– Kazimir Malevich, « Quadrilateral and circle », 1915.
Chow can we interpret the complaint for defamation brought by the IFOP against Mr. Alexandre Dézé, lecturer in political science ? This is the question that arises each time a reason for prosecution appears to be a futile pretext. In this case, the criticism of a poll concerning the massacre of Charlie Hebdo in 2015 concerned the sounder sample: « With such a small sample of 515 people, this survey has no value and its conclusions are questionable. The methodological weakness is delusional and at the same time there is an indestructible belief that these polls are science » (1).
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Read also Alain Garrigou, “ The return of the gag », « Fire on freedoms », Way of seeing n˚182, April-May 2022.
What’s so infamous to deserve a trial ? An aberration of the law on defamation allows, in the case of a complaint for this reason, to indict the person concerned, subject to a deposit of bail within the reach of the plaintiffs, bail lost in the event of judicial defeat. The investigating judge, however, does not carry out any investigation: he is content to summon the accused to give his name, first name and date of birth. With slight distance from those familiar with forensic matters, it will be argued that there is not much risk of conviction for the person attacked, but merely trouble, at least if liberal case law is to be believed. of the 17th chamber specializing in press affairs. The plaintiff cannot be unaware that he has every chance of losing his case. Hence this question: in the middle of the election campaign, and knowing that collaborators of the institute were not informed, what could have put this leader of the IFOP in such anger? ?
Pollsters do not like criticism from scientific circles
Pollsters do not like criticism from scientific circles. Most often, they do not respond to them, not without taking care to confine the criticisms following the tactic of “ media graveyard “. When they do, they lead a general and repetitive defense, without ever mentioning a name (except that of the late Pierre Bourdieu). We guess in this reserve the concern not to put themselves at odds with the university environment, where they have allies. It would be somewhat contradictory to attack scientists when one claims oneself to be science.
How does questioning the size of a sample qualify as defamation? ? The IFOP’s complaint against Alexandre Dézé clearly constitutes a SLAPP. Once again, the law of 1881 is thus diverted in favor of a process of intimidation. The magistrates are not fooled, complain about it but wait for the legislator to want to change the law. It should also be remembered that the SLAPP suit is aimed, beyond the person charged, at all of those who might be tempted to prolong the criticism. From this perspective, the legal process no longer appears so futile. It certainly has a financial cost. It is part of the efficiency specific to these lawsuits to confront the respective wealth of the attacker and the attacked: the initiator knows he is richer, he is capable of inflicting incomparably higher costs on a simple researcher and says so. Publication in the middle of an election campaign of an excellent book by Alexandre Dézé, Ten lessons on polls, obviously has nothing to do with it.
Dissymmetry
When recording one more SLAPP, however, we must note its originality. It is indeed the first time that a pollster has initiated such a lawsuit against an academic. At least directly. We knew the complaints of the partners of the pollsters: those who make them regular orders. Thus I myself was prosecuted by a sponsor of the Élysée under the presidency of Mr Nicolas Sarkozy, in the person of Mr Patrick Buisson, then by the company Fiducial, partner of the IFOP in a rolling poll published by the JDD. In the second trial, the president of the court did not hide his astonishment that following an article entitled “ The second death of the FIFG », it is the sponsor who is suing me for defamation and not the pollster whom I had severely criticized. On this occasion, the term “ gag suit had been repeated by the judgment. To my knowledge and to my great satisfaction, this was the first time (2).
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Read also Pierre Bourdieu, “ The making of public debates », The diplomatic worldJanuary 2012.
As if the economic gap between the company suing for defamation and the individual it has indicted were not enough, there is a fundamental asymmetry between what is possible and even banal for a company and impossible for a scientific. It is not enough to be indignant at a new attack on freedom of expression and the trouble caused to an academic who has only done his job, and with competence. The confrontation is not only unequal but rigged between a company Merchant of knowledge production (the polling institutes ”) and an individual producer non-market of knowledge (an academic). The latter cannot be placed on the same plane as the former: under no circumstances can the courts establish scientific truth. Can a researcher show a court judgment to prove that he is right ? On the other hand, it is his competence or even his morality that will be called into question in the event of an unfavorable judgment. The commercial company does not risk much except a little money since even defeated judicially, it is not judged with regard to morality but to its interests. And if she wins…
Another novelty is likely to pass all the more unnoticed as it does not appear in the complaint. Significantly, it does not mention the newspaper and the journalist who authored the article quoting the researcher. For the sake of sparing a daily newspaper as influential as The world ? Custom and logic dictate that the defamation complaint should inseparably target the accused and the distributing press organ. Because a statement is defamatory only because it is public. Pronounced in private, it is not liable to the law. It is therefore publication in the press that constitutes defamation. Is the complaint only admissible ? If so, it would have serious and ironic implications for news writing. Journalists commonly call on specialists in the issues they cover. They are often cautious in order to avoid trouble, and journalists are with them. If the fate of the newspaper were dissociated from that of the specialist, it would be necessary, in cases where they could be taken to task, to go along with the usual solution of concealing the identities of the people. Thus one would read, borrowing from the genre of reporting, that “ Faced with this survey, René (his first name has been changed), professor of political science, believes that we must remain very careful “. Another option: that the specialists ” are silent.
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