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This is chapter five of "In Praise of Politics," a book consisting of a conversation between journalist Aude Lancelin and philosopher Alain Badiou, broken into six chapters.
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In what sense can we speak of a "democratic coup d'état," the phrase you used to describe the election of Emmanuel Macron in May 2017? Can you explain what was so special about that election, as compared with those of his predecessors? Because, after all, it could be said that Francois Hollande also belonged to that second, socialist right wing, and that, before him, Nicolas Sarkozy was already a sort of agent of the CAC 40 — remember the night at Fouquet's, among other exploits…
Yes, but I think that Macronism has to do, first and foremost, with traditional party politics in the parliamentary organization of our modern society, and that it subverts it in an authoritarian way. The way the modern parliamentary system of, let's say, the Western "democracies" works is that there are two government parties that alternate in power. In France, it was the left and the right; in Germany, social democracy and Christian democracy; and in America, the Democrats and the Republicans. It doesn't matter! In any case, the bottom line was the same in these different variations. What specifically happened, not just in France but everywhere, actually — the cases of the United Kingdom and the United States are telling, with the success of Trump's far right in the US and the still relative, yet highly symbolic, success of Corbyn in the UK, which is reactivating militant post-war Labourism — was a throwing into crisis of what the combining of the two government parties had become, for the past twenty or thirty years, actually, i.e., something increasingly indistinguishable. In the United States there was deep disillusionment with Obama's actual ability to achieve reform. And in France everyone saw that Hollande's "reforms" were nonexistent.
What happened is that this systemic crisis of the parliamentary system created the opportunity for what I in fact call a "coup d'Ă©tat." What a coup d'Ă©tat means is that things won't happen in and through the existing parties; they will emerge from the conjuncture itself. That's why it's a "coup," in the strict sense of the word (meaning "a blow"], that is, a coup that only the particular situation allows for, not the ordinary constitutional system, the entrenched habits, and so on. And it's a coup *d'Ă©tat* because it's a coup that takes state power without going through the usual stages of creating a party that grows little by little, and so on. No, no, not this time! In a very short time an apparatus is set up that will take state power.
One of the characteristic features of this set-up is the fact that the party's power will come from the personalization of the state. What this means in actual fact is that a man who came to state power by whatever means (democratic ones in this case, since he was elected, after all) will build from scratch the party machine that supports him politically and constitutes his legitimacy. And he'll get it approved by a vote that, as it's a vote for him *personally* — what's more, without anyone really knowing who he is and what he really intends to do — is a fake parliamentary vote. In reality it's a plebiscite vote. The current National Assembly is the outcome of a plebiscite in favor of Macron. It's not the normal outcome of an "oldstyle" electoral contest. And, as a matter of fact, everyone is well aware that the party's platform was extremely vague. It wasn't overwhelming support for a specific platform that accounted for its success. No way! It was a man, a narrative … And a relentless hype campaign warning: "If he doesn't win, you're going to get the far right!" That played a decisive role.
Yes, of course. But also, unfortunately, from a political point of view, Macron and his followers managed to impose certain issues at the crucial time and to win certain cultural battles, even in some working-class neighborhoods, especially among a whole base of voters who are very afraid they'll never be able to enter the labor market, The idea that stripping away the labor market's protections could facilitate inclusion — that sort of specious reasoning, that totally misguided common sense — had a significant impact. There was rampant propaganda to that effect, which allowed him to pick up some votes beyond those of his core middle-class constituency…
I'm well aware that, as usual, those were false but effective promises. But, at the same time, they're linked to longstanding propaganda, dating from well before Macron, according to which France's problem is labor costs, on the one hand, and government handouts to the poor, on the other. The labor code, social security, and welfare recipients are allegedly the three evils plaguing the country. To go along with an agenda like that you already have to have a pretty twisted mind, 'm sure you'll agree! It's clear that it's directly related to the terrible lack of a real vision of what our society is, of who's in charge of it, of the global system it's part of, and so on. It always comes down to the extreme lack of any real alternative, of the (provisional) absence of any possibility of communism.
People have been deprived of the means to develop a political point of view in this country, as has long been the case in the United States. The media are controlled, the unions are powerless or have simply been destroyed or bought off, the left has been discredited for quite some time because of its unbelievable track record of compromise. Everything was ripe for the emergence of a Macron.
Exactly. At the same time, this combination of different factors — the emergence of someone who was unknown only a few months before, the absolute personalization of power, and the manufacturing of a totally artificial party out of this personalization of power — makes it possible for me to use the term "coup d'état" in a general and rather neutral, descriptive sense, The idea that a coup d'état is necessarily military and anti-democratic is a narrow definition of "coup d'état," because "coup d'état" and "military coup d'état" are thereby considered to be identical. If that were the case, even the coming to power of Hitler, who was lawfully appointed Chancellor by an assembly after a regular election, would not be a coup d'état. Nor would Pétain's coming to power in 1940, which was overwhelmingly supported by the National Assembly that was elected in 1936 — the Popular Front assembly, it should be noted.
De Gaulle, of course, came to power in 1958 through a coup d'état that, in this case, was largely military. It's all been covered up since then, but I know about it from personal experience. Paratrooper units were threatening the National Assembly. They had already seized power in Algeria, after all, and invaded Corsica. My father, who was the Socialist mayor of Toulouse at the time and implacably opposed to the Algerian War and the colonial army, set up an armed defense with his old Resistance buddies on the road between Toulouse and Pau, the base from which it was rumored that military units would move out. OK, well, there was nothing of the kind with Macron. But it was still a "coup," because it all developed on the basis of the take-over of the state, including the legislative elections that followed, which were actually a plebiscite referendum voting "yes" on Macron. And the idea that if they didn't back him, the alternative would be worse is also an organized reaction, typical of this kind of coup. "If we don't support good old Pétain we'll wind up with the Nazis … or the Communists." They always wave that kind of red flag. Take Marine Le Pen, for instance. She never had the slightest chance of being elected! No poll ever gave her more than 40 percent. It was a total joke. So, this coup was also based on false panic, fabricated largely by the compliant media and indoctrinated intellectuals, who were even more abject than usual this time around. I give the whole set-up a dialectical name: a democratic coup d'état. The appearances of democracy were respected, for the most part, but it was a coup d'état. That's why, when all is said and done, the only sensible people in this whole affair were the abstentionists. At least they didn't participate in this cruel farce.
One could go even further, insofar as there are clearly identifiable financial forces behind Macron that have been waiting to make their move, or plotting their coup, as it were, for several years now actually. Macron was a virtual unknown, a bit player, to the French, of course, but not to those backroom bosses, since, as Deputy Secretary General of the Élysée [in Hollande's Jirst government] and then as Minister of the Economy lunder the second Valls government] he was the hub of the whole CAC 40 at that level of power…
I agree with all that. If you want to describe "Macron's coup d'état" in terms of its class significance, you write what Marx wrote about Napoleon III in The Class Struggles in France, published in 1850: it was much the same thing. Because the legitimation of the coup d'état was ultimately, and in both cases, intended to allow for a complete and total takeover by the French capitalist caste that took the forms previously mentioned. Many so-called social-democratic intellectuals — I've run into some recently — refuse to believe that things happened that way. They think it was an inevitable modernization of French political life, which was in the grip of archaic forces, For many of these idiots, who also happen to be nefarious individuals, the "agent of capital" aspect of governments is not even a problem. They take it for granted that politicians may be lackeys of the oligarchy, telling themselves "That's the way it is today." But in fact, they're afraid that genuine politics might return, the politics that, with the struggle between the two alternatives being revived, would force them to say who they are exactly and not hide, under the pretext of democracy, behind the existing order's inevitabilities.
But is there any political advantage to be gained from what is ultimately a clarification of the situation? It's clear that, now, capital barely attempts to conceal itself and operates in broad daylight…
Well, that's what we shall see. Let me tell you what I think. The big deal behind all this is the fact that Macron wants to revise the status of civil servants in France. And that's a huge deal. If he attempts that, he'll be breaking a taboo that dates almost back to Louis XIV. Ever since that time, civil servants have been the go-betweens between the state's authority and a significant portion of the population. Does he intend to do that? I think he does. His backers want him to. And Fillon's announcement that 500,000 jobs would be eliminated was just a trial balloon, a testing of the waters". In any case, civil service status is a national peculiarity. That's very clear to me. My best former students from Germany are remarkable people who are always signing two-year assistant professor contracts in universities, and getting tenure there is very complicated. You only become tenured at the age of forty or fifty. The American, German, and English systems are systems that build job insecurity into the entire civil service. In the reckless glee of the oligarchy contemplating its pure product, Macron, in power, you already hear that "all public-sector jobs should be eliminated"! That would be the fulfilment of a distinctly anti-communist agenda: basically, eliminating everything that is common to us all, and handing our health, children's education, and public transportation over to global mafias. And a case could be made to the public that "there's no reason why these people should have jobs for life since nobody has that kind of guarantee, for life, or even, often, for a month, or indeed for a week." I think *that* would mean war.
The government is already preparing to convert certain CDIs [contrats a durée indéterminée, meaning indeterminate duration, or permanent, contracts] into so-called "project" contracts that will offer less protection than the current CDDs [contrats a durée déterminée, meaning determinate duration, or temporary, contracts]. This is extraordinary. Linguistically, it fascinated me: that the word "indeterminate" can mean "strictly determinate." A project contract is indeterminate, except that it's only for the time it takes for the project to be completed. That's extraordinary! The reactionary forces' verbal inventions are always amazing. This project contract is a literally Hegelian, profound dialectic because we're being told that the essence of the indeterminate is the determinate in the strictest sense of the word: it's determined by what we do, i.e., a project. So, it's an indeterminate contract, provided that the indeterminacy is simply an actual, measurable determinacy! I thought that was wonderful.
Here's where we see how important it is to control all the media, because this whole thing can actually be very easily discredited. Yet it will only be so to a limited extent.
Well, *I* in any case will discredit it every chance I get. We've got to tell people all this, explain how important it is to be wary of language! When a word, CDI, is retained, you've got to see the price that's paid for retaining it, namely its pure and simple negation. It's a CDID, a contract with a determinate indeterminate duration.
The two problems, the two very important issues, are therefore the CDI and. civil service status. I don't know whether the reforms will pass. We'll see. It doesn't depend on us, it depends on historical eventuality, on the degree of public awareness; it depends on circumstances, really. What we can do, if there really is a "we" — which is a huge problem ~ is campaign wherever we can on the gravity of this kind of issue, which is actually the revenge of the so-called "upstanding citizens" against the people. Revenge for all the progressive events in the history of France, from the right-to-strike laws in the late nineteenth century to the verifiable contractualization of labor rules beginning with the Popular Front, to the achievements of the National Council of the Resistance after the war.
There is a ferociousness to the bourgeoisie when it feels free. They want to get rid of everything, they really do. And they use Germany as an example. In France, the reactionaries have always followed Germany's example. Yet, I repeat, 30 per cent of the population there is in severe poverty. It's important to be aware of that. Germany has massive, American-style poverty. Do people here, ordinary people, realize that that's what they're being led to? That that's what they're being dragged toward? Apparently, they don't realize it at all, even though that's what Macron's buddies want: they think there needs to be a much larger tier of poor people than is presently the case. This is because the French bourgeoisie is absolutely convinced that its weak position in the global market is linked to inflated labor costs and overly strong work contract protection. The millionaires' mafia sees dangerous people with privileges everywhere! The gutting currently underway is going to lead to a significant increase in profits for the biggest corporations and create a no less significant mass of severely impoverished people, not to mention a huge expansion of the private sector. The ultimate ideal of capitalism is for the air we breathe to be privatized and lead to worldwide financial trafficking — never forget that. For now, we can foresee the increasing privatization of public education, which is already rampant. And the privatization of the hospital system, which is already at a very advanced stage.
And in the meantime, that same hospital sector that was until recently the pride of France will become poorer, with people failing to make the connection between this phenomenon and the already enormous government handouts that were given to companies during the previous five-year presidential term.
We need to wage a real campaign on the systemic, capitalistic link between each of these issues. And use it as an opportunity to explain clearly, with these examples, what can and must be the alternative: the new communism. We also need to stress that the people who will be reduced to overwhelming poverty will also be people who will have trouble affording medical services, even essential ones, and who will be offered only bottom-of-the-barrel schools. All of this is the truth, the reality, of Macron. So, he needs to be attacked right away; we shouldn't wait even one minute. I'm not very optimistic. We're really in a bad way. But we've still got to make sure that some of these measures are seen as truly outrageous and that they spark popular movements. That would be a point of protest from which to reopen the debate on the two alternatives. In a way, Macron can expose a dependence on contemporary capitalism that the traditional "left" concealed, since it claimed that we could do the right thing by remaining within the established order. Macron can be what the Chinese called "a teacher by negative example."