Adrien Bon, Gendarmerie officer, sent us this article following the appointment of General Hubert Bonneau at the head of the Gendarmerie. This soldier believes that the appointment of the new Director General constitutes a first break in the co-opted appointment of Directors General and shakes up the established order in its forms. For him it is an opportunity to “put things back in order” in the house.
“Restoring order”, this is the priority set by the Minister of the Interior, Bruno Retailleau during his entry speech in Beauvau. This exhortation sounds obvious after the summer political cacophony, symptom of a contemporary evil whose societal rhizomes have abolished obligations and hierarchies.
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However, the simple ascendant desire for order would have difficulty applying to a disorder that is by nature polymorphous and polycephalic if we consider the different “-isms” plaguing our democratic society. It is all the more difficult to be heard as the State itself is no longer exemplary on many levels. The figure of order and the figures of disorder are thus equalized in the public opinion of “what’s the point?” ” aware of her rights but refusing her obligations.
The current “disorder” is a new order which was built out of complacency over the years of renunciation in the face of the various contradictions raised by French society which has failed to define an identity. If he is not the one we sought, he remains the one who was established by default of an order that would have interested us. “Reestablishing order” therefore amounts to suppressing this order to bring about another through thought and then through action. Desired order and suffered disorder are both carried by two wills (that of the State and that of diversified small groups), one normally majority, centralized and vertical, the other normally minority, decentralized and horizontal. Inevitably, the existence of two conceptions of order, one being a disorder of the other, implies an opposition opening up to a confrontation. In this dialectic of contradictory wills, the first fight to be waged has as its aim “public peace” whose guardians are the police and gendarmes and whose center of gravity is the population.
The soldiers of the Gendarmerie are probably the best able to understand the philosophy of the internal confrontation that is taking place. The first police force in the history of France, the National Gendarmerie “is an armed force established to ensure the execution of the laws”. Military nature has always found its character in periods of confrontation and friction.
The gendarmerie should consider this political turning point of return to order starting with its own internal order.
Any “transfer” or “return” cannot be considered without some form of rupture, an imbalance or a “disorder”. It is from this angle that the appointment of General Hubert Bonneau at the head of the National Gendarmerie must be analyzed after an unprecedented wait. This appointment has shaken up a tacit, organized but never written lineage of the various general directors since 2010. A succession based on ambitious, generally courtesan and corporatist individuals creating over the last few years a “pseudo playful atmosphere, but in reality of an almost normativity -fascist”. Aware of this order, their suite of suitors does not renounce any propitiatory mission.
It has therefore become ritual, at the injunction of the boss or by a simple courtesan intuition, that the cabinet officer acquiesces to a bad decision out of fear or sacrifices a comrade or even a deputy director to keep his place…
A dominant ideology was established gradually through a closed circulation of those in power capable of producing an effect of permanent self-confirmation and self-satisfaction. Fast-paced careers always revolve around the same job spheres… Success or success has always been confused with supremacy. Success, merit or talent, however, remain false friends.
Reestablish internal channels of excellence and experience
The appointment of the new director general therefore constitutes a first break in the co-opted appointment of directors general and shakes up the established order in its forms. It is an opportunity to “put things back in order” in the house by proposing a project which will also break with the previously established system. To do this, you must be able to demonstrate introspection and lucidity without shame or demagoguery. It will be an opportunity to re-establish internal channels of excellence and experience, putting an end to a form of internal fatalism leading to anomie. Reestablish understandable human resources management rules, made up of objective career milestones associating grades with responsibilities exercised and competitions obtained.
Reestablish the formal hierarchical principle and respect for each person’s place in a system that operates on the principle of subsidiarity. Reestablish an internal order that is certainly harder individually than before but fundamentally fairer collectively.
The political promise of order for France is a promise of dawn for the Gendarmerie.
Adrien Bon
