Populism from below and nihilism from above? | Opinion

On Sunday, June 9, the National Regroupment (RN) list won the European election in France by a large margin. This result confirms the crystallization of a geographical, social and cultural fracture. But I believe that, more than a “fracture”, we should talk about a true division, a cultural division between the middle and working classes and the “world above”, the integrated or upper classes. As a response to this schism, Emmanuel Macron has decided to dissolve the Assembly. Its strategy is simple and aims to take advantage of the extreme polarization of the debate: social democracy or fascism. Now, playing with the far right is a risky bet.

Exactly 40 years ago, a sorcerer’s apprentice named François Mitterrand had the idea of ​​taking the extreme right out of the box it was in, in order to fend off its rivals. On February 12, 1984 (an Orwellian year), Jean-Marie Le Pen, president of a small far-right group that represented no more than 0.74% of the electorate, took part in the most-watched political program of the time. It was the first time he developed his thesis in prime time in front of millions of television viewers. Four months later, with 10.95% of the votes in the European elections, the National Front made its national rise. Mitterrand had recently invented the right-wing killing machine.

Several decades later, another sorcerer’s apprentice had an even more radical idea: eliminate the competition between left and right by confronting the extreme right alone. The strategy succeeded and, in 2017, Emmanuel Macron easily defeated Marine Le Pen with 66% of the vote. Five years later, in 2022, he repeated: he reframed his campaign, ignoring rivals on the right and left and focusing on the RN candidate. As expected, the one who was supposed to run lost, but the margin was significantly reduced. With 42% of the vote and 13 million voters, the far-right candidate achieved an impressive result. Another 13 million people abstained and two million chose to cast a blank vote. In short, 28 million French people, i.e. 58% of voters, considered that the extreme right was no longer a threat. This is the majority probability on which the RN dynamic is currently based. And, while it has obtained a historic result for the party in the European elections, surveys also consider possible the victory of Marine Le Pen in the presidential elections of 2027, with assurances of the strength of its popular base, the RN is now connecting with groups of the population that were not previously within their reach, such as senior officials and, above all, a novelty: none other than retirees. It is in this age group, the base of the Macronist electorate, that the election for the presidency will really be fought. So, contrary to what Emmanuel Macron and François Mitterrand before him thought, the extreme right has ceased to oppose as much as before. The creature has escaped the system. The RN is in a position to win a majority of votes. How did we get here?

To begin with, it should be noted that this populist push is not at all attributable to the “genius” of the RN leaders (nor to the activism of its members, which is almost nonexistent). Contemporary populists are not demagogues, but marketing professionals. Its strength lies not in convincing the masses, much less in guiding them, but, on the contrary, in adapting itself to the existentialist movement and letting itself be swept away by it. This movement, autonomous and inspired by the powerful sense of social and cultural disenfranchisement of the middle and working classes, is unstoppable. It can take the form of a social protest (Phrygian Caps, Yellow Vestpeasants), but it cannot be programmed or manipulated. It is a movement that has not stopped reactivating and reinvigorating itself every time there is a reform, a referendum or, in this case, a European election; and now in the legislative election?

For decades, populism has limited itself to following the flow, swaying itself with the winds of that social movement and adapting itself at every moment to the social and cultural demands of the majority. What contributes to its success is the fact that the other parties, each prisoner of their voters, their ideology and their strategies, have not understood the underlying causes of this discontent.

In this context, Emmanuel Macron’s strategy of resigning and leaving the issues that drive the National Rally’s vote to the extreme right has gone too far. By refusing to take seriously the various issues that are of most concern to the French, such as insecurity (physical and cultural), migrant flows, the welfare state and the defense of sovereignty, Macron has pushed many of them into the RN arms. This extreme right-wing view of reality contributes to locking the powerful in their strongholds (the metropolises) and in an electoral base that is no longer made up of anything other than retirees and the upper classes. Geographic and cultural imprisonment has created a radical anthropological rift between the inhabitants of the big cities and the working and middle classes living in peripheral France. And it is in that France of small and medium-sized cities and rural areas where a “middle class” subjected for 30 years to the largest social plan in history is increasingly precarious and where the electoral breeding ground for populists is.

This division contributes fundamentally to the national regroupment vote. In France, as throughout Europe, populism is based on the creation of geographical and cultural bubbles that do not talk to each other and which are undermining democracy in all Western countries because they radicalise public debate on the question of borders.

The new urban class, uninterested in the common good and followers of the neoliberal model, are the embodiment of a selfish capitalist class that admires individualism and a culture of “no restrictions”. The great beneficiaries of the neoliberal model who have destroyed all notions of control believe that anything is possible, that what is good for them is good for humanity and, in this sense, the idea of ​​common limits is an obstacle, a setback to their individual freedom.

In contrast, the working classes, alienated from that cultural and geographical bubble and weakened by the economic and cultural model, demand some regulation. They want barriers that prevent the expansion of the market and individualism. And this ever-increasing demand for cultural, social and economic limits by the most humble is the fuel of populist parties, all over Europe.

Now that a new populist rise is evident, the resignation of a part of the ruling classes in the face of the approaching political turn and the president’s high-risk strategy is indeed astonishing. This fatalism is symptomatic of a form of nihilism that is dangerously widespread among the Western upper classes. Today it does not seem that hope comes “from above”; neither from the political class, nor from intellectuals, much less from think tanks. This reality should serve as a warning and, above all, force us to see the demands of ordinary people not as a problem, but as a solution. The existential movement of the working and middle classes, driven by the instinct to survive and the desire to preserve the common good, is also a reaction against the nihilism that comes from above.

As Prince Myshkin said Idiot Dostoevsky, that “beauty will save the world”, isn’t it time to say that “common decency” (Orwell again) is what will save Western societies?

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