calling for.
Why are we so pessimistic in France, as much or almost as the Iraqis?
David Djaïz: Be careful, we are pessimistic about collective life. Because the level of individual satisfaction in France is quite good. There is a French art de vivre, friendly and neighborly relations. This is not the level of Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries, but it is rather positive. Where it sins completely, it is for everything that touches on the common life. We had invented a very particular republican civilization which was consolidated in waves. We had the Third Republic, which I call the “political republic”, formed after the defeat of 1870, with the great laws of freedom, of public education in the countryside… Then there was the economic and social republic afterwards. 1945 (Social Security, reindustrialisation of the country) which is the starting point of my book. But it all broke down because the liberal dynamics of globalization (the individual and the market rather than society and public power) have been unfavorable to our republican model. Today, it is time to reinvent a republican synthesis, which does not reactivate the old oppositions market / state, rurality / metropolises, but on the contrary tries to constitute synergies and coalitions. I strongly believe in the alliance of territories, between rural territories and metropolises, in the alliance of private actors and public actors. I am in line with these republican syntheses which are pragmatic syntheses, compromises between political and social forces. 1945, it is a synthesis between the Communists and the Gaullists. It is industrial development, major technological programs that ensure the greatness of France, in exchange for Social Security, works councils, social rights… It is this synthesis that we have somewhat lost. This is what we need to find, but we cannot reactivate the 1945 synthesis because the world has changed. We have to do it with the challenges of our time.
You expect greater involvement, greater investment from the State, but also from local authorities. On the other hand, you do not evoke Europe …
David Djaïz: I get this reflection on Europe every time I write a text! After the defeat of France against Prussia in 1870, Ernest Renan wrote “The intellectual and moral reform”, a text in which he tries to understand the reasons for the defeat. He cites in particular the insufficiency of education, civic instruction, in the countryside in particular. According to him, a great national effort must be opened for France, an effort which can only be carried out if we do it by introspection on ourselves for a few years. I believe that we have reached a somewhat similar point today: we are so uncertain of ourselves, of what we are going to become, of our meaning and of our collective identity, that before speaking of Europe, of the meaning of Europe, we must first ask ourselves what the meaning of France is. This does not mean that Europe is not necessary in the world of crises in which we live, but we will only be able to approach the European question calmly when we ourselves already know what we want.
Can France, with its strengths (its territory, its culture, its common history, etc.) cope on its own?
David Djaïz: I don’t think we can get by on our own. We are at the time of planetary crises. The ecological disaster, it is not France, which represents 1% of greenhouse gas emissions, which will solve it alone! It is the same for the globalization of exchanges, of information. But the national lever remains important. I strongly believe in coalitions of states, of actors. If there is French leadership in the ecological transition as we saw during the Paris Agreement in 2015, if there is a desire to build a well-being economy that is not a predatory economy Chinese or American, it can have a ripple effect on others, and we can manage to build international coalitions. Do not underestimate the impact of nation states.
The presidential campaign which begins does not go in reverse of the reforms and evolutions which you propose: a President of the Republic devoting himself to the long term and to the vital interests of the Nation, a reform of the Parliament…
David Djaïz: At the moment, there is no debate. We are in the race of little horses. It is “my reel”, “me”, “my candidacy”, but this institutional question is fundamental. I am not an institution fetishist but I see the complete waste of the long time in our institutions. However, we are at a crossroads in our history and we need to be able to make broad compromises over the long term, on the subjects of ecological transition, aging, digital technology, regional planning, reindustrialisation, school. . Today we can no longer make these compromises because we have a political system that has become far too confrontational, which favors cleavage for the sake of cleavage. So conflict is not a bad thing in a democracy, especially when you have parties with ideas, projects that clash. But there aren’t even any more projects, there aren’t even any more parties. It is only aggression without an object. We really need to be able to oppose serenely and respectfully, and to be able to find compromises on subjects which we consider to be of vital interest to the Nation. This is why I propose to return to the outline of the 5th Republic with a President of the Republic arbitrator, who takes height compared to the daily time of the Government, but a President who is not either an inaugurator. of chrysanthemums. He must be in charge of major projects of national interest. And that the Prime Minister really governs. The President today is not a “hyper-president” contrary to what is often claimed. He is a “hyper Prime Minister”. It is someone who is chained to daily time, to controversies, the target of all requests, all disputes. We saw at the time of the yellow vests crisis that people addressed themselves directly to the President of the Republic, without mediation. We also need to have a planning element. That all the driving forces of society can talk to each other about the major issues of the future and build compromises together and commit to an investment effort that is up to par, both by the public and by the private sector.
You bring ideas, propose reforms, but do not get involved politically …
David Djaïz: I am not in a political process. I try to bring ideas and enlighten the public debate, modestly. The French want social projects, to think about the meaning of their country, of our common future.
This text, I see it as a contribution of general interest. It’s not from the right, it’s not from the left, it’s not liberal, it’s not socialist, not nationalist. It is a text of good faith on what could be a common model of society. And for it to be common, it must be the result of a compromise between the State, businesses and society. A model is always the result of a compromise. In a society, and this is normal, there are divergent interests, sometimes conflicts – and this is not necessarily a bad thing – but a society that projects itself is a society that has given itself a common ground. Today, Germany, Denmark, South Korea, have this common ground. France, the ground has given way under its feet …
David Djaïz, The new French model, at Allary Éditions. 240 pages. 19.90 euros.
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