“Money corrupts”explained François Mitterrand in 1971. “I don’t like rich people”affirmed François Hollande in 2007 on the set of France 2, while, in the midst of protesting the pension reform project in January 2023, Marine Tondelier compared billionaires to “vampires”.
In his latest film, which is released in theaters this Wednesday, November 6, Somme MP François Ruffin does not hold back from criticizing the lifestyle of the rich in the person of Sarah Saldmann. Sign of this disenchantment or pure opportunism? It is from the pockets of the wealthiest that MPs have in recent weeks sought the billions needed to complete the State or Social Security budgets.
So does France have a problem with its rich? «All societies, including French ones, set standards on the good and bad uses of money, but the idea of a hatred of the rich specific to France is false.since they are not victims of any discrimination, says political science teacher-researcher Damien de Blic, co-author of the work Sociology of money (Ed. Discovery). On the other hand, without this creating stigma, our Judeo-Christian culture has played a key role in our perception of money. »
The quest for wealth, synonymous with distance from God
Until the 15th century, in Spain as in France, interest-bearing loans were, for example, systematically condemned by the Catholic Church. “The search for individual wealth is heavily condemned in the Old Testament, notably the Book of Wisdom, then in the Gospels and the Letters of Paul”details theologian and sociologist Jacques-Benoît Rauscher, specialist in the social doctrine of the Church.
The Gospel according to Matthew is categorical on the subject. He claims that“It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
Throughout the ages, Christian writings affirm that poverty is a necessary condition for access to God, forming the crucible of a French distrust towards the quest for money. “Depicted as obsessive, it focuses man's attention here below, therefore far from God”analyzes Jacques-Benoît Rauscher.
But from the 16th century, in a context of economic development linked to trade around the Americas, the tone changed. The Church tempers its discourse on avarice (the attachment to material goods in a disordered manner, one of the seven deadly sins), describing it as less serious than lust, for example (disordered sexual desire). “As the Catholic powers needed support and a less firm condemnation of this flourishing market, the doctrine adapted, and the search for profit was no longer considered immoral, provided that the wealth was shared with the greatest number »further deciphers the theologian.
If the French have never really hated the richest, there is therefore traditionally a nuance between productive wealth (put at the service of all, therefore socially accepted) and unproductive (i.e. the accumulation of personal fortune, in particular when this is displayed in an ostentatious manner). This social injunction to share one's heritage still permeates our perception of wealth today, explains Nicole Prieur, family psychotherapist and author of Money, poison or treasure? For peaceful use of moneyto be published on December 5 by the Banque centrale du Luxembourg.
“The ethical use of money, governed by concern for the common good, allows its holder to better manage the guilt of disposing of it, she argues. And generally, this translates among the most fortunate into a speech consisting of repeating that they want to benefit society, without this desire being translated into action. »
The valorization of the market economy
By extension, this paradoxical object – both a source of well-being and concern for those who have it – calls for the implementation of legitimation strategies, opposable to the feeling of injustice experienced by the most deprived. Their goal: “prove that we are not fundamentally as bad as the stereotypes suggest”, continues Nicole Prieur. Even if it means sometimes adopting a victim discourse, maintaining the belief that the search for material enrichment would be condemned in France.
A thesis that François Ruffin refutes: “During the screening of my latest film, the workers were shocked to discover that a jacket can cost €2,800, and a croque-monsieur at the Plaza Athénée €54assures the deputy for the Somme. This clearly shows the invisibility of wealth, which began in the 1980s when the left, instead of increasing its criticism of inequalities, gave up attacking them. »
After the turning point of austerity in 1983, the left indeed exchanged its discourse of austerity for a discourse of valorization of the market economy. “The end of communism and alternatives to economic liberalism coincides with the return to favor of business and the valorization of economic success,” confirmed Damien de Blic.
According to François Ruffin, anti-rich sentiment has even weakened over the past forty years, with bosses and their assets having become less visible to workers. “When the miners came out of the settlements, they saw where their sweat was going, that is to say in the castles and the well-hewn avenues built all around, estimates the chosen one. As bosses are today in the four corners of the world, when factories close for example, workers look for other scapegoats such as refugees or immigrants. »
Crystallization of criticism around inheritance and billionaires
New forms of criticism have emerged, crystallizing mainly around the figures of the heir and the billionaire. “The question of inheritance can revive tensions around wealth, analyzes Damien de Blic. While during the Thirty Glorious Years, a period of strong economic mobility, labor income was at the origin of inequalities, today inherited wealth occupies an increasingly larger place in household wealth and income. »
In a note published in 2021, the Economic Analysis Council explained that inherited wealth now represented 60% of total wealth, compared to 35% on average in the early 1970s. “This trend is common to all developed countries, but it seems particularly strong in France”underlines this same note.
And since the subprime crisis in 2008, the figure of the ultra-rich, accused of having played a harmful role in the financial world, has also been the subject of criticism and demands for a more ambitious taxation policy. According to an Oxfam survey published at the end of September, 80% of French people say they are in favor of greater taxation of the richest and super profits.
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The French relationship with money
According to a survey carried out by Ifop in partnership with The Point published in December 2022, the great French fortunes arouse as much admiration as fascination (16% each). On the other hand, indifference towards the very rich has greatly decreased: while 70% felt it towards them in 1998, today there are 58%.
An overwhelming majority of respondents (83%) associate money with pleasure, i.e. 8 points more than in 1998, while a little less than half link it to injustice (48%) and corruption (46%). The terms of immorality and nuisance associated with money have fallen by 20 points in twenty-four years.
If 62% consider that money does not buy happiness, 38% say that it contributes largely to their well-being.
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