The distinguished French political scientist Nona Mager, professor emeritus at the School of Political Sciences (Sciences Po) in Paris and researcher at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), was awarded yesterday (19/2) an honorary doctorate of the Department of Sociology of the School of Political and Economic Sciences of .
Her research field concerns electoral behavior, the rise of , racism and , as well as social precariousness. Shortly before her announcement, Mrs Mager gave an interview to Vima.
“French democracy in distress” is the title of the book you wrote together with 24 other social scientists and also the title of your speech at EKPA. Is democracy in France really in crisis?
With this book we attempt to include France in the international debate on the crisis of representative democracy, which has intensified in the last decade. We hear very pessimistic theories.
For a long time we said that the danger to democracy was authoritarian regimes, coups. Now we see that . We are at a critical juncture, with many symptoms of a crisis of democracy, such as the increasing rate of abstention in elections, the rise of the extremes – more towards the Far Right and less towards the Far Left – and the fragmentation of the party system. Almost seven out of ten French people do not find a political expression that suits them. And above all, there is a deep discrediting of the political order. France is the country in Europe with the lowest rate of trust in politics. Only 22% trust politics, only 18% trust the institution of the president, and only 15%, the parties.
These are crisis characteristics of democracy. But if we look more closely – and this is the basic premise of the book – we find that the French want more democracy. 82% consider that there is only one acceptable regime, democracy. But what the French ask above all – at a rate of 76% – is firstly, to be taken into account, to be taken seriously and secondly, to participate in the decisions. There is a desire for direct democracy, like never before.
You argue that if we want to understand democracy, we must also look at what is happening “at the top”. In France, is the feeling so strong that the gap between citizens’ expectations and the decisions taken by the government is widening?
The bad example comes, indeed, from the top of the political system. For the past two years in France, the country’s president has decided to dissolve the National Assembly without consulting anyone, on the eve of European elections that showed a landslide victory for Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN). Then, Macron announced parliamentary elections. To everyone’s surprise, the Left, . But no prime minister was chosen from the Left. A “waltz” of prime ministers followed, but none came from the Left. This constitutes a denial of democracy.
On March 15, France has municipal elections. A week ago, the student Kedan Derank was murdered in Lyon by far-leftists close to the “Young Guard”, an organization related to the far-left France Insubordinate party (LFI) of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Do you think this assassination will have an impact on the election?
It will reinforce the image of France Insubordinate as the party that adopts a “strategy of noise and fury”, a destabilizing strategy. The latest polling data show us that now the Far Left has taken the place of the Far Right as the main danger. In reality, things are more complex. Clashes between the extremes are nothing new. There have been deaths on both sides, in clashes between far-right and far-left activists. In any case, killing is unacceptable. But political violence in France has increased over the past decade.
Why is Mélenchon, who wants to run in the next French presidential election in April 2027, pursuing this destabilizing strategy?
Because this is his strategy at all levels. When the anti-Semitism debate erupted, he flirted with anti-Semitism. Mélenchon has openly taken a stand in favor of the Palestinians, which is absolutely his right. What is happening in Gaza is truly terrible. But in doing so, he also flirted with anti-Semitism. He made unacceptable statements, downplaying the importance of anti-Semitic acts, at a time when they have multiplied after October 7, 2023, he refused to participate in the demonstration in support of Israel held on November 12, 2023, saying that all this was support for those who are slaughtering in Gaza.
It is a strategy of exaggeration and provocation. The same applies to the attitude of FR in the National Assembly, which makes the far-right RN MPs look like “the good students of the class” while FR MPs appear like rioters. Mélenchon is actually undermining the unity of the Left. It is very sad, but this strategy will continue.
Do you think Mélenchon has a chance to win the 2027 presidential election?
Today the French political landscape is so fragmented, so divided, between the two extremes, the Far Left and the Far Right. The traditional Right does not know what to do, it “turns a blind eye” to the RN. There is such a degree of fragmentation that it is very difficult to predict who will make it to the second round of the presidential election. For now, because of the “noise and fury” strategy, Mélenchon is actually helping the Far Right.
How does the municipal election landscape unfold?
There are more than 35,000 communities in municipal elections. This means that we essentially have 35,000 separate electoral contests. And the vast majority of these communities – 85% – have fewer than 2,000 residents. The situation is very difficult to capture as a whole; it is even more fragmented.
It is, however, an important election because the mayor is the only political figure who still enjoys a high level of trust. We cannot say that the municipal elections will be a test for the upcoming national elections – except perhaps in the big cities, where we will perhaps have an indication of the correlation of forces between the Left and the Right. In the municipalities, the LRM, Macron’s party, is poorly represented. In fact, in the small municipalities and communities, the traditional parties – the traditional Left and the traditional Right – still maintain a presence from earlier periods.
Another important element of the municipal elections, in which Marine Le Pen has invested a lot, is the fact that smaller municipalities feel stripped of their responsibilities, because more and more issues are dealt with at the level of inter-municipal partnerships, that is, associations of municipalities, where small communities do not have much weight. A form of “municipal patriotism” is thus developing, on which the leader of the RN can “play”, whose party, as early as the 2002 elections, began to consolidate more and more in medium and smaller municipalities, capitalizing on this issue.
As part of the drive to demonize her party, Le Pen has repudiated anti-Semitism. Do you think this is true?
We do not yet have the results of our annual anti-Semitism survey, which will be delivered to the prime minister in June. But if we look at supporters and voters, RN supporters are clearly more anti-Semitic than average. Le Pen, however, is not worried about that at all. For her, the goal and , not from the Jews. Instead, he is trying to win their vote.
At the same time, there is the far-left Mélenchon and his MPs, such as the MEP Rima Hassan and her incendiary statements about Israel and Gaza.
Yes, and sometimes they flirt with conspiracy theory. Hassan, in one of her tweets, wrote that the Epstein case was a conspiracy by the Israeli Mossad against the United States. The problem is that anti-Semitism has a very long history.
You are optimistic despite the difficult situation for France, Europe and the world. Where do you get your optimism from?
In politics, nothing is inevitable. Things can change very quickly. We don’t know what will happen at the international level, nor in Europe. In France, no one predicted the victory of the United Left in the 2024 elections. In the Netherlands, in the elections last October, everyone said that the far-right Geert Wilders would win, but he was defeated by a centrist. After the 2023 elections, Poland is back on the road to democracy. After all, according to the phrase attributed to Napoleon III (1808-1873) “in politics and in love you should never say never”.
