World News: We All Need Politics...

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Category: World News - Europe

Published on Sunday, 27 November 2022 07:13

Written by Olivier Longhi

Deconstructed by the gradual or programmed disappearance of historic political parties, the French electorate now oscillates between extremist temptation and apology of individualism returning the general interest to the rank of obsolete concern.

Relegated to one of the many continuous news channels, the debate organized for the presidency of the party Les Républicains will not have finally fascinated anyone. And for good reason, many viewers were unaware of it until the outfit. Even so, it has been a long time since political debates interest many people today.

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Ditto on the left, where Europe Ecology The Greens and the Socialist Party are due to elect their new leaders in a few days, an election which promises to compete in discretion for the causes put forward. above. However, it is not inappropriate to ask whether there is not something worrying about this disaffection for political life in a democracy such as ours. To presume, try at the very least, an element of answer, let us first dive into the world before, the one that presided over the  political life of the country before 2017.

Political Loyalty

Then, several parties regularly competed, with their procession of militants or sympathizers, their pre-electoral high mass where everyone could count his troops before the battles. ballot boxes. Decried because they had become obsolete, these same parties have imploded or exploded, it depends, but all had a virtue: that of structuring public opinion around principles, to crystallize whole sections of the electorate that by ideological, historical, or family fidelity adhered to the discourse of one or the other.

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And the election results were meant to reflect this political polarization. A few years later, the paradigm shift is total and complete. The historic parties are struggling to impose themselves in public opinion, including sometimes even among their historical militants, to the point of having become the auxiliaries of a single presidential party, polymorphous and without an asserted historical or political ideological foundation.

The disappearance of the structuring dimension of the arts, following that of public opinion, has thus generated a binary, even Manichean, political life, or the camp   of the   democracy is opposed to that of extremism. Not that the left-right bipolarity that historically prevailed in French political life was only beneficial, far from it, but at least it had the merit of marginalizing The extremes that benefit today from various social frustrations, but perhaps also above all from the intellectual and political impoverishment of the parties of yesteryear.

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Cultural Drying Up

This binary opposition, which some would describe as dangerous and pernicious, does not seem to be about to disappear. For if the urgency of limiting the progression of extremes is imperative, it also appears that the drying up of a large part of the population contributes to  the development of a social malaise likely to promote   so-called extremes.

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After the various observations, each as catastrophic as the last, solutions now remain to be put forward, one of which is due to the need to rebuild   the link that existed between the French and politics. Difficult exercise because it would be necessary to go back, among other things, to the etymology of the word, Polis in Greek which refers to the city and therefore to the life of the city.  

This definition, full of altruistic and humanistic innuendos, is nevertheless shattered today on the ultra-individualism that structures our society, and beyond, societies Western and global. Does this mean that the end of politics or politics is looming? Certainly not, but it is to be thought that in the years to come, unless the situation turns around, politics will no longer be the process of satisfying the general interest  but the particular interest.

Bio: Olivier Longhi has extensive experience in European history. A seasoned journalist with fifteen years of experience, he is currently professor of history and geography in the Toulouse region of France. He has held a variety of publishing positions, including Head of Agency and Chief of Publishing. A journalist, recognized blogger, editor, and editorial project manager, he has trained and managed editorial teams, worked as a journalist for various local radio stations, a press and publishing consultant, and a communications consultant.