Matthieu Chaigne is associate director of Bva Nudge Unit. He recently published
La fabrique des solitaires
(Editions de l'aube, 2022).
Hardly had the Tour de France arrived on the Champs-Élysées with its now classic cohort of polemics and despisers, than another moment of festivities was already targeted by a slingshot.
The Olympic Games scheduled for Paris in 2024 are the subject of a series of regular attacks, not always unfounded, but which forget the essentials.
Too expensive, not ecological enough, too insecure, these general public and popular events come together in the criticisms leveled against them.
Critics who also say a lot about these France so distant that they no longer understand each other.
The Tour du France attacked sometimes for a caravan that pollutes too much, sometimes for expensive watering of the roads in these times of global warming, highlights the power of an influential minority (so well told by Fanny Parise in her book
Les enfants gâtés
) and all the more inflexible on the ecological impact of these events that they do not concern her.
And too bad if in passing, a majority of French people once again feel stigmatized for their tastes and their consumption.
What is the deep purpose of the Tour de France followed each year by millions of fans or the Olympic Games in Paris which will make the hearts of millions of compatriots beat faster?
To make a nation.
Matthew Chaigne
Finally, in this well-argued criticism of our popular events, another sledgehammer argument, that of cost, reveals to what extent market logic has now prevailed over everything.
It's a shame in a country which is close to 115% public debt, but which is reluctant to invest in the only subject which could allow us to still live together tomorrow.
Because what is the purpose of the Tour de France followed each year by millions of fans or the Olympic Games in Paris which will make the hearts of millions of compatriots beat faster?
To make a nation.
The power of these events is to unite a people around common activities that transcend differences.
The figures tell this reality: 4 million French people every day in front of the Tour de France to watch the exploits of athletes and rediscover the stories of our regions, 45 million French people who followed the performances of French athletes during the last Olympic Games in China .
Scientific work also converges: activities, gestures or behaviors carried out by a social body will generate an incredible emotional commitment.
These republican rites are the best way to create familiarity and solidarity between people who are not alike.
As behavioral scientist Robert Cialdini explains in his book
Pre-suasion
, “
When human beings act together, a unity is formed.
The feeling of solidarity that is born then serves the interests of societies perfectly, generating loyalty and self-sacrifice to a degree that we find rather within a more restricted
family
.
Ambient individualism, the secession of an elite towards collective rites which they fundamentally do not need, should not carry the whole country.
Matthew Chaigne
That a Tour de France is not to the taste of all French people is a certainty.
That it must be reinvented every day in tune with the challenges of our time, of course.
But there is a destructive temptation behind certain criticisms, without us really understanding how the events, once debunked, will be replaced.
Ambient individualism, the secession of an elite towards collective rites which they fundamentally do not need, should not carry the whole country.
Yes, millions of French people are happy to see the tour pass in their region or will be mobilized tomorrow for a planetary event like Paris 2024. Yes, France needs rites to vibrate, to commune together, to make us feel part of a same community.
Yes, our country must rebuild, multiply festive and cultural initiatives, where everyone wonders a little less if the event is in perfect harmony with their own tastes, and a little more if these events help, even in a minor way, to generate of the collective.
At a time when mistrust is the most shared trait, and when more than 77% of our compatriots think that "
one can never be too careful when dealing with others
" (Ipsos), in a country where gangrene solitude, where nearly 25% of our compatriots experience relational isolation, it is a priority to rebuild the nation around common activities.
France is dying of too many concepts and lack of flesh.
For young people, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and its formidable armada of athletes, events all over France, challenges, heroes, will be a unique opportunity to experience France.
And if, beyond the controversies, the main thing was indeed to participate.