Read moreDemonstration against pension reform. Atlantico: On Tuesday evening, the President of the Republic considered, in front of the majority parliamentarians received at the Élysée, that "the crowd" of demonstrators opposed to the pension reform had "no legitimacy" in the face of "the people who express themselves through their elected representatives". In a representative democracy one can only agree with the President of the Republic. But if the crowd has no particular legitimacy, does that of the elected only depend on their election? Are there not other constituent principles of democracy to be respected, such as the social contract, respect for social democracy, or the idea that qualified majorities could be required on subjects decisive for the future of citizens? Christophe Boutin: By contrasting the "people" with the "crowd," Emmanuel Macron is taking up a theme that is quite classic, which aims to distinguish the people as a political force composed of citizens, organized, capable if not of deliberating - because it is very difficult to bring them together - at least of voting and electing representatives who will deliberate and make majority choices that will be respected by the same people. Opposite would stand its inverted and negative image, the crowd, an inorganic, incoherent, irrational, often violent gathering, whose expressions of anger would be devoid of all legitimacy. Regarding the respect you mention for elements such as the social contract, Emmanuel Macron himself would be quite right to reply that one of the key elements of the latter is respect for the rules of the democratic game enshrined in the Constitution. However, he would say, the government has respected this Constitution with its text on pensions – at least that is what the Constitutional Council will examine in the coming days – just as it has respected the rule of law. He was in fact content to use, but can we blame him for it, certain practices provided for by the Constitution or the regulations of the assemblies to allow him to achieve his goal. Emmanuel Macron, skepticism even in his camp In this very legal sense, the democratic rules have been respected, and if we want to change the pension reform, we will have to choose those who will have such a program during the next elections, opposing the legitimacy of the current power with the same elective legitimacy. The fact remains that in saying this, Emmanuel Macron is careful not to ask himself a question, and for good reason, that of knowing why a people turns into a crowd. Why, at a given moment, do these people of citizens who, in 2022, peacefully and undoubtedly rationally chose their President of the Republic and the members of the National Assembly, six months later, enter into rebellion against the latter's projects? Why this social malaise so evident, which leads the people (the crowd?) to consider their revolt as legitimate? Why does he think that the rules of the game have been corrupted, and that as a result he is no longer bound by a social contract that he would not have been the first to tear up? There is in fact a real fundamental question, which concerns the conflicting relationship here between two legitimacies which, otherwise, are in agreement, the representative legitimacy, embodied by the elected representatives, and the popular legitimacy of this people whose sovereignty, the final decision-making power, belongs to them, the Constitution reminds us. Rafael Amselem: What Emmanuel Macron said is absolutely correct from the point of view of representative democracy. But the problem lies in the non-existence of any majority in the Assembly. It was not the elected officials who spoke out, but the executive through Article 49.3. In this respect, when the Head of State claims that the success of Article 49-3 coupled with the failure of the motion of censure proves the absence of an alternative majority, this is in reality a sophism: there is no majority at all. We cannot blame opponents for not being a majority when we ourselves do not have one. Therefore, when there is no majority and in addition the vast majority of French people speak out against the pension reform, we discover the heart of the problem: the institutions of the Fifth Republic are in reality not capable of being the voice of society. It is true that as President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron is responsible for safeguarding the institutions. But the most notable thing in this affair is that the levity he shows with regard to the safeguarding of liberal democracy is based on the existence of an institutional architecture which precedes him. This structure gives him tools that allow him to exercise power in an insolent verticality. Raymond Aron explains that the institutions of liberal democracy, when they are balanced, inevitably produce compromise. These include several decision-making or influence centres, between the National Assembly and the Senate, public opinion, representatives of intermediary bodies, unions, ministerial administrations, etc. This institutional mapping consecrates and legitimizes a multitude of actors with divergent interests and ideas, engaging in peaceful competition for power, leading to a vast, complex but subtle network of interactions within the representation and the mysteries of the State, in which all voices find a resonance (unequal, but real). This is precisely what the Macronian presidency, underpinned by the architecture of the Fifth Republic, partly circumvents, by allowing the executive to act alone. Obviously, in a situation of absolute majority, the concentration of power in the hands of the President appears inevitable; a fact reinforced by the five-year term and the inversion of the parliamentary calendar, placing the deputies in a position of accountability to the President who had them elected, rather than to the political body that elected them. But the most terrible thing about the political episode we are experiencing is that the hyper-presidency remains alive and well, even in a situation of relative majority! Pluralism in the National Assembly should force compromise (or fail to pass laws). And despite this, accelerated parliamentary procedure, vote blocked in the Senate, ending with an appeal to 49-3. Reforms can be passed without the need for an absolute majority. This should make us question respect for parliamentarianism and counter-powers in the broad sense. We have also observed during the health crisis that the counter-powers are quite weak. The Constitutional Council does not risk upsetting the government too much. Parliament is not fulfilling its role in the area of ​​public policy evaluation. The deputies do not take charge of their function, and have neither sufficient financial means for this mission, nor an administrative body dedicated to this task (other than the Court of Auditors, but which is not formally attached to Parliament). The government can build its narrative with its own figures, however true they may be, but without there being a third party to verify their veracity. We even allow ourselves to form Defense Councils in contexts completely foreign to that of war. All these elements have led to a slow decomposition of the democratic pool, made possible by the personal exercise of power by Emmanuel Macron, by the Constitution and by a combination of circumstances. The Covid crisis has accelerated many things in this regard. Absolutely agree. And let's not forget those at the head of state who never ask the public authorities for any effort, nor do they ever impose any on themselves, contenting themselves with systematically using the French people as the sole variable for adjustment (Covid, energy, savings, etc.). https://t.co/Wnte9lovIv
— JS Ferjou (@jsferjou) March 22, 2023It has often been repeated that Macronism was only Saint-Simonism, in other words an aspiration to government by experts. To what extent can we do good for the French people against their will and treat them as subjects rather than as citizens? Christophe Boutin: That there is an intellectual link between Saint-Simonianism and the analyses of Emmanuel Macron, Frederic Rouvillois proved it in his book entitled in a very symbolic way Liquidation. Saint-Simonism is, as you say, this aspiration to the government of Science, and therefore of experts, which is then found in this technocratic choice which runs from the Vichy period to our current world. Do these technocrats, or experts in general, want to do good for the French in spite of themselves? Often indeed, and we find the old refrain that the people would not be able to understand certain problems, that they would be driven by irrational fears, and that it would sometimes be necessary to force them to take the purge, certainly ignoble, but salvific. When Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2007, had Congress vote on a Lisbon treaty that took up the main lines of the constitutional treaty rejected by referendum in 2005, it was this logic that was at work. This "camp of reason" is present on many fronts today, from the health crisis to the social crisis to the international crisis, explaining each time that its expertise allows it to decide alone and that, thanks to it, the future will be brighter. But the French are not fooled: our experts have destroyed one of the best health systems in the world, a meritocratic education system envied by all, led to our food and industrial insufficiency, lowered the country, which is falling behind on almost all levels, in a downgrading such that it leads to self-contempt. Is this self-contempt justified? The "camp of reason" certainly used shameless propaganda, silenced its opponents, violated consciences and imprisoned dissenters, but didn't many of our fellow citizens prefer to be treated as subjects rather than as citizens?  When their freedoms were drastically reduced, did they not quickly console themselves by noting that the blow was aimed at their neighbor, or that it offered them "protection" in return? Did they not prefer to see their lives "administered", to be considered as minors or incapable adults, placed under guardianship certainly, but fed and housed - increasingly badly, but always better than anyone else? As always, we think of La Fontaine and the dialogue between the dog and the wolf in the famous fable. Is it better to have a well-filled bowl and a collar that ties you up, or, on the contrary, not to eat your fill every day, but to be free? The answer is certainly difficult, but who doesn't often get the impression these days, when listening to comments, of witnessing the implementation of this voluntary servitude denounced by La Boétie? Yes, riots must never prevail over the people's representatives! But the people's representatives must also be able to understand that there are records that call for humility in the realm of "we-know-it-all-better-will-do-it-for-your-own-benefits-against-your-will" https://t.co/SF1Hf4F2U5
— JS Ferjou (@jsferjou) March 22, 2023 Is Emmanuel Macron simply following in the footsteps of historically very technocratic French governments, or has his claim to transcend the left/right divide pushed this logic of supposed expertise even further? Christophe Boutin: It is not so much his claim to transcend the right/left divide that has led Emmanuel Macron further than the old technocrats, it is the rejection of politics in general, it is the idea that politics is outdated and that it is no longer necessary to govern a country, but to impose a governance on it, this stifling comforter of modern totalitarianism. Governance by experts who have little in common with their predecessors. The technocratic expert of the Gaullist world is a specialist who has attended the grandes écoles and become a "servant of the State". A technocrat who sometimes, out of touch with reality, made mistakes, but who, like most of his colleagues, at least had a strong sense of national interest. The new experts to whom Emmanuel Macron is now handing over France are either external consultants, working openly for foreign interests, whether from companies, financial groups, or states, or clones who shuttle back and forth between the public and private sectors, selling the address books acquired during their training and early years in the public sector to the private sector before returning to impose destructive management techniques. For these new experts, unlike the former, the nation is something completely outdated, and France must absolutely merge into the soulless structure that is the European Union, while simultaneously becoming subservient to transatlantic interests on a large number of issues. Previous experts built a national heritage around hard cores, in Defense, in Energy, the new ones cut them into pieces which they sell off. And it is precisely to better enable this that Emmanuel Macron has, since coming to power, been committed to dismantling all the structures, all the networks that formed this administrative constitution of France capable of opposing his dismantling project. Isn't there a tendency for the State to never ask the public authorities for any effort, nor to impose any on itself, by simply taking the French people as the sole variable for adjustment, as we saw during the Covid and energy crises… Christophe Boutin: There is of course an ambiguity. The French never stop asking the State to help them, to take charge of this or that new area, to protect them more, to mother them, at the same time as they are indignant that this same State does not impose a slimming cure on itself. At a constant budget, the two are nevertheless contradictory. Furthermore, in order to protect social mothering, the State, in its major sovereign functions of defense, security, and justice, was asked to make budgetary efforts that have led to our current problems. Because the public authorities impose efforts on themselves, and not all civil servants are lazy and fat-headed. But this policy is sometimes poorly targeted. The egalitarianism that reigns there thus prevents the necessary differences being made based on the working qualities of civil servants. The refusal to take responsibility for individual sanctions leads to the establishment of inept collective rules. But here again, the question is not one of "bad management", it is one of the disappearance of the very meaning of the notion of "public service". Here again, what is at stake is the disappearance of the backbone of the State. And if the French were taken as an "adjustment variable" during the Covid crisis or the energy crisis, they were also protected, as they wanted, by aid, "checks", exemptions, by the "whatever it costs" erected as a dogma of the start-up nation. It is true that it was difficult for the State to assume the consequences of a crisis due to its incompetence, to the choices made in previous years, difficult to assume that it had been incapable of putting in place a long-term forecast to preserve the vital interests of the nation. With his speech this Wednesday, Emmanuel Macron offered Marine Le Pen the possibility of holding a reasonable discourse on our institutions, delegitimizing the center as defender of liberal democracy. To what extent are we witnessing a shift in values ​​and a questioning of democracy and institutions?Christophe Boutin: Emmanuel Macron has not delegitimized the center as a defender of liberal democracy, he has served to remind us that all oligarchic power is by nature extremist, wherever it is located on the political spectrum, and that there can be "extremism" of the center just as there can be extremism of the right or the left. He also demonstrated that this oligarchic extremism "from the center" could use violence against citizens – remember the repression undertaken against the Yellow Vests, which was on a level far greater than what we know today. The questioning of liberal democracy that we are witnessing is above all a questioning of this oligarchic drift, just as the questioning of the institutions of the Fifth Republic is a questioning of the interpretation of their specific functioning by the political-legal oligarchy currently in power. And a large part of the French would probably be very satisfied with a return to the very principles of the Fifth Republic – which is largely what Marine Le Pen proposes – much more than with the headlong rush towards yet another constitutional revision or the establishment of a fantasized Sixth Republic. To take just this obvious example, when there is doubt about whether the parliamentary majority, which has its own legitimacy, having been brought to power by regular elections, still truly represents the popular will, or whether, things having changed, a social movement would better represent the latter, whose demands should therefore be taken into account in future reforms, the operating principles of the Fifth Republic implemented by Charles de Gaulle were simple: the sovereign people had to be asked to make their choice between the two options. A choice that he made either by electing a new assembly, after a dissolution, or during a referendum – options that the State could not avoid without losing its legitimacy and during which it engaged its political responsibility. It is permissible to think that if, today, we were to propose a return to these founding principles of our Republic, we would obtain a majority of favorable votes, both on the right and on the left. Rafael Amselem: Emmanuel Macron, and the center as a whole, have definitively abandoned the discourse of defending liberal democracy. The thing is now acquired. We have witnessed a series of questionable, if not problematic, practices between the law on fake news and the Avia law which were going to damage freedom of expression on the Internet, or the global security law which disproportionately reinforced certain prerogatives of the police, including surveillance measures. Another example concerns the management of the health crisis with the successive Defense Councils. Not to mention the vertical practice of power that has been emerging since 2017. Police arbitrariness also appears on the fringes of the demonstrations, without this moving anyone within the majority, who prefer to feign the discourse of authority; as if any debate on security matters boiled down to a ridiculous dialectic between laxity and authority; as if authority did not consist first and foremost in respecting the principles of the rule of law! The center is supposed to be the great vector of political liberalism, articulating a defense that combines democracy and public freedoms. But the great Macronian center does not seem to pay much attention to it, beyond the speeches. This is because freedom is very useful for lyrical flights. But political freedom consists first of all in a constraint of power with regard to itself. Freedom, above all, obliges. If Marine Le Pen is today able to defend a discourse – I am deeply saddened to say it – reasonable on our institutions, like the one she developed yesterday in a press conference, it is because the actors supposed to be the legitimate defenders of liberal democracy, including its radical aspects, have abandoned the battlefield. Emmanuel Macron has always defended a Jupiterian vision of power and has used all the constitutional tools, the mysteries of the Fifth Republic, which allow him to act in this way and to have such an exercise of power. On the other hand, we must not forget that all the tools used (49-3, the blocked vote, the use of an accelerated parliamentary procedure) were not invented by Emmanuel Macron. They were at his disposal, integral parts of the Fifth Republic. The institutions enshrine the isolation of executive power and the hyper-presidency. Parliament is having its function usurped. While Parliament should be the cathartic place for all our common disagreements, it has been transformed into a recording chamber for a will that is external to it. Everything crystallizes around the figure of the president. But this is not a democratic turnaround. This shows that the institutions of the Fifth Republic have an anemic relationship with democracy, precisely because all the decision-making arcana are centralized around a single person. There is also another reason linked to Macronism. Their spokesmen repeat ad nauseam that they consider themselves reasonable people, who make the necessary reforms, while the others are irresponsible and demagogic (it is well known that the demagogic is always the other). In doing so, it is perfectly logical that, boasting of being the expert, one uses tools appropriate to this noble position.

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