For Richard Pogliano, president of the Circle of Nice: “The Republic is not the State. The State is an actor, certainly of a particular essence, but only an actor.”
The Republic is 65 million citizens, associations, social partners, companies, local authorities, consular chambers, and… the State. Each has a particular legitimacy. But it is necessary to reconcile all these actors so that they can collectively implement programs of republican interest.
It is because France has been handed over to the markets and is completely compartmentalized that despite all its assets, it is regressing.
The 60s-70s were years of exchange and openness to the world. But behind this fortunate reality played out a major ideological battle. Starting from the “trente glorieuses” (thirty glorious years) and under the influence of the Thatcher years (Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990) and Reagan (40th President from 1981 to 1989), the market imposed itself as the sole regulator of the system. Profits became the only objectives… The 2008 crisis revealed this reality: Western growth and prosperity mainly rely on markets, financial and real estate speculation. The speculative financial economy has become a major sector and escapes all taxation, all contribution to public revenues.
It is this dominant market ideology that led us to abandon the essentials, such as industrial policies, regional tools to support medium-sized businesses, urban land strategies, thinking that the market alone could manage a housing policy, etc. Europe too, gradually allowed itself to be swept away by this dominant ideology, and the Directorate-General for Competition became, not an independent authority to avoid excessive concentrations, but the spearhead of a strategy entirely turned towards the markets.
Contrary to popular belief, France has a centralized State but is not a centralized country. On the contrary, it is a fragmented country, for certainly historical reasons, but each time pertinent and justifiable. Over time, it becomes evident that public action, which should serve the Republic, is scattered among an incalculable number of actors who not only do not communicate but are often in competition.
Whatever the topic at hand, the French reality is the multiplication of these actors who do not collaborate in the public good and the service of the Republic together. They contribute separately and in a scattered manner, thus inefficiently. Because there is, unfortunately, a kind of mythology that assumes the State is the Republic.
Faced with this, we need a dual revolution. Yes to the social market economy, but no to this dominant ideology of the primacy of the immediate consumer, deregulation, and “everything financial”. Yes to a complete modification of our governance method, by working with all the actors of living together.
This is what will place the Republic back at the center of everything.
Richard Pogliano
