Politique Internationale — A few years ago, you published L’Archipel français (Seuil), a book whose title hints at a fragmented country. What guided this work?
Jérôme Fourquet — This book is the fruit of a long-term project, the result of twenty-five years of opinion polls and sociological studies. I’ve published a number of articles, but a book allows me to give greater coherence to an overall vision, to reflect in greater depth and to map out perspectives. In this case, the landscape painted at the time shows a fragmented society, in the sense that the main collective points of reference that had been anchored until then had broken down. In the early 1960s, to use a colourful phrase, France was a lot like the confrontation between Don Camillo and Peppone: some 35% of people went to mass on Sundays and almost 25% voted for the Communist Party in elections. Today, by way of comparison, barely 3% go to church and Fabien Roussel, the PC candidate, scored 2.5% in the last presidential election. In short, while 60% of individuals were spontaneously attached to one of these two blocs, two generations later there is almost nothing left of them.
Another factor in France’s fragmentation is the weight of the major mass media: in 1990, a television channel like TF1 had a 45% market share; it now has 18%. Admittedly, it continues to play an important role in the audiovisual landscape, but to a much lesser extent. The print media’s audience is even more explicit: forty years ago, when a group of intellectuals signed an opinion piece on the front page of the Nouvel Observateur, it made headlines; this is no longer the case, far from it. And this is no exception: other magazines that were big names at the time, such as Le Point and L’Express, have seen their impact wane.
I’m not going to list all the factors that have contributed to the fragmentation of France, but some stand out more than others, in particular the phenomenon of migration. In 1960, children given an Arab-Muslim name accounted for no more than 1% of births; by 2024, the figure had risen to 21%.
P. I. — What are the main explanations for this fragmentation? Is it driven by specific elements or events?
J. F. — Of course, political, economic and social developments have had an impact, as we’ll come back to later. But that doesn’t explain everything: over the last few decades, we’ve seen an empowerment of the individual, with a desire for emancipation from traditional frameworks. At the time, there were many such frameworks – religious affiliation, support for a political force, marriage, starting a family, reading a newspaper, etc. – which enabled people to be pigeon-holed into specific boxes. By way of illustration, 25% of families today are single-parent families: we are at the opposite end of the spectrum from the habits perpetuated for generations and generations. At the start of the 21st century, we are witnessing a …