As chance would have it, two books have just come out by two actors of French political life over the last thirty years: Régis Debray and Jean-Pierre Jouyet.
The first was a political activist – militant or terrorist, depending on one’s point of view – before becoming a “thinker” for some, a writer in fact, and above all a “mediologist”. The second is a senior civil servant, with a now well-known career between administrative posts and government responsibilities.
Their scathing views shed light on today’s political action, and can inspire business people.
On the face of it, the two authors have nothing in common. And yet…
Jean-Pierre Jouyet’s book has everything to delight “conspiracy theorists”, because it is all there (or almost): the closed Parisian world of the “elites”, particularly of the Inspection des Finances (the elite corps of French finance inspectors), the “great families”, personal friendships and hatreds taking precedence over the collective interest, battles for influence between more or less usual networks – Freemasons, Catholics, graduates of the ÉNA or engineers of the grands corps, clubs… – negotiations over State action subordinated to the handling of egos…
Administrative tyranny
One also reads, implicitly or explicitly, of senior civil servants’ neglect – even contempt – for members of parliament and intermediary bodies in public decision-making, throughout the anecdotes of recent decades, right up to the current outcome: “thanks to Macron, the French administration has achieved its dream of governing the country itself… Senior civil servants are left to their own devices”. The author devotes a whole chapter, with a sharp pen, to what he calls an “administrative tyranny”.
There is also a denunciation of the handling of the current crisis, and of the “whatever it takes” presented by the government as a policy of help for the most vulnerable, whereas “nothing protects privileges and their holders better than borrowing, debt and monetary liquidity”… Coming from a senior finance inspector, former head of the Treasury, of the French financial markets authority (AMF) and of the public investment bank Bpifrance, the analysis is damning because it is expert.
All that is missing are the supposed or self-declared players of a Davos-style “Great Reset” for the picture to be complete…
And since “conspiracy”, like our society of the spectacle, loves names, « L’envers du décor » (Behind the scenes) is also a ferocious portrait of small and great weaknesses, loyalties and betrayals, with more than 200 personalities named… And the portrait of a great friendship, too: that of the author with François Hollande.
Restless immobility
From this easy read one also learns the genesis of the ill-fated 35-hour week law, which nobody in government wanted – not even the minister who would give it her name! So why and how was it announced and passed? Out of pure electoral calculation, rivalry and personal animosity. An “electoral marker”. Frightening… All the more so since the collapse of the public hospital service, for which we are now paying the full price, was foreseen from that very moment.
Finally, for those with an appetite for it, one will discover a few milestones in the journey of a once-cherished then hated child, “Emmanuel”… right up to the Presidency of the Republic, described as “restless immobility”. Coming from the former Secretary-General of the Élysée, whose deputy Emmanuel Macron was, that too is cruel…
So what is the interest of this book, other than “civic” or unhealthy curiosity, depending on one’s point of view?
It all depends on whether it is an honest admission of powerlessness in the face of disaster – from the man who was nonetheless “the Republic’s HR director”; a testament of public action, at a time when the coming waves will probably be more social and political than health-related; or simply a devastating bombshell.
Among the final acknowledgements, one may also note the sober but well-chosen thanks to “the late Henri Weber”. Which gives food for thought, when one recalls that he, who died in 2020, was a leading activist of the revolutionary communist movements of the 1970s. But perhaps it is just solidarity between Normans, and/or between “outsiders married into” “great families”, since both shared their lives with prestigious heiresses.
Keeping a finger on the pulse of the regions
In any case, this book raises questions about the insight of its author, one of the most brilliant minds in our senior civil service. And therefore about that of many other, less brilliant, public decision-makers.
How can he wonder at not having seen the “Yellow Vests” movement coming, for lack of having “kept a finger on the pulse of the regions”, when throughout the book he describes how elected officials – members of parliament and others, a priori best placed to be in touch with “the ground” – were sidelined from major public decisions (such as the Stability Pact), probably more out of habit than intent?
And why and how can he regret today’s “administrative tyranny” when, on several occasions, he justifies civil servants’ opposition to implementing the decisions of elected officials?
Sincere questions and regrets, or a late discovery of the “archipelisation” of our country?
It is probably a magnificent lesson in humility, beyond the public sphere, for all leaders wishing to steer their company in step with changes in their environment and their markets. Because not everything can be done from a reassuring closed circle. It must be done in tune with the full diversity of the company, in its trades and its territories.
Régis Debray’s book is of a quite different order. By nature and probably by temperament. Because when Alain Finkielkraut invited him, together with Henri Weber (the same as above), onto his programme « Répliques » in 2018 to talk about “the 68 years”, he was already expressing a form of despair – or at least pessimistic disengagement – on the occasion of his previous book. Whereas his comrade from the red years still had a political project.
Because Régis Debray deplores the “tyrannical tropism” of intellectuals, and of our societies.
And that is probably why his book is (also) a eulogy of action.
The primacy of relationship
The “mediology” he founded is not the science of the “media”, in the usual sense. But, more broadly, of the intermediaries through which an idea becomes action. “When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger. The mediologist is a professional fool. He observes not the what but the how”. A fruitful approach, which makes it possible to take contexts and practical arrangements into account. And everything that matters in the art of facilitating collective work: space, sounds, light, smells, even touch…
For him, political action – and action in general – is not a matter of words: “wanting to act on minds through words is not a sensible project”. It is a matter of relationship: “our stance: the primacy of the relationship over the entity”.
There is a clear similarity here with the sociodynamic approaches we practise, which take into account what actors actually do, beyond words. And what they do together.
It is also a wonderful counterpoint to the technocratic, bureaucratic approach, which embodies and asserts the primacy of the entity, the organisation, immobility, over human diversity, its emotions and its vital energies.
Régis Debray’s plea is also for breaking down barriers between disciplines, between the human sciences and technology, since “the outside shapes our inside, and our material tools (the virtual is one of them) shape our mental toolkit”. Whereas technocratic steering relies on experts in silos, who favour one field (their own) over all others. A narrow approach, cruelly ineffective in living, complex systems. And one that claims to be “scientific”, whereas political action, according to Debray, is of a quite different order: “If by science we mean ‘the set of recipes and procedures that always succeed’, Sciences Po should be prosecuted for usurping titles. It is a School of Applied Arts. (…) The future cannot be put on index cards”…
Action is therefore above all collective.
Yet the convictions Régis Debray holds run counter to non-hierarchical approaches (even if he seems to regret it): “verticality is for angels and soldiers. The horizontal is fleeting. A mosaic of self-managed communes, a jumble of mini-republics can only shatter into pieces when things escalate to extremes. What strategic coherence? What unity of command? What discipline?”. And it is in the name of this verticality that he justifies the “lie” as an inevitable feature of political action…
Yet while vertical authority may be justified in war or in an emergency, managing the long term – including in a crisis – not only accommodates but requires more collective, more flexible governance. “Holomorphic” organisations and “complex adaptive systems” bear witness to this. If only because the relationship with others cannot be imposed; it has to be nurtured.
This would no doubt make for a fascinating discussion with the author. All the more so as the general crisis of trust also has to do with what connects us to others, with the weakening of transmission, of culture. “The better connected we are in space, the more disconnected we are from time. And impatient to be so”.
Dreaming together, too…
Finally, for Régis Debray, action is rooted. In a territory, in a culture. A terribly humble observation from a man who believed he could carry the ideals of his revolutionary youth across the seas…
And it also feeds on transcendence, beliefs and shared ideals. Another nice snub to those for whom action is nothing but “management”, and collective support nothing but silent acceptance of established principles.
Humility here again from the committed thinker, as on a subject as topical as secularism (laïcité), too often treated as an imposed given: “The French have quite often died for France, and sometimes for the Republic (…) We do not know of anyone ever giving their life for secularism. It reassures us and protects us from the worst but makes no one dream, while suggesting – and this is its merit – the quiet strength of a transcendence without dogma and a conviction without catechism. It would take a little more to create a sense of belonging”.
So what brings us together in collective action? Whether in politics or in our companies, which are made of nothing but women and men, with their emotions and desires. And, finally, their relationships. Not only those of individuals chosen within a comfortable closed circle. But those of a diversity created by chance and necessity. And which must be brought to life, not just managed.
It is certainly a question that remains open, given the specific nature of the groups brought together, and the circumstances. A page to write together, every day. Life, in short.
Jean-Pierre Jouyet, « L’envers du décor », Albin Michel, 2020
Régis Debray, « D’un siècle l’autre », Gallimard, 2020
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