Sophie Képès, novelist, essayist and translator, has just published La Bataille de Villani (Buchet / Chastel, digital).
During the confinement, the Loyalist and Villanist Walkers in my district remained completely absent from the field, but also from social networks. Only the PS candidate kept in touch with his electorate. He was elected in a chair. It is difficult to explain such a fault. Unless one anticipated the defeat, which inevitably worsened it.
The causes of the failure of the EMN in municipal elections have already been analyzed: errors in the choice of candidates - problem of incarnation -, in the overall strategy - take Paris by the right -, and in local alliances - no line Claire -. Plus a series of unpredictable accidents: first, the fall of Benjamin Griveaux when he had carefully locked the apparatus of the presidential party and eliminated all those he treated privately as morons. He fell victim to himself, outraged by the Russian activist Pavlensky, well known for being a paragon of virtue: "You want to become a city chief? You shouldn't lie about sex! "Then, the coronavirus pandemic, the second postponed round, the psychological collapse of Agnès Buzyn and the loss of confidence of Parisian Walkers. This is how a winning machine can, in three years, become a losing machine.
Critical thinking is a handicap for the Republic on the Move.But I would like to come back to another point: the recruitment of political staff and the management of activists from La REM. It is a catastrophe, recognized today by the people themselves: "Party that never existed", "puppet party" - these are the words of certain advisers to the Head of State, ministers or deputies. We note that the executives of the REM often come from the same mold: uniformity of ages (thirties), genders (male), social origins and academic backgrounds. From now on, the Walkers will see themselves joked in “nobodies” or in “boyscouts”; their General Delegate, as a "colo instructor"; local committees, in “leisure centers” where we are offered: “You too, put together a campaign pitch with five elements of language!”
To read also: Maxime Tandonnet: "Abstention from municipal elections expresses the worsening of the crisis of democracy"
When one commits to REM, it is not to develop an ideological corpus, define a political line, elect officials. Critical thinking is a handicap. Cédric Villani affirms: “The EMN works like this: everything is planned in advance, the activists are only relays of what is decided at the top. Cédric O explained to me that from its foundation, En Marche was presented as horizontal but conceived as vertical. He found it perfectly fine and legitimate. ” And Anne-Christine Lang confirms: "By posing as novices supposed to embody political renewal, certain Marchers who, in fact, were already very seasoned militants, pulled the strings behind the scenes and sometimes cynically exploited the new elected officials from civil society. (…) In Paris, we deliberately named machines to acquiesce, obey and leave the field at the time of the election as soon as a button was pressed. ”
By selecting dull and docile personalities at all levels, isn't it inevitable to achieve ectoplasmic results? The reform of the REM statutes, which is supposed to be implemented now, is probably no longer on the agenda after the municipal debacle. A party to make Emmanuel Macron win in 2022 is to be completely rethought.
Villani's immediate entourage was affected by youth. He is fascinated by Macron and often makes the same mistakes with a delay.What about the "bar opposite" at Cédric Villani's? Going from 15% of voting intentions in October to 0.8% of votes in June, ending up being a simple borough councilor when you dreamed of being the mayor of the capital, that is hardly brilliant. The only consolation: Agnes Buzyn did not do any better.
Unlike the Griveaux man, Villani comes from civil society. Throughout the campaign, his unusual profile attracted the media. On the ground, passers-by gladly took his electoral leaflet. One day, a fossil communist who sold Humanity even said to me: "I will vote Villani if necessary to counter Griveaux." Almost no hateful comments on social media either. Villani has charisma, he knew how to make quality people want to get involved for him, then make them cooperate. He gathered hundreds of enthusiastic activists behind his candidacy. His project, built by experts and citizens, is truly visionary and in-depth. So what?
It was the political aspect of his campaign that was calamitous: non-existent alliances, illegible tactics, retraining of elected officials from the second zone and of diverse origins, brutal authoritarianism of his leadership causing haemorrhages of militants (7 of the 17 committees of campaign were decimated), all for zero electoral benefit. The case of Isabelle Saporta, parachuted second on the Villani list in the 14th arrondissement, and who dropped her between the two towers, is cruel: she does not even cite it in her heartbreaking interview with Liberation.
The activists on the ground were therefore just as badly treated at Villani as at the REM "historic canal", although in a very different style.His immediate entourage is also affected by youthfulness. Villani is fascinated by Macron and often makes the same mistakes with a delay, which naturally keeps experienced people away. Young people at the bottom very "old world", full of certainties, incapable of compromise and censors moreover: "We said: no book!" , thus intimated to me Z., 25, in all candor. Caramba, still missed! It's crazy, these writers who do as they please.
Worse still: the phoney trust votes on the top of the list. Citizen democracy was however one of the main Villanist markers. And the Walkers who followed the mathematician in his dissidence had done so on a promise of political ethics. Ah yes, we were going to show La REM that we, we would respect its displayed values, while gaining points in the electorate! The management of the campaign unfortunately illustrated the opposite. The educational effect of our dissidence, its exemplary value did not resist.
The activists on the ground were therefore just as badly treated at Villani as at the REM "historic canal", although in a very different style. The contempt for them was systematic. All whistleblowers had their heads severed. We partitioned to death to prevent committees spared by the purges from being informed. Where did the empathy that the deputy of Essonne used in his books go? I saw him let him sacrifice without intervening the faithful who had served him for a year, even two; people he was close to outside of politics; people who had raised funds for him.
He gave the impression of wanting to both stay at La REM and leave it.There is a Villani mystery: self-inflation, blindness in others, influence of those around them? Or is it that too many scholarly calculations ultimately collide with reality? In any case, he seems incapable of choosing: " Hello, I am a Fields medalist and I have a problem with the decision!" Others take them for him. And then, his ambivalences: throughout this "cursed" campaign, he gave the impression of wanting to both stay at La REM and leave it. Like a photon, it behaves sometimes like a wave, sometimes like a particle, would no doubt say his friend the physicist Étienne Klein.
At least he remained faithful to his posture of independence. Arriving in 4th position in the first round, his merger negotiations with Anne Hidalgo having succeeded, now at the last moment Villani withdraws. "Born of the contestation of a decision of the political apparatus, he explains to his troops, in coherence this candidacy could not accommodate an agreement with another party. With the ambition of bringing together the two strands of social ecology and progressivism, she could not choose one without betraying the other. ” Alone he started, only he will end. This time, he also sacrificed his bodyguard, those who hoped to be elected councilors of Paris or land deputy posts. Not necessarily the friendliest, but they had worked a lot…
To read also: "My dear Cédric Villani, what did you go to do in this galley?"
The history of La REM, followed by the villanist adventure, is deplorable because it stifles the hopes, born after the decadence of the installed parties, of a broad recourse to civil society - which may turn out to be illusory . I met many sincere Walkers, who vigorously defended fiercely moderate opinions - a position that I find heroic, in these times of hysterization and polarization of public life. But once they are excluded, the opportunists, the courtiers and the falots share the ground. As Pierre Mauroy said: "In politics, when the disgusted are gone, there will only be the disgusting." Is this not one of the sources of disaffection for representative democracy and its corollary, the rise of populism?
What if the secret of electoral success also lay in the respect of activists, who give a lot to their fellow citizens without always expecting much in return?