Breakfast with Denis Muzet, President of Médiascopie invited on Thursday May 15, 2014
"The withdrawal to the local and the rejection of the other in fundamental movement"
President of Médiascopie, Denis Muzet has an original approach to public life. For him, the polls only record the ambient media noise. Hence the traditional disappointments. He prefers to try to grasp "the way people see the world or personalities", their "representations". To do this, he has developed a method that measures the reactions of viewers in real time to broadcasts, the mediascopy. Since 2008, he has used an analysis of "words" to draw the mental map of the French on political leaders, institutions, ideas. He thus studied the “words of the plant”, the “words of the department”, the “words of Marine Le Pen”… Each end of autumn, he leans on the “words of the year”.
At the time of territorial reform, the media sociologist underlines the attachment of the French to their department. No doubt they are often unaware of the General Council, its representatives and its powers. But the department, intermediary between the distant State and the nearby municipality, seems the guarantor of the balance of the territories and the idea of its abolition is strongly rejected. Witness the controversy raised by the end of departmental numbers on car license plates. "The French compensate for the fear of globalization by what is closest," explains Denis Muzet.
The analysis of the "words of Marine Le Pen" shows for her part that the boss of the National Front has the art of addressing the themes that meet the concerns of the French. She is attracting attention, even if strong doubt persists about her ability to implement the measures she recommends in the event of access to power. The credibility on insecurity and immigration is quite strong; it settles on “economic patriotism”; it progresses on “republican citizenship”; it is very weak when it comes to international markets. It is even negative when it suggests leaving the euro or NATO.
Still, Marine Le Pen has made a lot of progress since 2006 and her progress remains significant.
“It accompanies a fundamental movement, that of withdrawal to the local and rejection of the other”,
believes Denis Muzet, who does not see how she could not participate in power one of these days. “It's mechanical…” A determinism that is part of an ever-increasing suspicion of the French towards their leaders and the elites in general.
"We govern under pressure of the instantaneous while time is the basic material of public action", explains the sociologist. The results of the policies undertaken cannot be seen, either because saying has replaced doing or because doing cannot be said. For the French, “change is never”. Hence a dissatisfied society that sinks into a kind of collective depression. But “France seen from the territories is different from that of the national narrative”, underlines the sociologist. Would happiness be in the meadow?
