Guest from Europe 1 on Saturday, political scientist Pascal Perrineau shared his analysis of the current situation in the country.
Macron's slap, enfarinages, are part of a context of increasing violence at all levels.
This is partly due to the failings of the democratic system which does not manage to generate a real debate.
INTERVIEW
What does the slap received by Emmanuel Macron say about the current political climate?
For Pascal Perrineau, political scientist, professor emeritus at Sciences Po, author of
Que sais-je?
on populism, this act of "extremely strong symbolic significance" must be "placed in a context of much violence".
He believes that this shows a dysfunction of democratic society as it should be and provides some explanations for the hysterization of the debate: the role of social networks and the weakness of intermediary bodies.
A context of "violence"
Even if Emmanuel Macron sought to minimize the slap he received, Pascal Perrineau believes that it was "an act that marked the French a lot. It is not every day that a person raises his hand on the President of the Republic to slap him ".
Minimizing this highly symbolic act would be a mistake according to him, especially since the context is that "of a lot of violence: in words, in acts, symbolic, real".
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The political scientist cites the cases of "violence between adolescents", those "vis-à-vis the police which have developed a lot" and even against firefighters "which, however, are the most loved profession in France ".
"And I am not talking, of course, of the terrorist violence which is there and which lurks", adds Pascal Perrineau.
"French society, in this aspect, is not doing well and we sometimes have the impression that the less there are ideas, the more there is violence, as if the company was getting angry, was looking for a center of gravity, of a true democratic debate, and cannot find it ".
"French society has great difficulty in finding this democratic way of debate"
"For want of finding the words to express his hopes, but also his concerns and possibly his anger, we take action," he still analyzes.
A behavior which is, according to him, not worthy of a functional democracy.
"There shouldn't be enemies you want to ridicule, smear or hit. There should only be adversaries you struggle with."
According to the political scientist, recent events are a sign that "French society has great difficulty in finding this democratic way of debate", which he considers "worrying" a few days before the regional elections and less than a year from the presidential election. .
Lack of intermediate bodies
Several causes can be put forward.
Pascal Perrineau believes that "social networks greatly fuel this general nervousness in society".
Capable of both the best and the worst, they do not "participate in the structuring of a democratic debate".
A deeper cause is, according to him, "an impressive deficit of intermediary bodies. A real debate cannot take place" without real parties, established in society, without recognized media, verifying their information, solid, without intellectuals who do not demagogy. ”These shortcomings are“ basically what French society is looking for confusedly ”.
And for now, "for lack of intermediary bodies, we have at the top of the pyramid, a president who is supposed to be all-powerful when he is not. And at the bottom, angry citizens, some isolated. others". Thus analyzes the political scientist "there are all the conditions for the debate to become somewhat hysterical".