The Elysée assumes the expression “process of decivilization” used by the head of state on Wednesday. But this term is also the title of a book by far-right theorist Renaud Camus.
The word did not go unnoticed. Emmanuel Macron compared, Wednesday, May 24 in the Council of Ministers, the violence within society to a “process of decivilization”. “You have to be intractable on the meritsadded the Head of State. No violence is legitimate, whether verbal or against people.” Beyond analysis,the very term of “decivilization” has since caused gnashing of teeth. Franceinfo returns to the origin of this expression.
The title of a book by a far-right essayist
In the political sphere, the term “decivilization” is also the title of a book by far-right thinker Renaud Camus, published by Fayard in 2011. The same year, the essayist published the book The Great Replacementin which he develops his racist and conspiratorial thesis on the replacement of a people, the “native French”, by one “population of immigrants from Africa and the Maghreb”as summarized in a note from the Jean-Jaurès Foundation.
Renaud Camus does not have a monopoly on the term, but he marked the concept with his ideology. In his book, the essayist explains that “the contemporary crisis would be that of the school, of the family, of all the institutions responsible for transmission”analyze Aurélien Aramini and Florian Gulli in the review Philosophical. “Culture would lose all consistency; manners, table manners in particular, matrices of the control of all our impulses, would be more and more disinvested, what is based on respect for authority would be devitalized today. Hence the return of violence in everyday life”write the two philosophers.
A term used in sociology
Renaud Camus is not the only one to use the term “decivilization”. It is found in sociology, where it is associated with the writings of the German Norbert Elias and his expression “process (or trial) of civilization”. The sociologist, who has long reflected on the root causes of the arrival of Nazism in Germany, studies in his works the evolution of mores over time. “What Norbert Elias calls the process of civilization is a parallel story; on the one hand that of the way in which the modern State is constituted by reserving the monopoly of violence, on the other, that of the “self-control exercised by individuals over their spontaneous violence, their instincts and their affects”exhibits France Culture.
“Like Ernst Bloch, Ernst Cassirer, Norbert Elias or Hannah Arendt grasped it remarkably well, the de-civilization of the years 1930-1940 consisted in destroying the individual to melt him into the ‘mass'”also explains in Le Figaro historian Hamit Bozarslan, author of the essay Crisis, violence and de-civilization. Essay on the blind spots of the city (CNRS, 2019). “Without memory, without network, without social fabric, without cognitive faculty, what remained of the individual was obliged to ‘massify’, to howl with the wolves so as not to be devoured by them, continues Hamit Bozarslan. Nazism, Stalinism, Khomeini [l’idéologie politique et religieuse développée par l’ayatollah Khomeyni, fondateur de la République islamique d’Iran]current jihadism, are the conversion of this process of massification into the ultimate resource of power.
An expression increasingly used on the right
The French political class has seized on the term “decivilization” in recent years to denounce the acts of violence that cross society. In April 2021, already campaigning for the presidential election, Xavier Bertrand uses the term on Europe 1 before putting forward his proposals on the theme of security. “We are one of the few countries in the world where every day there are attacks against the state, questioning of the police, and there is no response”asserts the president of the Hauts-de-France region, ex-tenor of the Republicans.
David Lisnard, LR mayor of Cannes and president of the Association of Mayors of France (AMF), also co-signed a forum in September 2022 in Le Figaro, titled “Can we stop decivilization?”, after the aggression of an octogenarian in Cannes. Bruno Retailleau, president of the LR group in the Senate, has used the expression several times: “France is going wild with a phenomenon of decivilization”he said in September 2022, after a rape in downtown Nantes. The senator from Vendée has once again used the term beginning of May to express his concern at the increase in violence against the police.
“How long, how many victims will we still have to count to put an end to this spectacle of decivilization?”
Bruno Retailleau, president of the LR group in the Senateon Twitter
“I’ve been talking about savagery for years and I’m being accused of all the evils”reacted on his side Marine Le Pen on CNewsTHURSDAY. I’“wildness”another piece of language dear to the extreme right. “Decivilization is barbarism (…), so in reality Emmanuel Macron comes once again, if I may say so, to prove us right on the observation that we are making”estimated the ex-candidate of the National Rally for the presidency.
A “reality” and not a “concept”, according to the Elysée
Regarding the word “decivilization”, the Elysée denies any borrowing from the far right and justifies the use of the term: “The president is not taking up a concept. It’s a reality.” Asked by franceinfo, the entourage of Emmanuel Macron explains that it is a “Interpellation addressed to the company”. According to a relative, the Head of State considers that “violence is multifactorial and multicausal, and if we look for responsibilities on the side of politicians, who can take their part, the subject is nevertheless more global”.
Physical assaults remain “at a low level, what increases is non-contact violence”, THE “skewed looks, insults, insults, threats”, relativized for her part on franceinfo Renée Zauberman, sociologist, whose work focuses on the measurement of delinquency and insecurity in France. This emeritus research director at the CNRS talks about “a political term” about the use of the word “decivilization” by Emanuel Macron. “If we combine this feeling of having been the victim of violence without contact with all the public discourse that takes place through the different kinds of media around incidents that can be serious in well-defined areas, we can effectively convey the idea that France is an increasingly violent country”she believes, but serious incidents “are not the daily life of the French”.