For Christian Lequesne, professor at Sciences Po, economic difficulties do not prevent the British from supporting “royalty and all its splendor”.
The coronation of King Charles III on Saturday May 6 in London “will make quite a few Britons forget the difficulty of everyday life”underlines Christian Lequesne, professor at Sciences Po and specialist in European issues.
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Eight months after assuming the throne following the death of Elizabeth II, the 74-year-old sovereign, followed by Queen consort Camilla, will be crowned with great fanfare at Westminster Abbey. “You can be very affected by the economic situation and at the same time support the coronation, royalty and all its pomp”observes Christian Lequesne.
franceinfo: Isn’t this an astonishing contrast between the splendor of this coronation and a country entangled in a deep crisis?
Christian Lequesne: Indeed, it will be a day of splendor, which will be marked by flamboyant ceremonies, while this country is suffering from a major economic crisis. The main economic problem is double-digit inflation for several months, more than 10%. Food prices have never been so high for 45 years. And all this affects the population and especially the most modest people in British society. But I don’t think that will stop them from watching the coronation on television, or even going to the ceremony.
Do you think this coronation will be a parenthesis in this rather difficult context? Can this change the momentum, reverse the trend?
I think that this will of course make us forget a little about the difficulty of daily life for a lot of Britons. However, I think that the economic situation is not an element that will call into question support for the monarchy, that is to say that we can be very affected by the economic situation, that we can be very affected in his daily life by the difficulty of life and at the same time support the coronation, royalty and all its pomp.
However, there is a rejection of the monarchy, admittedly a minority, around 25% of the population, according to opinion polls. Is this rejection of the monarchy a new phenomenon?
It’s true. So this number is not a new number. There has always been around a fifth of the British population for 50 years who reject royalty. But this rejection does not come from the most modest people of England. This rejection of the crown comes rather from young people, among educated people and among those who do not belong to England, in particular we observe a certain number of Scots who have independence feelings. Britain is not just England.
In transport or in hospitals, the country has been experiencing massive strikes for almost a year for wages, to demand more state protection. Can the situation improve in the short term?
I think it all has to do with the issue of inflation. If we manage to curb this double-digit inflation a little, things can calm down, but we are not going with this plan since it is a country where we have trouble regulating. In comparison with France, where we have nevertheless introduced a certain number of tariff barriers on energy or we have had discussions between the government and the food manufacturers and large retailers to try to control prices. These measures do not exist in England. We are in a country where the law of the market makes the decision and therefore I do not believe that the situation will improve in the short term.
In this context of spiraling economic, social and political crisis, can King Charles III be a sort of compass?
He can be a compass because royalty ultimately embodies the identity of Britain and more so the identity of England. So the king, if you will, is the history of Britain, the glorious past. And it is all these things that the British are attached to and which explain why Brexit happened. It is indeed a country which is very attached, with a certain nostalgia to what it was in the past and perhaps that is the problem and a paradox. It allows, I believe, both to calm a lot of daily movements and at the same time, it does not allow Great Britain to envisage the future with objectivity and realism.