At a time when the world is undergoing a multifaceted crisis whose scope and depth few people are willing to acknowledge, and when the most astonishing technologies are severing our connection to reality and work, in most democratic countries, political leaders continue to make promises to their voters that they know they cannot keep, to pass laws that run counter to the world’s relentless realities, and to pretend to govern as if they had absolute power over events. It is no wonder that they fail and that voters eventually turn away from these puppets to look toward authoritarian, even dictatorial, regimes, where tyrants make no promises, pass no laws, and impose their will, even by twisting the demands of truth.
In France, in particular, we continue to play the charade of a fully fledged democracy, and an ever-growing number of candidates jostle for position without fear of ridicule. Their platforms, when they exist at all, are nothing more than collections of incoherent measures: everyone—candidates and voters alike—knows that they will never be implemented or that, if they are, they will have no impact on the reality of the country. It’s no surprise that, in France as elsewhere, voters are turning away from mainstream parties and flocking to extremist parties, which don’t even pretend to offer realistic platforms and simply proclaim what people want to hear: “justice and security.” Who could possibly be against that?!
At a time when we so desperately need statesmen and stateswomen everywhere—people concerned with the common good, capable of taking responsibility and speaking the truth—this situation is leading us straight toward disaster.
It is therefore time to return to simple questions: can politics truly change people’s lives? Can we, in a democracy, get people to accept unpopular decisions? And on which levers should politicians focus their efforts?
To be serious, political platforms should first acknowledge that they are limited by concrete realities: we cannot go into debt indefinitely; we cannot make an ever-shrinking youth population bear the burden of an ever-growing number of retirees; we cannot retain capital that we do not compensate; we cannot feed a country without farmers; we cannot have a livable environment if we destroy it.
Furthermore, it is clear that policymakers can do nothing to stop the advent of technological progress: those who have tried to delay the implementation of a technology (on the pretext that it would challenge a dominant industry or harm employment) have only succeeded in plunging their countries into severe recession.
In particular, there is no point today in delaying the implementation of artificial intelligence; on the contrary, we must accelerate it, especially in industry, and prioritize its use to modernize sectors considered strategic.
Finally, unless we cut ourselves off from the world, we cannot oppose the implementation of international treaties that the country has signed, unless we decide to withdraw from them and pay the price. We must therefore comply with them until we have secured any necessary amendments. In Europe, this means there are very strict obligations that considerably limit the powers of politicians, and which they never mention: we cannot deviate from the decisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, nor from those of the Court of Justice of the European Union, nor from those of the European institutions when their decisions are in accordance with the treaties; unless one proposes to leave the European Union (as Fidesz (Hungary), the Lega (Italy), the FPÖ (Austria), the PVV (Netherlands), and the AfD (Germany) regularly threaten to do) and as the National Rally or La France Insoumise would inevitably do if they were to implement their platforms.
It is therefore essential to understand these constraints, which have accumulated from treaty to treaty: The ECHR, for example, prohibits the expulsion of a foreign national who risks inhuman treatment or if such expulsion would cause a disproportionate disruption to their family life. A member state of the European Union cannot (even by invoking constitutional provisions) oppose the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which enforces a distinct legal order that is directly binding on national systems, covering entire areas of economic, social, environmental, and institutional policy; this prohibits, for example, a member state from taking specific measures regarding competition rules, trade policy, or monetary policy for eurozone countries; Nor can it establish national customs tariffs, unilaterally change a VAT rate, subsidize a national company in violation of state aid rules, impose discriminatory wage caps on European workers, criminalize homosexuality, undermine the independence of the courts, or prevent them from applying EU law. Nor can a member state opt out of applying European regulations on digital matters, copyright, consumer protection, and a thousand other issues within its territory. Anyone who does any of these things may have their access to European funding cut off and lose their voting rights in the Union.
Yet, despite these limitations, democratic leaders retain, particularly in Europe, considerable sovereign powers: they can articulate a draft social contract and secure adherence to it; they can decide on (direct) taxation, their own vision of education,healthcare funding and social protection systems, cultural policy, labor law, minority rights, the protection of women and children, secularism, environmental protection, foreign and defense policy, and criminal law (for the most part). They can also seek to shape international law by leveraging the full strength of their countries, without thereby placing themselves outside the law. To achieve this, policymakers will be particularly credible if they first reduce the need to borrow from the rest of the world: a democracy is strong only if it is not in the hands of its creditors. And when not everyone is doing everything they can to do their part.