Éric Anceau, author of “The History of the Elites from the Enlightenment to the Great Confinement” (Passés Composés) sets out the future scenarios within the latter in the event of victory of the National Rally in the upcoming legislative elections.
Éric Anceau is professor of contemporary French history at the University of Lorraine. He has published more than 30 books includingHistory of the elites from the Enlightenment to the great confinement (Compound Pasts, 2020, Alpha, 2022). This week he is releasing a very large, richly illustrated collective work which will be a landmark: The Forty-eighters and the others. Dictionary of Leaders of 1848 (Sorbonne University Press).
Marianne: If the RN comes to power, an existential question arises for certain elites hostile to this party. Is there a precedent in our history that recalls the current upheaval that may occur?
Eric Anceau: France has the most turbulent political history of any major Western country. During regime changes – and we have experienced around fifteen since 1789, the political and, to a lesser extent, administrative elites are replaced by others. We naturally think of the French Revolution, the fall of the Restoration in 1830, the revolution of 1848 to which I devote my last book and return to the phenomenon or even the Liberation. L’ ” history is a cemetery of aristocracies », wrote Pareto.
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During certain strong political alternations within the same regime, similar phenomena could even occur. In the recent past – for a historian – I will cite the return of the left to power in May 1981 after twenty-three years of crossing the desert. A certain number of changes then took place, particularly in public broadcasting. At the Valencia Congress the following fall, we remember the exit of Paul Quilès who found that the “purification” was not going fast enough and who demanded heads, which caused an outcry and earned the nickname from Robespaul to Quilès by reference to Robespierre.
In fact, subsequently, the socialists showed themselves to be more moderate and Mitterrand even committed during the 1988 presidential campaign not to touch the senior civil service in the event of re-election. The promise was generally kept and we are on this modus vivendi since then, which is very different from spoiler system American style where the entire administration changes in the event of an alternation between Democrats and Republicans.
Exactly, the RN promises not to carry out a “witch hunt” if it comes to power. The party in fact excludes implementing a spoil system and intends to return to the abolition of the prefectural body and the diplomatic body.
Is this a method that can reassure senior officials?
Populist parties including the RN quite systematically denounce the established elites, but Marine Le Pen’s party takes care to attack political leaders in particular and to criticize senior civil servants, mezza voice.
In addition, the prospect of coming to power has just made him make it clear that he will not carry out any purges. I am hardly surprised firstly because he is looking for respectability and seriousness in particular since his massive entry into the Assembly in 2022 and secondly because he knows that he will need to rely on the administration to govern in the event of accession to power.
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His decision to re-establish the great corps is very clever because it can seduce senior officials by giving them satisfaction and showing a sense of the State and historical continuity. In this case, it was soon Emmanuel Macron who demonstrated populism. I myself then rebelled against this measure which contributes to the destruction of our State.
Can the sovereign elites (justice, prefects) prevent the RN from governing?
In practice no. Firstly because many senior civil servants will put state service before any other consideration, some are favorable to the ideas of the RN and some others, hostile, will hesitate to abandon their function and their salary. It’s human nature ! To give just one example, we will recall that only one State Councilor refused to take the oath of office to Marshal Pétain in 1940. And Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella are obviously not Pétain! There will be resignations. But after all, it only takes 5 to 6,000 senior civil servants to run a country like France. No one is irreplaceable and the RN will undoubtedly be able to find replacements in the immediately lower ranks among the convinced, the apolitical and the ambitious.
What is much more to fear for the RN is, in addition to the chaos in the streets, a revolt from certain professions which are already in tension such as healthcare workers or teachers likely to lead their students… A petition has already was signed by National Education personnel to say that they will refuse to serve an RN government.
I don’t know if these threats will be carried out if the case arises. But it is an understatement to say that RN is not popular among teachers. Let us add that the party program, quite close to that implemented by Gabriel Attal for several months, does nothing to fix things.
Despite everything, doesn’t the RN have an interest in continuing to be publicly hostile to the elites to maintain its electoral base?
It’s a dilemma. Almost all the populist parties that have recently come to power in Western countries have refocused through pragmatism. But by smoothing out their speeches and renouncing part of their program, they have also lost part of their electoral base, sometimes a little, but sometimes much more.
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Among the frankly hostile and, in my opinion, irreconcilable elites, there are the cultural circles. The RN could hit these more easily from whom he has nothing to expect. In the event of a Bardella government, the task of future Ministers of National Education and Culture and their administrations risks being complicated!
