We are interested in social issues every weekend on franceinfo with sociologist Jean Viard, director of research at the CNRS. And this week of course we are talking about the controversy around the holidays of the Minister of Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, in Ibiza, in full preparation for the start of the school year and the health protocol.
franceinfo: Society is increasingly asking political leaders to set an example. How can we explain it? Is that a good thing too?
John Viard: There are different things there, there is first a decision taken on a Sunday evening which applies on Monday morning. The delay was not very reasonable. We must not, I think, mix up all the subjects. There is a real question there.
Then afterwards, there was indeed the staging of the sequence in Ibiza, which is obviously a political stunt, but which was I would say obviously clumsy. For example, you are not going to announce the death of someone, in shorts. There is a costume that corresponds to a situation in somewhat tragic times.
It’s true when we think of Ibiza, we think of nightclubs, etc. So there is all that which was very awkward. Moreover, the French are very divided. There is half of them who find that it is not serious, the other half who find that it is serious. And in fact, it’s quite political. Those who are rather opposed to the minister find that it is serious, the others do not.
But afterwards, you’re right, it’s a real subject, that is to say that the digital society we are in, the continuous news, means that there is a kind of transparency, first of all, which often borders on indiscretion. We are at a time when the privacy of public people, basically, is almost on the way out, which poses a real problem. And it’s the same as soon as there is a complaint against someone, everyone knows it even before the trial. We are here in this period.
Is it a matter of image too?
It’s also normal that people are asked, it’s like when you’re elected, there’s a costume that’s more or less suited to the situation, but I’d say it’s true for the teacher, for example, it’s That is to say, the costume that signifies it changes, but in our societies, the costume that has taken over is the holiday costume.
But to return to our subject, aren’t politicians also caught up in their own game by dint of communicating? Can it sometimes turn against them too?
And that’s true for everyone. Everyone is obliged to communicate because it works, and at the same time, we are in a moralizing period. Do not hide it. As basically, politics is no longer a major ideological issue, we attack people, and in a way, moralizing logic, that’s it. Did he do well as an individual? Whereas before, we would have said: is he politically fair?
And we can see it clearly, with all the elected officials who are attacked, etc. We are attacking the person because, in fact, we are not attacking the political content. Look at all the assaults on elected officials outside their homes. This intrusion into the intimate, it can go so far, but it does refer to the fact that we no longer have major ideological affiliations. We are looking for solutions around the individual in a very moralizing period.
You have to say all that by saying that it’s extremely dangerous, and at the same time in a digital society of networks, etc., it’s hard for it to be otherwise. So inevitably, public men, like artists, etc. hide a part of their life, or on the contrary, are obliged to be very careful about it. So yes, we are in this intrusion into the intimate sphere of a society that is less ideological. So it’s very complicated to live.
Private life, public life that intertwine. But in any case, can we say that exemplarity has now become an imperative in politics?
Setting an example is normal, it has always been, because if you are a public figure, let’s say a member of the elites, but elites, I include football players, all the people we see on television, we’ll say. You must have an influence on the youth. Because obviously young people are watching you. When a President of the Republic uses a swear word. Of course, there are plenty of children who are told all the time to stop swearing, who laugh behind their mustache, if I dare say…
But it is normal at the same time, that the people who are the most visible, for their status, consider themselves responsible, in particular vis-à-vis the young people who are in the process of training and learning, and therefore, we transmit codes: a society is educational codes, a public figure, when he speaks, he must think of the children who listen to him. This is true for a politician, an athlete, a singer or any other public figure.