<nettime> Christophe Guilluy: France is deeply fractured. Gilets jaunes are just a symptom (Guardian)

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

Aloha,

Below Guilly's op-ed, links to two other Guardian features worth looking 
at, today's The Observer's analysis of the Gillets Jaunes movement, and 
a sum-up of the interview with Daniel Cohn-Bendit ("we wanted to oust a 
general, they want a general in power") which nicely illustrates the 
disarray of ertswhile leftists who've seen 'the Revolution' switching 
sides ... in their eyes.

Enyvej, (i) the gillets jaunes movement will, immo, petter out in the 
end, and the soon to come final showdown will not be that of the people, 
but that of nature.

Cheers all the same, p+2D!

------------

original to:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/02/france-is-deeply-fractured-gilets-jeunes-just-a-symptom


France is deeply fractured. Gilets jaunes are just a symptom
 by Christophe Guilluy, The Guardian/The Observer, Sun 2 Dec 2018.

The author of a seminal account of French society charts widening 
cultural divisions


From the 1980s onwards, it was clear there was a price to be paid for 
western societies adapting to a new economic model and that price was 
sacrificing the European and American working class. No one thought the 
fallout would hit the bedrock of the lower-middle class, too. It’s 
obvious now, however, that the new model not only weakened the fringes 
of the proletariat but society as a whole.

The paradox is this is not a result of the failure of the globalised 
economic model but of its success. In recent decades, the French 
economy, like the European and US economies, has continued to create 
wealth. We are thus, on average, richer. The problem is at the same time 
unemployment, insecurity and poverty have also increased. The central 
question, therefore, is not whether a globalised economy is efficient, 
but what to do with this model when it fails to create and nurture a 
coherent society?

In France, as in all western countries, we have gone in a few decades 
from a system that economically, politically and culturally integrates 
the majority into an unequal society that, by creating ever more wealth, 
benefits only the already wealthy.

The change is not down to a conspiracy, a wish to cast aside the poor, 
but to a model where employment is increasingly polarised. This comes 
with a new social geography: employment and wealth have become more and 
more concentrated in the big cities. The deindustrialised regions, rural 
areas, small and medium-size towns are less and less dynamic. But it is 
in these places – in “peripheral France” (one could also talk of 
peripheral America or peripheral Britain) – that many working-class 
people live. Thus, for the first time, “workers” no longer live in areas 
where employment is created, giving rise to a social and cultural shock.

'Workers' no longer live in areas where employment is created, giving 
rise to a social and cultural shock

It is in this France périphérique that the gilets jaunes movement was 
born. It is also in these peripheral regions that the western populist 
wave has its source. Peripheral America brought Trump to the White 
House. Peripheral Italy – mezzogiorno, rural areas and small northern 
industrial towns – is the source of its populist wave. This protest is 
carried out by the classes who, in days gone by, were once the key 
reference point for a political and intellectual world that has 
forgotten them.
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So if the hike in the price of fuel triggered the yellow vest movement, 
it was not the root cause. The anger runs deeper, the result of an 
economic and cultural relegation that began in the 80s. At the same 
time, economic and land logics have locked up the elite world. This 
confinement is not only geographical but also intellectual. The 
globalised metropolises are the new citadels of the 21st century – rich 
and unequal, where even the former lower-middle class no longer has a 
place. Instead, large global cities work on a dual dynamic: 
gentrification and immigration. This is the paradox: the open society 
results in a world increasingly closed to the majority of working 
people.

The economic divide between peripheral France and the metropolises 
illustrates the separation of an elite and its popular hinterland. 
Western elites have gradually forgotten a people they no longer see. The 
impact of the gilets jaunes, and their support in public opinion (eight 
out of 10 French people approve of their actions), has amazed 
politicians, trade unions and academics, as if they have discovered a 
new tribe in the Amazon.
France’s ‘gilets jaunes’ leave Macron feeling decidedly off-colour
Read more

The point, remember, of the gilet jaune is to ensure its wearer is 
visible on the road. And whatever the outcome of this conflict, the 
gilets jaunes have won in terms of what really counts: the war of 
cultural representation. Working-class and lower middle-class people are 
visible again and, alongside them, the places where they live.

Their need in the first instance is to be respected, to no longer be 
thought of as “deplorable”. Michael Sandel is right when he points out 
the inability of the elites to take the aspirations of the poorest 
seriously. These aspirations are simple: the preservation of their 
social and cultural capital and work. For this to be successful we must 
end the elite “secession” and adapt the political offers of left and 
right to their demands. This cultural revolution is a democratic and 
societal imperative – no system can remain if it does not integrate the 
majority of its poorest citizens.

Christophe Guilluy is the author of Twilight of the Elites: Prosperity, 
Periphery and the Future of France


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The Observer's view:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/dec/09/the-observer-view-on-the-french-protests-observer-editorial

Cohn-Bendit interview:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/08/daniel-cohn-bendit-gilets-jaunes-macron-may-68-paris-student-protest
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