Director of the Opinion Observatory of the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, associate professor of social sciences and researcher at Sciences Po Grenoble, Antoine Bristielle publishes Democracy jostled - Elections and crises (Aube editions, February 2023) .
FIGAROVOX. - The mobilization against the pension reform is growing, especially in small provincial towns. Does this mobilization go beyond the opposition to the pension reform?
Antoine Bristielle. -
When the French are questioned in opinion polls on the reasons for their mobilization, they declare very widely that the question of pensions is the only point which pushes them to take to the streets.
The opposition to raising the retirement age does not date from recent weeks: at the time of the presidential election, only 25% of French people said they were in favor of such a reform (wave 11 of the electoral survey, Ipsos for Cevipof and the Jean-Jaurès Foundation, May 2022).
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However, we also perceive a more diffuse social anger that is expressed at the time of these mobilizations, in particular in connection with concerns about purchasing power, which in recent months has become the public policy issue that worries the French the most. .
Even if Emmanuel Macron was re-elected last May, it must be considered that his policy is far from being consensual within French society, this was seen at the time of the legislative elections in particular and is expressed again during this social movement.
Social anger is diffuse and demands difficult to read. What are the themes on which there is consensus among the French?
It is indeed quite difficult to understand what the French want in a global way and it is necessary to analyze the expectations of the population according to each sector of public policy.
We thus perceive that economic and social questions on the one hand and cultural questions on the other hand divide society quite widely with different dividing lines in the two cases.
On the contrary, a theme largely brings together the French, regardless of their age or political position: the environmental issue.
The French agree that the government should take more strong measures to preserve the environment even if this should have strong impacts on your everyday life.
There is also consensus on another subject, the organization of our democratic life.
In fact, only 4% of French people consider that our democracy works very well (Cevipof trust barometer, Opinionway 2022).
This dissatisfaction is also found at the time of the pension reform (Elabe, January 2022): 7 out of 10 French people consider that the reform has not been democratically validated, despite the mandate given to Emmanuel Macron,
The French and in particular the younger generations are increasingly suspicious of the political institutions of our country, they consider that they are not doing enough to protect them, in the face of the various crises that affect them (ecological crisis, economic crisis , international crisis, etc.).
Antoine Bristielle
Yet the "yellow vests" initially demonstrated against the carbon tax... The environmental measures to be taken are not so consensual. Is it possible to reconcile the popular classes with political ecology?
This is an essential point, the working classes are not opposed to environmental protection measures, provided that the latter are socially just on the one hand and that they take into account territorial realities.
The carbon tax at the origin of the movement of yellow vests is symptomatic of a measure that had not taken into account either of the two aspects, which is why it aroused so much rejection and that it led to the movement of yellow vests.
A study coordinated by Tristan Guerra, researcher at the IEP of Grenoble had also shown that the "yellow vests" were no less sensitive to environmental issues than the rest of the population.
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Paradoxically, according to the figures you present in your book, 46% of young people aged 18 to 25 would be in favor of the army leading the country to restore authority. How do you analyze this?
This shows the dissatisfaction of the French with the state of our democracy that we talked about in the previous part.
The French and in particular the younger generations are increasingly suspicious of the political institutions of our country, they consider that they are not doing enough to protect them, in the face of the various crises that affect them (ecological crisis, economic crisis , international crisis, etc.).
In these circumstances they are looking for alternative solutions, which can go towards a demand for more direct democracy, as with the RIC during the movement of the yellow vests, but also towards more authoritarian solutions.
If nothing is done by the public authorities to provide concrete solutions to the crisis of representative democracy,
Emmanuel Macron was re-elected, facing Marine Le Pen, on the erasure of the left/right divide. Does this mobilization revive this old opposition?
It all depends on the public policy themes that are taken into account.
The left-right opposition tends to persist on cultural issues.
On economic and social issues, there are indeed three poles that emerge among the French: an interventionist and redistributive pole that we find among those close to left-wing formations, a liberal pole among those close to Renaissance, LR and Reconquest and a "
producerist
" pole
wishing to defend the working people against the elites, among those close to the National Rally.