The impossible overtaking

Claiming to be “both right and left”, the absence of a clear program did not prevent Emmanuel Macron from emerging victorious from the 2017 electoral sequence. On this occasion, the elimination of seasoned representatives of the traditional right and left in the first round of the presidential election consecrated an unprecedented result in contemporary French political life, until then punctuated by the alternation in power and in opposition of the two families of majority parties. The advent of the new President and his “neither right nor left” project finally culminated in obtaining a majority in the Assembly in the following legislative elections, fueling identity crises and splits within the Socialist Party as well as among the Republicans. It is in this unexpected context, which represents a “sociological irregularity” and a “challenge for political science”, that the short essay by Christophe Le Digol, lecturer in political science at the University of Paris Nanterre and researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of Politics (ISP). The author proposes a reading grid that puts into perspective the idea that the election of President Macron and those of the Marcher deputies mark the “end of the left-right divide”.

Sociology of a symbolic social construct

In the insight he presents, Christophe Le Digol chooses to leave aside the meaning of “the left” and “the right” in terms of values ​​and ideology. He focuses on the function of the left-right dichotomy in the structuring of political life and on the strategies of political actors. He claims a sociological approach that consists of “considering left and right not as an immutable principle of description, but as an object to be analyzed as the historical product of a more or less autonomous political order” (p. 15). The subtitle of the book, “sociology of a symbolic revolution” sums up the author’s ambition well. Inspired by Bourdieu, Le Digol’s perspective intends first to demonstrate that the “left-right divide” is a symbolic border, a social and historical construct, made necessary to organize and find one’s way in the political field. From then on, it is not immutable, but a constant object of struggle for definition and redefinition, appropriation and rejection. It is close to a belief and is instrumentalized by political actors to try to secure a dominant place within the political field. In this perspective, Emmanuel Macron participates in this struggle for meaning by trying to disqualify the left-right divide that is not to his advantage, and from which he has an interest in freeing himself in order to make his candidacy triumph. He thus contributes to (temporarily) upsetting the logic of interpretation of the political world. Hence the idea of ​​a “symbolic revolution” that his electoral success would have embodied.

The argument is structured in four parts, from the nature and origin of the speeches mobilizing or discrediting the idea of ​​a left-right divide, to the analysis of the “Macron moment” in 2017. First, Christophe Le Digol explains that the announcement of the death of the left-right divide is not new in history and that the current period is certainly just another episode. In doing so, the author urges us to avoid three pitfalls. First, do not take the left-right duo for an invariant, because if the principle of opposition remains, the signifier of the left and the right has evolved in history. Then, do not dismiss the hypothesis of the conjuncture, which only hindsight in time will allow us to appreciate. Finally, do not forget that declarations of the end of the left-right divide are politically situated, and are “the product of ordinary political struggles between agents who, for some, have an interest in maintaining the belief in the existence of a left-right divide; who, for others, have an objective interest in subverting the political constraints posed by the belief in the existence of this divide” (p. 22). Because according to Le Digol, the left-right divide is above all a matter of discourse. It is neither transhistorical nor universal. Consequently, there is no existence or end of existence of the left-right divide strictly speaking, but rather a succession of periods of struggles for the mobilization or demobilization of this discourse. Following this reasoning, the author argues that if we are surprised today by the desire to demobilize this discourse, it is because its use has been very strong and structuring for a century, and that conceptions of society, traditions and political affiliations have taken root around the discourse on the left-right divide.

Origin and function of the “left-right” discourse

In a second part, the author deepens his reasoning by recalling in more detail the history of the discursive mobilization of the left-right divide. Here we find the specialist in parliamentary history, who had already directed in 2012 at PUF a work with Jacques le Bohec, “Left / Right. Genesis of a political divide. The left-right divide finds its origin in the need to find a method to express the oppositions of interests in a context of democratization and autonomy of political life. It originally described a system of geographical grouping in the Assembly before embodying more broadly the major division of the political field.

Nevertheless, left and right did not remain constant referents after the French Revolution, fading away in particular during the periods of Empire and Restoration. According to the author, it was especially from the Third Republic that the opposition established itself as central, and gradually became essentialized to refer only to ideological positions, both among professionals and laymen. Since then, they have constituted the cardinal landmarks of the political field, reinforced by the two-round voting system of the Fifth Republic which mechanically creates rallying strategies, to the point of making us forget that the opposition is a social construct.

The third part is devoted to the contemporary period. Le Digol puts aside the debate on the ideology and values ​​of the left and the right, criticizing a tendency towards essentialization and naturalization of the divide (p. 49). This criticism is based on the idea that we have lost sight today of the social interests on which worldviews are based, making the left-right opposition a system of strategic and political opposition disconnected from the social world. This analysis would benefit from being further supported, to the extent that other works at the same time highlight the strong latent coherence of values ​​among individuals and parties on the left on the one hand, and on the right on the other. The author nevertheless focuses above all on the symbolic function of classification and distinction of this opposition in the political field thanks to shared representations. It recalls its usefulness as a fashioned symbol of a “community of meaning and values”, both for voters who can orient themselves and decipher political life more easily from these points of reference, and for elected officials and other political professionals who build their strategies of cooperation and confrontation from this opposition as well. The contemporary political field has developed on the basis of this rule, to the benefit of many actors who have become political professionals. To remain dominant in the field, the latter then have an interest in continuing to fuel the belief in this rule of structuring political life around the left-right divide.

The strategy of disqualifying left-right discourse

In the last part of the opus, Christophe Le Digol ends his reasoning by focusing on Macron’s strategy in relation to the left-right divide. He develops the idea that the latter has undertaken an enterprise of disqualifying this political compass within the political field, to substitute other so-called indicators of progress and modernity: pragmatism rather than ideology, expertise rather than political experience. This redefinition of the rules of the game is not the sole result of personal skill. It is to be credited to a context favorable to change and linked to the crisis of political confidence, which he has been able to seize. Emmanuel Macron proposed to turn the page on the discredited professional politicians in their monopolistic management of political affairs and took advantage of the context to argue for the abandonment of the left-right divide, which had become inoperative and obsolete. Digol adds that, while the lack of experience and political capital is traditionally a handicap in political competition, this new configuration has made it a strength for Emmanuel Macron. It is also in this vein that his desire to introduce many neophyte advisers and deputies from civil society has been reinforced, even if they possess, just like him, sufficient legitimacy through their economic and cultural capital.

In conclusion, Christophe Le Digol emphasizes that if Emmanuel Macron was able to take advantage of the window of opportunity that presented itself to him, it would be unwise to conclude that the left-right divide has disappeared, the fight to define the rules of the game being an eternal restart. Moreover, the President, elected for two years, is caught up in this opposition system. If he had managed to detach himself from it in 2017, his speech is less convincing after several months in power: he is now very clearly attached to the right in the imagination of voters despite the persistent speech of the members of LREM on their rejection of this classification system. This observation also highlights the absence in the work of a time for discussion on the meaning of the “left-right” discourse among so-called “lay” individuals, in addition to the discussion on the strategies of professional political actors. However, many surveys highlight a paradox: if citizens increasingly adhere to the idea that the qualifiers of left and right are losing their meaning to describe political life, the majority remain in self-identifying on the left-right scale and positioning political actors on it.

In an uncertain period of political restructuring and recurring questioning by journalists, intellectuals and political actors on the meaning of the left-right divide, Christophe Le Digol’s short essay has the merit of making an original contribution to a debate that does not lack participants. By proposing to shift the reflection on the function of the left-right divide within the political game rather than on the content of these labels in terms of value, he recalls the importance of the games of actors. It is not a question of notifying the end of the left-right divide, but of identifying the current enterprise of disqualification and who has an interest in leading this “symbolic revolution”. It is an accessible text addressed to a wide audience interested in the social sciences. It allows to nourish a reflection in a simple and effective way on the perpetual struggle to impose a structuring conflict within political life, as well as to take a step back from what the recent Macron phenomenon represents. The more informed public can also find an opportunity to discuss the theoretical approach chosen to address this weighty question of the nature of the left-right divide.