Gabrielle Cluzel is editor-in-chief of an information and current affairs site. She just published Rooted! (Artège, 2020).
FIGAROVOX.- It is a sociological category that is not yet found in the textbooks: in this book, you praise the "blanquette veal bourgeoisie" . Who is she?
Gabrielle CLUZEL.- Don't despair! The expression may well flourish. I wanted it for the title of this book but my editor feared that the booksellers would put it in the kitchen department. I say it all the more easily since it is not mine, it is necessary to return to César… It is Emmanuel Macron who invented it during his electoral campaign, about the opening of stores on Sunday : he mocked the "blanquette de veau en famille " of the "petit bourgeois" , "of the immobile".
Commissioner Maigret's favorite dish, veal blanquette smells of pompidolian France, calm and prosperous. It was the “blanquette de veau” bourgeoisie that inhabited the pretty old houses in the city center, which have now been neglected because they prefer new pavilions on the outskirts. She was the one who went to the little rococo theater, which is now closed, except when, to make it chic, we play an inept contemporary piece. The secret of veal stew? Its sauce, its binder. It is true to live together, without binding we end up dying alone.
Rigor, punctuality, love of a job well done, a sense of duty, are a lay version of the Benedictine rules.By eradicating these values labeled "bourgeois" - when they were in reality, in a village, shared by both the peasant and the hobereau - the social bond was removed. No more "codes" , therefore no more conventions - deemed hypocritical.
It was a strong mesh which united, a common frame of reference, inherited from Christian values: politeness, "good manners" are children of charity. Rigor, punctuality, love of a job well done, a sense of duty, are a lay version of the Benedictine rules.
This provincial petty bourgeoisie seems to be dying out. Whose fault is it?
To those who have constantly denigrated it, to the point of repelling it. Emmanuel Macron knew what he was doing using this sarcastic tone: to send opponents of the Sunday opening to the blanquette bourgeoisie of veal is to demonetize them immediately. Who would today dare to claim to be “bourgeois” ? From the far left to the far right, the word is an insult. "Everyone hates the bourgeois" . And it is by this weapon of massive depreciation that we designate the polite customs which irrigated French society.
We scratch our heads to analyze the desertification of the territories. Except that, Marxist or liberal prism requires, we are only interested in the economic factor. We talk about the cultural insecurity caused by immigration, but it has also been accelerated by the erasure of a social fabric. And the agony of medium-sized cities is not just a matter of large areas installed in the wrong place. It is a way of life that has been banned. By self-hatred.
The social fabric has been unraveled without anyone worrying about the sociological consequences of this massive exodus of judges, doctors, soldiers, executives ...From centralization to delocalization, suppression of the court in dissolution of garrison, closure of maternity in filing for bankruptcy of a factory, on the pretext of a rationality that is struggling to prove itself, the social fabric has been unraveled without anyone s worried about the sociological consequences of this massive exodus of judges, doctors, soldiers, executives… And today mayors without vision for their city think of compensating for this with social housing, as if all individuals were interchangeable.
Has the weakening of the family also played a big role in this obliteration of a part of the French soul?
We trampled on the family because it is the first rooting, the first mold that imposes itself on you and obliges you. It is a place with values reputed to be detestable: place of authority, between parents and children. Place of identity, of common traditions. Place of transmission, of a genetic, material, cultural heritage. Place - let's dare the provocative word - of exclusion: everyone obviously prefers their children to those of others. There is no stronger than this bond, and more painful when it breaks, as has just shown indignation at the refusal of the Assembly to extend the leave of bereaved parents. Of course, not everything is paved with pink (readers of Poil de Carotte know this well ...). But the link is there, even painful. The country is the family of families, and each of them is the custodian of a little of the French soul. To precipitate its disintegration by so-called societal laws is to precipitate that of the country.
What are the values of these “good people” that Georges Brassens sang, and why would their disappearance be so tragic?
Are you referring to the good people who are conformist and quick to cast shame? But it's been a long time since the brave-people-don't-like-that-we-follow-another-route-that they changed sides! We could revisit, in the yardstick of our time, another song by Brassens. It would give: "It is yours this song, you the media which without manner on the subject of the PMA, authorized me to speak, when the crisp and crunchy, all the well intentioned people had closed the door to me. nose! (…) You who did not applaud when the crunchies and the crunchies, all the well-intentioned people, laughed to see me conspired on the TV sets! ” .
The good people of yesterday have turned into good people, because it takes courage today to carry this common frame of reference mentioned above. Catholics, because this humus is Christian and by their tropism of transmission, are part of it. In a certain way, the detestation which they are the object will have had the virtue to rid them of a temptation: that of the notability. Counter-culture is theirs. Transgression is on their side. Going to mass is more punk and disruptive today than going to Gay Pride.
We recognize that there is an impoverishment of society, but we continue to mock what had civilized it.This bourgeois, who is nothing but a poor man who took the social lift thanks to his efforts, carried within him the values of merit and work. Who disappeared with him. The school gave him, before Bourdieu, in addition to material potentials a cultural background. It's over: the notary, the doctor, the manufacturer are now senior technicians. Their material remains human paste and its eternal constants but they have not made their humanities. Like the others, they watch Hanouna and Ruquier.
Everyone laments: there is no more respect, authority, politeness, honor, dignity my good lady! Whose fault is it? We recognize that there is an impoverishment of society, but we continue to mock what had civilized it.
You go even further: according to you, it was the loss of bourgeois codes and good manners that gave rise to the “pig factory” , these sexual perverts that we balance today in a few tweets?
If there was a coded language, it was this one. You have to read Galanterie française by Claude Habib to understand how France - even more than Italy - had been able to weave refined lace between men and women.
We “broke the codes” , deregulated relations between the sexes as we deregulated the markets. For more freedom. Liberals and libertarians have the same springs. The intermediate stages, the “pre-contracts”, tedious, as in trade, for the party most in a hurry to conclude and compulsively consume, but which made it possible to build consent and lead to it in full consciousness - court, engagement , marriage, etc.-, disappeared in favor of an immediate relationship, from which the weakest can come out injured.
But then, if what you say is correct, everyone would agree with you: feminists, teachers, politicians of all stripes ...?
If our world is quick to beat its guilt on the chest of its ancestors, it is much less so to make its own repentance. It is painful to recognize that we have planted ourselves, that we should not have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and at the same time papa-mom, that the art of living that we called straitjacket place of spinal column, like a load-bearing wall which one would have dropped with lightness to breathe better, without seeing that the house was going to collapse.
You will tell me that, having not known this world before, I idealize it.For many actors in the societal changes that we have just mentioned, the trampling of bourgeois values was also a form of liberation. Society felt like it was getting out of a shackle, and few people today regret it. Was it really better before? Don't owe anyone anything, it's fabulous! Individually, it was a liberation. Collectively, a disaster.
You will tell me that, having not known this world before, I idealize it. Wasn't he perfect? The signifier having detached itself from the signified, manners resembled a list of forbidden fussy things? But finding its meaning to get rid of the slag would have been more constructive than throwing everything away.
Sorry to finish with a more personal question, but in addition to being a mother, you are also the editor of an online information site, columnist on television, present on social networks, essayist ... is not quite the image that we have of the bourgeois catho before 68!
Indeed, I don't have a nylon blouse or Claude Gensac-style styling! Nevertheless, I mentioned the veal stew, the baby bath, and the knitting ... Seriously, I do not think that the woman waited until May 68 to have a brain.
He is a bourgeois Catho before 68, whose influence has exceeded that of the owners of the CAC40. Clotilde was fine, beautiful and pious. Clovis was said to be a magnanimous chef, but according to his way of settling the Soissons vase affair, he had not followed any benevolent communication course. Far from swinging her pig, she civilized it. The convertor, and with him the whole of France. We owe him our civilization. Let us accept the heritage with pride.