History of a concept. How is France doing, according to its president, Emmanuel Macron? He declared at the May 24 Council of Minisers meeting that a "process of decivilization" was underway. Various events are said to have inspired him to use this phrase: the fatal attack on a nurse in Reims, the death of three police officers in Villeneuve-d'Ascq in an accident caused by an alcohol- and drug-impaired driver, and the arson attack against the home of the mayor of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins by opponents of a planned reception center for asylum seekers.
The spectrum of phenomena that Macron seeks to describe with this term is broad, and creates a form of confusion that is only heightened when the description of France is reduced to a neologism. Malleable, but not unprecedented, the term "decivilization" lends itself to all sorts of appropriations.
In 2011, before he had even theorized the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory, far-right writer Renaud Camus published a book entitled Décivilisation ("Decivilisation"). "The book is a reactionary lament about the decay of social hierarchies and the spread of egalitarianism," explained Jean-Yves Pranchère, vice president of the political science department at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. "According to Renaud Camus, the prescriptive bourgeois class has ceased to watch over the heritage represented by good morals and the French language. The corruption of customs may lead to the ruin of civilization, the cultural foundation on which art and literature should be able to flourish." The far-right propagandist and the president are clearly not talking about the same thing.
Norbert Elias and gradual pacification
Macron does not denounce "decivilization" as such, but a "process of decivilization." This phrase brings us closer to the German sociologist and historian Norbert Elias (1897-1990). The president does not quote the author explicitly, but several of his supporters have pointed out that it is Elias who provides the key to interpreting his remarks – somewhat hastily, though.
In his work, mainly The Civilizing Process (1939), Elias studied civilization not as the total sum of the cultural, religious and political traits of a society at its peak, but as a process, a phenomenon of historical transformation, which led to the gradual pacification of the West. "Observing the evolution of morals over several centuries, Elias notes that self-control mechanisms that developed in courtly societies gradually spread to society as a whole. Individuals showed increasing restraint as the threshold of modesty was raised, affects were controlled and recourse to violence was reduced. Dueling was prohibited as the state exercised a growing monopoly on legitimate violence," said historian Roger Chartier, who has prefaced several works by Elias, including The Germans.
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