ON necessarily think of Sylvain Tesson: “France is a paradise populated by people who believe in hell. But this punchline released by the French writer may have aged badly. It seems that paradise has darkened. Since 2017, when the poet-adventurer spoke at the microphone of France Inter, the French debt has increased by 1,000 billion euros. At that time, Vladimir Putin had not yet launched his large -scale invasion of Ukraine and the yellow vest was still a ugly but practical garment in the event of an accident.
Nine years later, is the pessimism that lurks in the country justified? Perhaps sometimes, but it is often excessive, judge Eddy Fougier, political scientist and author of Why do we think the world is going worse and worse? (Editions of Aube). The founder of the positive observatory tries to understand why, in France and more broadly in developed countries, we tend to blacken the table.
Supporting figures, Eddy Fougier shows that our perception of reality is often wrong. The pessimist is seen as lucid, but the real courage, in reverse of the media atmosphere, is not also to dare optimism and to remember that everything is not (so) bad? Interview with an optimist.
The point: Between a geopolitical context that ignites (Ukraine, Gaza …) or a worrying French economic situation, is it serious to be optimistic in 2025?
Eddy Fougier : The message I try to convey is to widen the look at reality and not to focus only on what is the most depressing, the most threatening. If we look at the international situation only through what worries, we focus on Gaza, Ukraine, the meeting between Trump and Putin.
But if we are widening, we also see ceasefires, poorly publicized conflicts that are calmed down, the example of Cambodia and Thailand, India-Pakistan or Israel-Iran tensions which have not overflowed, and a recently between Armenia and Azerbaijan who did not make the headlines. I am not saying “everything is fine” or “everything is bad”: it makes our perspective expand. And if we want to deal with colossal – climatic, democratic, geopolitical challenges -, it will be necessary to act, and this requires a positive state of mind.
Is pessimism a particularly French feeling?
No. Several surveys carried out show that it is undoubtedly a little more pronounced in France, but it is found in the main developed countries. In the United States, this pessimism nourished the Tea Party and then the Maga phenomenon, despite the received idea of more optimistic Americans. On the other hand, what is true, it seems to me is that in France, culturally, optimistic discourse is less well lived than elsewhere. When you wear an optimistic speech, you are quickly taxed with idealism.
Isn’t optimism a bourgeois or centrist speech?
Indeed, we are on a crest line. In France, he is seen as the speech of the powerful, of the power in place. This is why it is necessary, it seems to me, to hold an “popular optimistic discourse”. We have no choice but to be optimistic. My model in the matter is for example Churchill and his famous speech “I have to offer only blood, work, tears and sweat”. Indeed, the beginning is terrible. It starts from the principle that the situation is extremely serious, but that we have no choice. The only purpose is “victory, victory, victory”. It is this state of mind that must be had. This applies everywhere, especially with regard to ecology to put an end to this little music which consists in saying: “Anyway, it’s screwed up. »»
You note that it is the developed countries that are the most pessimistic … Why?
The enrichment in emerging countries creates optimism. When we talk about pessimism or collective optimism, we focus in particular on the question of the fate of future generations. In India, nearly 270 million people came out of extreme poverty in a decade. On the other hand, in developed countries, this evolution stagnates or decreases. Progress becomes less visible at a certain stage. We only see what degrades and we forget the improvements. Individual, psychology has shown it: several studies have been done on people who won the lottery. They dreamed of it, then once they won they are happy and, after a year, they are at the same level of mind as before having won it.
Positive information is not uncommon. You have to make a little effort to access it.
Basically, is it because we have an erroneous perception of reality?
Yes, but it’s hard to talk about it publicly, because you pass very quickly for someone of elitist and contemptuous. But, indeed, on most subjects, academics who study questions of inequality, security, immigration, on minorities, lead to the same conclusion, that is to say that there is an often very important-even abyssal-gap-on the most sensitive subjects between the perception that the public has of a subject and its reality.
Investigations (like that of Ipsos on “perils of perception”) show this discrepancy on sensitive subjects such as inequalities, security, immigration and minorities. In the United States, for example, the perception of inflation by part of the republican voters was incommensurate with reality. This contrast nourishes excessive pessimism.
Who are the ones you call the “conspirators of misfortune”?
There are creators of negative content and vectors. As for creators, actors strategically focus on risks (economists, politicians, unions, NGOs). If you are an economist, you will focus (consciously or not) on the risk of disaster linked to public debt of this or that country. Because if it happens, you will be considered the guru. Some had announced the 2008-2009 financial crisis, as some announced the crisis of yellow vests.
Then, media, economically, it’s good for you. Just as if you are a union of employers or employees, you will denounce this or that decision, such or such evolution. If you are an NGO, you will rather emphasize such an emergency, this or that humanitarian disaster. You therefore have a lot of actors, for various reasons, which tend to blacken the table, to dramatize, to transform into whistleblowers.
And journalists are also responsible …
Some media favor the ruptures of normality, “trains that do not arrive on time”. It is well known. For many years, I have studied a number of protest movements. I realized that there was an interest on the part of the media only if these movements were violent. And so you are inclined, even as an expert, to focus on what is a threat. Here too, there is largely biased, with this insistence on negativity and risks, and myself I found myself a prisoner and accomplice of this scheme.
But isn’t responsibility more diffuse?
I’m not saying that because you are a journalist, but I’m talking about co -responsibility. It would be too easy to throw stone into the media. There is an example – always the same, it annoys me a little – of this Russian media that had decided, it did not last long, to process only positive information: there was indeed a fall in its audience.
I see it every day: I have published positive information daily for four years on X, it has very little audience, I know. On the other hand, if I intervene on the Duplumb law, there, it will “boost”. We are all accomplices of that. There is a cognitive aspect: our bias of brain negativity. Who is the first responsible for this excess of pessimism, between the media and the public? We do not know who the hen is and who is the egg.
To discover
The kangaroo of the day
Answer
And would you have advice on getting information while looking at the glass more often than a full thing?
First, realize that we are exposed everywhere to negative information which does not always correspond to reality. Then remember that there is not only negative: in geopolitics too, there are reassuring or neutral developments. Finally, remember that, contrary to what you think, positive information is not uncommon. You have to make a little effort to access it. In the regional daily press, there is a lot of positive information, and in The point Also. Technology section, innovation, contains a lot.
