Extract
[...] The modern negation of collective identities. Modern societies are faced with a widespread rejection of collective identity. This rejection does not specifically target the State, but all entities that hinder the emancipation of the individual as such. 'Families, I hate you', said André Gide in his Earthly pleasures, reflecting this movement in family matters. But the people, too, as it is embodied in the State, suffers from this same rejection: the modern individual does not want to be imposed a way of thinking, a feeling of belonging, a collective identity. [...]
[...] The restoration of the political role of the people. The people intend to restore the political role that is theirs, and no longer be a simple instrument intended to ensure the success of political parties. Balzac already affirmed in the 19th century2nd The 19th century that 'Republicans made the people an instrument.' The people cannot be content with this passive status, which confines it to 'receive religion, laws, like money, without examining them,' according to Voltaire's formula. The only free consent of the governed, founder of the social contract, cannot be enough: representative democracy does not make the represented people lose their political role after the election. [...]
[...] Collective History, cradle of the idea of people The people consecrated by History. The people, before constituting an ensemble of individuals linked by a proper legal relationship, harbors a sentiment, an idea. This sentiment has long consisted in History in a desire for emancipation and revolt against the categories of the 'named', where it remains anonymous. Hugo describes, in his poem To the people, this 'agitated breath' that animates a 'terrible and peaceful' people. It gives the people their moral unity by confronting them with the enemy, which constitutes the oppressive power. [...]
[...] The People Restored in History. The birth and individualization of the concept of people, however, do not originate from the acts proper to the people themselves, but from their description by the literary and artistic elites, which Alain Pessin dates back to the beginning of the 19th century.6th century. The development of realism and naturalism in literature ensures that what can be called 'populism', in the proper sense, has a certain flourishing: the people begin to exist as they are described by Hugo and Zola and painted by Delacroix in his famous painting, Liberty Leading the People. [...]
[...] The rule of law is thus conceived against the people and against 'pure democracy', which ensured their real sovereignty. The manipulated people: the rise of populism. Modern politics embodies the excesses that a too frank and biased critique of representative democracy can lead to, as described above. Populism constitutes the XXI century's major challenge to democracy.third century, for Christophe Godin, 'what totalitarianism will have been to the XXthird century: for democracy the main danger'. It embodies the perversion of the people's function in such a democracy: from a political subject, it becomes an object, or even a true political tool. [...]
