Adrien Broche is responsible for political and published studies at Viavoice, an opinion strategy research and consulting institute. He co-wrote a study entitled “macronism not found”.
LE FIGARO. - According to you, “by sticking to opinion, contrary to the attitude observed on the question of pensions, the president and the majority have completed the undermining of
“at the same time”
.
In what ?
Adrien BROCHE. -
The sequence of retirements was structured around the following opposition: Emmanuel Macron and the majority on one side, opinion on the other, resistant to the project of raising the legal age.
The arguments put forward were then those of the
necessity
, and the
responsibility
, of a form of informed expertise – which may be justified, that is not the question.
The scene of opposition changed with regard to the Immigration law: opinion was this time on the side of the executive, demanding regulation of migratory flows.
The problem is this: dismissing the democratic argument on pensions invalidates its invocation on immigration.
Consistently, the majority and the executive should have been careful not to mobilize the argument of opinion and stick to the argument of necessity
,
which some will criticize but which has the merit of consistency:
“this law Immigration is necessary not because it is demanded, but because it will make it possible to better regulate immigration (for such reason, evaluated and documented, as presented for the question of legal age)”
.
Read alsoSpeech by Gabriel Attal: audacity will wait
These contradictions obviously do not prevent us from governing on a daily basis, and it is obvious that a gap still exists between the theoretical and practical levels.
But they are irreducible to strictly intellectual inconsistencies; their impact is in fact revealed in small spaces.
That of choosing to
“block it out”
could be one of them.
Restore order to the arguments put forward will help the executive to restore clarity to its action.
By navigating too much on the basis of the reforms as well as on the arguments used, the points of reference become blurred and the ability to project oneself into the rest of the five-year term suffers.
By espousing the demands of the right, the immigration law has weakened the overcoming of divisions.
Adrien Broche
These recent weeks have revealed another break with the original Macronian promise, that of expertise, of the concrete more than the symbol.
This ambition has relatively accommodated itself to the vicissitudes of the exercise of power, until the Immigration law.
By espousing the demands of the right, it has weakened the overcoming of divisions.
But that's not all: by adopting measures whose effectiveness, not systematically demonstrated, seems more symbolic than sensitive, Emmanuel Macron is shaking up his philosophy of action free of symbols and publicity effects.
The questioning of the automaticity of land law defended by the President of the Republic in the name of its not effective but symbolic character was the most striking example.
Does the reconciliation of political and cultural liberalism, the promise of overcoming, renewal, expertise and a
“new way of doing politics”
come up against the wall of the left/right divide?
The popularity of Gabriel Attal is part of this same enterprise of readjusting the concrete and the symbolic.
Abaya, uniform... these signals resonate overwhelmingly in public opinion but have a symbolic character.
These findings are addressed to a segment of the population that is central to the president.
Its electoral sociology has mutated to stick more or less to that of an electorate which has long been that of the so-called Republican right.
Sensitive to the observation made on the loss of authority and respect, to a warlike lexical field, hence "rearmament"), this segment of the electorate weighs heavily in its political choices, even if opinion is in line with false, unlike the accusation that is often made against the President of the Republic, against the idea of a presidency
“for seniors”
(V
iavoice for Libération, February 2024).
This shift in electoral sociology thus went hand in hand with an ideological shift, clarified by the immigration sequence.
This observation is not based on thematic choices: it was necessary for the executive to be concerned with the security issue or for it to have taken head-on the fight against Islamism following the assassination by Samuel Paty.
While Emmanuel Macron had made the choice, in 2016, to fight against the RN on the grounds of competence, the end of 2023 has moved the cursor.
Adrien Broche
The novelty seems rather in the grammar used, in the nature of the answers which are provided.
This is evidenced by the question of secularism, which frequently makes the news.
The position of the executive in recent years is that of republican secularism, sometimes called
“intransigent”
.
Gabriel Attal recalled this yesterday, in his general policy speech:
“We do not negotiate with the Republic.
We accept it.
We respect her
. ”
However, being a guarantor of an uncompromising republican secularism means opposing not only ostentatious religious symbols in public schools but also private denominational education or the Concordat in Alsace-Moselle.
Consistent, this republicanism could even justify the rejection of the uniform at school.
To reestablish it is to accept a form of republican religion which borrows its codes from a clericalism which does not speak its name: this was, moreover, all the subtlety of Péguy's views.
Gabriel Attal's position thus risks devitalizing his republicanism, and exposing him to criticism referring to a conservatism adorned with a surface republicanism, which the left does not fail to do.
Is it not rather a political strategy intended to bring together around the fear of the
“red peril”
and the
“brown peril”
a mixture of worried middle classes and
“manufacturing aristocracy”
(which Tocqueville said was
“ one of the hardest that has appeared on earth”
) and retirees?
There is no doubt that there is a strategy.
The question is that of nature its nature.
What is
this
“brown peril” ?
The demonization of Marine Le Pen is complete, the normalization phase already well advanced.
Its objective today is to extend its electoral clientele to a wider segment of the population, in agreement with the sovereign but who still keeps a distance from its economic program.
The extension of this political offer must therefore be done in the name of attracting a more liberal electorate and the middle classes hit by downgrading,
the blind spot
of public policies as the president described them.
The government has chosen to use the
“work”
tool to contain their anger over purchasing power and prevent them from
“giving in to the sirens which would only lead to chaos”
to use the words of Gabriel Attal.
This question of the nature of the fight against the extreme right is also fundamental.
From this point of view, the Immigration sequence and the arguments invoked were turning points.
While Emmanuel Macron had made the choice, in 2016, to fight against the RN on the grounds of competence, the end of 2023 has moved the cursor.
The President of the Republic has chosen to invest not only in subjects falling within the traditional scope of intervention of the RN, an idea which makes sense, but also to embrace a grammar and to embrace substantive elements, hence the questions.
Macronism has entered into contradictions from which it will have difficulty extricating itself, so it is attempting to adjust its discourse.
Adrien Broche
On the
“red peril”
side , the choice made by Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the Insoumis revolves around a first round strategy, the very nature of which condemns any possibility of victory in the second.
By stocking up on votes in the hope of qualification, the strategy of conflict and its corollaries condemn LFI to the glass ceiling of the second round.
The originally liberal and European
“progressivism”
of Emmanuel Macron had a card to play, caught in the pincers of a left in difficulty in public opinion and an expanding radical right.
Things have become significantly more complex: on the left, the distance established by Emmanuel Macron vis-à-vis the so-called progressive electorate complicates the survival of a
“republican front”
whose validity is already largely undermined.
On the right, it is a safe bet that public opinion will prefer the original to the copy.
Finally, can we really think about macronism? Is it a dynamic before being a doctrine?
Macronism has entered into contradictions from which it will have difficulty extricating itself, so it is attempting to adjust its discourse.
Hence the appearance of the
common sense
argument , in my opinion very revealing, which comes into conflict with the democratic idea.
This conflict is that of
good,
of quality, against
much
, of quantity.
When Michelet justifies the qualitative superiority of the
"masses"
over their instinct, he bases this legitimacy on the qualitative level, there is no longer a quantitative approach, the conflict with the democratic idea is assumed.
By using the common sense argument, the executive exposes itself: why would the opposition of a large majority of French people to pension reform not be
“common sense”
?
When, in 2015, more than one in two French people declared themselves in favor of reinstating the death penalty, again, why wouldn't that be common sense?
Such an argument is engaging and must be accepted to the end, otherwise it will turn against itself.
If we risk advice: it is better to stay away from it, even more so for a progressive presidency, at the risk of locking ourselves into a democratically deadly logic.