'The strong sense of injustice felt by some French explains the strength of their reaction at the ballot box'
A good government, whatever it may be, cannot function without social sciences' continuous support, which is probably why bad governments always start by suppressing them.
Over the years, numerous studies have highlighted France's social malaise and helped us understand its nature. As early as 1993, in The Weight of the World: Social Suffering in Contemporary Society, Pierre Bourdieu drew attention to the importance of "positional" suffering, writing: "Using material poverty as the sole measure of all suffering keeps us from seeing and understanding a whole side of the suffering characteristic of a social order which, although it has undoubtedly reduced poverty overall, has also multiplied the social spaces and set up the conditions for an unprecedented development of all forms of ordinary suffering."
In 2009, in a paper entitled "Do we still live in a class society?" the sociologist Olivier Schwartz, in the wake of the publication of his collective book La France des Petits Moyens ("Small Means France"), highlighted one of the main obstacles to continuing to form a "society of equals," i.e., a society capable of integrating all its members and keeping inequalities to a minimum. By analyzing the perspectives of machinists at the bottom of the ladder of a large company, Schwartz noted that they felt subjected to a double pressure, one coming from above, the other from below.
Demands for social and fiscal justice
"One example of this pressure from below is the idea that there are too many unemployed people who not only don't have a job but aren't looking for one, who live on the minimum welfare income or welfare benefits, who therefore do not go looking for work, and who can do so because others pay taxes for them. Another is the idea that some immigrant families live without working thanks to benefits, in other words, thanks to social welfare which, once again, is financed by those who work and their taxes."
Knowledge in this field was enhanced by Studies devoted to the Yellow Vest protests. From the outset, researchers recorded traffic circle protesters' complaints about social inequality and demands for social and fiscal justice. More recently, Yaëlle Amsellem-Mainguy's work in Les Filles du Coin ("The Local Girls"), Benoît Coquard's in Ceux qui Restent ("Those Who Remain") and Vincent Jarousseau's comic strip Les Racines de la Colère ("The Roots of Wrath") have shone a bright light on the feeling of contempt and abandonment experienced by those who remained in small towns and the countryside while those who could study left, as well as the destructive effect of the dismantling of work and living spaces caused by economic crises.
I do not believe that our leaders have read this research, nor that the Elysée, ministerial cabinets or central administration departments are organized to understand its results and draw political conclusions from them. There may have been a time when this was the case. Such time is now well and truly over. If not, we would have noticed a change of course, regional planning policies would have been implemented, environmental measures would have been anticipated, prepared for and supported, public services would have been maintained, the discourse towards the working classes would have been benevolent and the concern for justice permanent. Our governments would have used a scale, the scales of justice, to proceed.
Clear message
But all they did was look at averages – inequality in France supposedly did not increase and is lower than in other countries – and believe that the French were grumpy, always dissatisfied – so that, in reality, things weren't that bad – and that attracting foreign investment and deconstructing labor protections would be enough to create jobs.
The powerful sense of injustice felt by a section of the French population explains the current dereliction and the strength of the reaction in the polls. In the famous fresco The Allegory of Good and Bad Government, painted in 1338 by Ambrogio Lorenzetti on the walls of the Palazzo Municipale in Siena and masterfully commented on by Patrick Boucheron in Conjurer la Peur ("Conjuring Fear"), Concord, daughter of Justice, holds a massive carpenter's plane in her lap. This is the instrument that makes things equal. Boucheron reminds us that, in the context of the 14th century, the allusion was clear: This is a plane to smooth taxes.
At the time, one of the first demands of the people was (already!) to impose a fairer tax system based on an evaluation of individual fortunes. Hence why all the city's magistrates were of equal stature. The effects of good government are depicted: sowing crops, harvesting, marriage, conviviality, prosperity and happiness. Bad government, which, on the other hand, is inspired by division, is a source of famine, rapine, rape and war.
The message is clear: If they want to avoid the appalling monster of tyranny that threatens us all, rulers must be unwavering in their concern for justice. Not an abstract justice based on averages, but one that knows the dangers of comparison, the destructive effects of excessive differences, and therefore reduces them to a minimum in order to preserve the possibility of a society of equals.
Dominique Méda is a professor of sociology (Université Paris-Dauphine-PSL) and the president of the Veblen Institute.