Pierre-Jean Chalençon, collector who spoke of meals in illegal restaurants with ministers -

TELBA / LMS / SIPA

  • Have ministers attended secret dinners?

    This is the whole question that arises after a report by M6 on a restaurant open in secret, and where the rumor is started by one of the people interviewed.

  • It did not take more to ignite the whole Easter weekend and provoked the immense anger of a good part of the population

  • How to explain such a great anger?

A report from M6, broadcast this Friday, on a luxury underground restaurant in Paris ignited the Easter weekend.

Far from the traditional chocolate eggs, part of the population seemed ready to seek forks and torches in search of fraudsters.

Anger amplified by the words of the collector Pierre-Jean Chalençon in the report: “I had dinner this week in two or three restaurants which are supposedly illegal restaurants, with a certain number of ministers.

"Following the controversy, the collector then referred to a" joke "and" an April Fool ", while the executive denies the presence of any minister at these meals.

The Paris prosecutor's office has for its part opened an investigation.

But it is already too late.

This weekend alone, 190,000 tweets were published behind the hashtag #OnVeutLesNoms around the ministers supposedly concerned and 32,000 on #MangeonsLesRiches.

Why such a strong hatred, when for the moment, no evidence attests to the presence of ministers?

Robert Zuili, psychologist and specialist in social emotions, explains: “The times are so difficult to live with the coronavirus that people need a vent and an outlet.

The veracity of the facts comes after the need to externalize the anger, any opportunity is good to take.

"

No proof but a good scenario

An absence of proof all the more relegated to the background as the scenario - of ministers going to hidden dinners from the rest of society - fits perfectly with conspiracy theories on the elites.

William Genyes, political scientist at Science Po and specializing in the sociology of political elites, attests: “People throw themselves into it because they want to believe it, no matter if it's false, it's pleasant and relieving to think that it takes place.

There is this fantasy of an entresoi cut off from the real world among the elites who are totally embraced by this story ”.

Ministers or not, the anger is much stronger here compared to the multiple articles published on other clandestine meals, frauds between friends or evenings with more than six.

"The health crisis exacerbates a feeling of injustice towards the better off and recreates a kind of class struggle," notes Robert Zuili.

The restaurants of anger

For William Genyes, the tolerance that we can have towards frauds of our social group is dispersed as soon as it is a question of crime coming from the "elite".

"However, this is not based on any foundation," notes the political scientist.

The health crisis is difficult for them too, and a meal between people of the social elite is no more or less dangerous in terms of viral circulation than another meal.

"

Beyond the meals - not even looking that good - it is above all this atmosphere of the famous world before that arouses jealousy.

Robert Zuili: “There is the feeling that with these illegal restaurants, the rich can afford a denial of reality, live outside the health crisis and act as if all this does not exist.

"After months and months of coronavirus, curfew, confinement, closure of closed places, certification, slowness of the vaccination, it is indeed what annoys the most as a privilege: not the restaurants , but recklessness.

In a very tense psychic context, "people are on edge and throw themselves into any feeling of injustice or any behavior that they do not allow themselves", sums up the psychologist.

Before the rich or the supposed ministers in underground restaurants, it was thus the Parisians in exile, the joggers or even the people outside who suffered the ire - at least virtual - of the crowd.

Who's next ?

Television

Coronavirus: "I do not organize dinners, no parties", defends Pierre-Jean Chalençon

People

Who is Pierre-Jean Chalençon, the collector involved in the clandestine dinners affair?

  • Covid 19

  • epidemic

  • Restaurant

  • Minister

  • Coronavirus

  • Society