for Jean Viard, “It basically shows that the work of humanity to seek happiness and beauty never stops”

The Nobel Prize season starts tomorrow, Monday October 7, with the presentation of the medicine prize, then it will be physics, chemistry, literature and the Nobel Peace Prize, Friday October 11. Decryption with sociologist Jean Viard.

The Nobel Prizes are awarded starting tomorrow, Monday October 7, and throughout the week. It’s medicine that gets the ball rolling. Then it will be physics, chemistry, literature and the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. Sociologist Jean Viard responds to Benjamin Fontaine.

franceinfo: Beyond prestige, is there still an influence from the Nobel Prize?

Jean Viard: I believe there is a very important influence. Just one example, the company I work for won a Nobel Prize for its author, Gao Xingjian, in the year 2000 for The mountain of the souland we sold 10,000 copies to Editions de l’Aube. We sold 300,000 after the Nobel Prize. So on the market, it had an absolutely considerable effect.

The Nobel Prize remains very prestigious. In Stockholm, the king and queen receive all the Nobel Prizes and the Nobel Prize for Literature opens the ball. It is part of a very long history of humanist values, since these are prizes given to people who have fundamentally contributed to the improvement of life on earth.

The Nobel Peace Prize is a very great prize. So obviously, people can win the Nobel Prize, and then the rest of their lives are not necessarily exemplary. They’re not little saints either. But for me it makes me think of the saints of Catholicism, that is to say these figures that we put forward. So it was more about how they died, etc. They were symbolic figures in Catholic history, but basically, it’s a bit the same thing. We create heroes, and there, we renew them every year.

What is extraordinary about the Nobel Prize is that we produce them every year. It basically shows that humanity’s work to seek happiness and beauty never stops. And this path which advances all the time is magnificent.

So perhaps the most anticipated is the Nobel Peace Prize. Among the favorites this year is the Secretary General of the United Nations, the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees. The UN, which therefore has good chances, even though at the international level it has still lost its influence?

Yes, we are in a period where the post-war system in 1945 is no longer entirely adapted to the modern world. We can clearly see that large countries like India, for example, or large African countries do not have an important role at the UN. And then, the blockage between Russia and the United States means that each still has its protectors, so it is less influential than before. Even though, there are plenty of UN projects being carried out on literacy, etc. You have to be careful, but in the big political scene, it’s true that it no longer has the same influence as before.

Are we still seeing it at the moment with Israel?

Absolutely, but at the same time, I would say that the Nobel Prizes recognize personalities. Will we ever be able to reorganize the UN? I don’t know. We’ve been talking about it for a long time, and many of us want it. But in the meantime, it’s true that the Secretary General of the UN, who is a man who bases himself on values ​​to try to obtain peace, as they say, has no divisions. If he had a prestigious title, it would strengthen his aura. Obviously, it can be an asset for peace.

Isn’t this Nobel Prize double-edged because it allowed some, like Aung San Suu Kyi for example, to take power? But sometimes, by shedding too much light on personalities, it also leads certain authoritarian governments to put pressure on the medalists. I’m thinking of Narges Mohammadi, who is still imprisoned in Iran today?

Yes, of course, but I say that if she wasn’t the Nobel Prize winner, she might not be alive at all. So at the same time, it also protects. Aung San Suu Kyi was a Nobel Prize winner who helped open up the dictatorial regime. And then indeed, then there was the affair of the Rohingya, this minority which was chased away. And there she agreed with public opinion who wanted them to leave. So we didn’t like it. But she did enormous work in her country, which has since become a terrible military dictatorship.

She won the Nobel Prize for the battle she led for the return of democracy in a completely pacifist manner. She remained cooped up at home for years, calmly, with thousands and millions of supporters. She did democratic work. Afterwards, we do not necessarily agree on all these values. And you see what is happening in Iran, I think that this young woman with the Nobel Prize still protects her from this particularly brutal regime towards women.