In this interview, he discusses his return home to his native Reims, the working-class vote for fascist forces— including that of his mother—and his relationship with Foucault.
In 2009, Didier Eribon (Reims, 1953) anticipated the rise of the far right by analysing the working-class vote in his hometown in “Return to Reims” (Libros del Zorzal, 2024), a book that has garnered numerous translations and a film adaptation: “Retour à Reims” (Fragments), by Jean-Gabriel Périot (2021).
In Reims, revolution meant being able to buy a television. His father would watch it in the living room and hurl insults at the gay actors who appeared on screen; Eribon knew that these insults were, deep down, directed at him.
The longing to return to Reims was not only political but also personal. He recounts how he emancipated himself through his homosexuality: he fled Reims, fulfilled his dream of becoming a philosopher, and ended up being integrated into Michel Foucault’s circle of friends. Decades later, his father’s death brought him back to the city. By then, he had become an internationally renowned academic, though he admits he was more ashamed of his working-class origins than of his homosexuality—all while voting for the left in the hope of improving living conditions in his hometown.
“Return to Reims” is both a political analysis and a love letter. The tensions between the individual and society run through all Eribon’s work, and he participated in the latest edition of the Gutun Zuria festival in collaboration with the French Institute of Bilbao. In a packed auditorium, during a discussion with Alana S. Portero, Eribon explained that he had asked to share the stage with her because of the central role friendship plays in “The Bad Habit”. They both agree that true family is a choice, and that this institution is made up of chosen affections—though the conversation also left some open questions.
Is it possible to rise above one’s social class? We interviewed him just before his lecture to answer these and other questions.
In “Life, Old Age, and Death of a Village Woman” (Taurus, 2024), you describe your mother, the novel’s protagonist, trapped in a care home, where she lives with people of the same age. They form a collective, a ‘nous’ (we), but although they want to change their poor living conditions, they lack political power. Do you also belong to a ‘nous’?
In writing this work, my point of reference is Simone de Beauvoir: her famous “The Second Sex” (1949), which poses the following questions: Why do women not form a collective, why do they not organise themselves collectively, why do they not say “nous, les femmes” (“we, the women”), when workers and Black people do so, resulting in the labour movement and the civil rights movement in the US? From that point on, things change. Twenty years later, Beauvoir published her other great essay, “Old Age”. Her aim was to give a voice to people of very advanced age who would otherwise be unable to express themselves. In other words: these people who suffer from loneliness, illness, the loss of physical autonomy and live in a care home cannot say “nous”. Over time, my mother also began to live like this. From the care home, she would leave me voice messages on my answering machine. They were effectively political, because she was protesting against her living conditions in that institution: “I’m unhappy, I don’t want to keep living here.” But she, of course, could not take to the streets to demonstrate with placards, alongside other elderly people. The issue remains relevant: there are people who cannot come together collectively because their physical condition prevents them from doing so. To answer the question of which collective I belong to, I prefer first to ask who can constitute themselves as a “nous”.
As a gay man, I can say “nous” because gay pride exists. It is a collective made up of very different people, but there are times when we can say “nous”: there are books, we can go out and demonstrate, sign petitions, organise discussions.
When I go out to demonstrate against Macron’s policies—which are undermining hospitals, the National Health Service, transport, housing and other public services—I am alongside trade unionists and workers; in those circumstances, I can also say “nous”. Therefore, I do belong to a “nous”; in fact, to several of them. Often, these cannot come together in a single collective. I believe that every person belongs to a plurality of “nous”. The question of the individual and the group is, ultimately, enormously complex: every person belongs to different groups. Given collectives: white, Arab, transgender, woman, young person… But you voluntarily join these collectives when, as a woman, you become a feminist; when, as a gay man, you begin to engage politically. We can therefore distinguish between given collectives, which we do not choose, and collectives formed through mobilisation.
“They used to oppose capitalist domination, but now they turned against the elites who ‘favour’ immigration, even though they still considered themselves to be part of the working class. The reason I found out was that social democracy had abandoned the working class.
If there is a “nous,” there will also be a “vous” (you). You demonstrate how “nous les communistes contre vous les patrons” (“we communists against you bosses”), which mobilised the working class against exploitation and was the main political slogan in industrial France, has become “nous les français contre vous les immigrés” (“we French against you immigrants”). But communist militancy had a collective character; it depended on solidarity. Have far-right parties somehow safeguarded it?
When I was a teenager, everyone around me was working class. What’s more, they saw themselves as part of the working class—a class mobilised against oppression (the bosses, the bourgeoisie, the capitalists) in the name of equality and social justice. Therefore, there was a very strong class consciousness in my family, and everyone voted for the Communist Party. “The Party”, as they called it. I distanced myself. When I am back in Reims and meet my mother, I realise they have started voting for the far right. First for Le Pen senior, then for his daughter. I wondered what could have happened; before, they were against capitalist domination, now their protests had turned against the elites who “favour” immigration, even though they still considered themselves working-class.
I tried to analyse the phenomenon. The reason I found was the abandonment of the working class by social democracy, in France, the UK, and Germany alike. Added to this was a context of deindustrialisation, factory closures and massive job losses. Social democracy began to embrace neoliberalism at the expense of the welfare state. The media supported a new narrative that linked economic inequalities to individual responsibility rather than class differences. The traditional left ceased to represent them. And when the left ceased to represent the working class, the latter sought another party.
For a long time, those who had previously voted for the left and were beginning to vote for the far right did so in a very different way. They voted for the left with pride. When voting for the far right, at first they felt ashamed, would not admit it in public, or claimed they had only done so once. Whereas it used to be difficult to accept, today in many regions of France—and I see that the same is happening in Spain and the rest of Europe—there is now a sense of pride in voting for the far right.
“Cultural dispossession also explains the rise of the far right.
Is that a cultural question?
All studies show that there is a direct link between educational attainment and voting for the far right. Those who vote for them are not only economically deprived, but also culturally deprived. This is a form of cultural deprivation: they have no access to participating in public debate or decision-making. Cultural deprivation is, therefore, just as significant as economic deprivation; both contribute to the electoral success of the far right. Furthermore, access to knowledge facilitates better working conditions. Both forms of deprivation are, therefore, intrinsically linked.
The idea that knowledge—and access to a privileged position—is for others; that the “nous” of the dispossessed amounts to nothing. If there is one group today in the strongholds of the Communist or Socialist Party (in many places where the PCF—the French Communist Party1—won the first round), it is that of the dispossessed. And they vote for the far right. Unfortunately, this trend is on the rise. I fear the next elections will be catastrophic.
Another explanation is the disappearance of public services. Imagine living in a small village where the primary school, the post office and the health centre are closing down… and the train that used to stop five times a day now only stops once, or not at all, because there is no longer a station. If you have to travel 5, 30, 50 kilometres for everything, the feeling of being invisible, of having been sidelined, breeds an anger that translates into a vote for the far right. Similarly, and this has been proven, when public services are restored, support for the far right drops immediately. It seems like a laboratory experiment. For all these reasons, governments that make cuts are criminal, as they put the far right in power. They instill after all a sense of fear.
“They are no longer ashamed because they feel ignored and marginalised. Their way of making their voices heard is to vote for the far right.
“But… they’re fascists!” As he often recounts, this was his reaction when he found out that his mother voted for the far right. In Spain, there is much talk of historical memory because it remains an unresolved issue. France has been different in this respect: there, communists are remembered as heroes of the Resistance, key figures in the founding of the modern French Republic.
Yes. But if social policies are being dismantled and you’re feeling the effects in your daily life, historical memory isn’t your priority. It doesn’t lead to changes in voting preferences. I repeat: only restoring the welfare state will have a real impact. That said, historical memory is also very important. I’ve come across a great deal of literature and film about the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime; there are many historians studying it. As far as I know, there are some very interesting examples of historical memory in Spain. Aren’t there?
There are many, but there is no consensus on the matter. Right-wing parties tend to block such initiatives.
(Laughs.) You can see why: they’re the heirs. Why would they want anything studied that calls them into being evaluated? In such cases, the answer must be to keep funding research, supporting it through both universities and publishers. Although I can’t go into further detail, I’m interested in the history of Spain.
Let’s continue talking about the south. You explain how social democracy plays a key role in the rise of the far right. It could be added that social democracy has been in crisis for over ten years. In the 2017 presidential election, when Macron stood on his own platform after having served as Minister for the Economy in a Socialist Party (PS) government and made it through to the second round against Le Pen, you abstained.
Yes. Even after the first round, people were saying that Macron was the best candidate, the only one who could stop Le Pen. I supported Mélenchon because Macron wasn’t a left-wing candidate, as has since become clear. I said that voting for Macron wasn’t voting against Marine Le Pen but ensuring her victory in the next elections. I was wrong about the timing: Le Pen didn’t win five years later. But she is a rising phenomenon due to Macron’s policies for dismantling the public sector. Unfortunately, it is quite possible that she will be the future President of the Republic. Or that of her replacement [sic], due to issues of ineligibility (she has outstanding legal matters). It is very likely that they will win a large number of seats in the legislative elections.
What do you think of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and other social democratic leaders who form coalitions with parties to their left? Is this the solution to the rise of the far right?
The only solution is unity. This is not happening in France, nor in the UK or other countries. On the contrary: left-wing parties are splitting, another factor that plays into the hands of the far right. In France, such unity is made more difficult by the electoral system: in the second round, one leader must prevail over another.
“I don’t like either psychiatry or psychoanalysis, because they treat problems as individual issues. To understand oneself, one needs to analyse history and the collective.
Let’s return to the individual. This is the age of therapy, and autofiction is flourishing in literature. Yet you have chosen self-analysis. How would you explain what that is?
When “Return to Reims” was published and translated into several languages, it was presented as a work of autofiction. I didn’t agree with that because it isn’t fiction, but rather a sociological description and an analysis. I have nothing against autofiction; let everyone write what they want. I start from my personal journey to attempt a sociological analysis of the history of the working classes, of educational institutions, and of politics in France. It is a book that attempts to integrate different levels of analysis, but everything written is real. When I say self-analysis, I could say autobiography, but it is indeed a collection of biographies that I am trying to bring together in a single book. I don’t like either psychiatry or psychoanalysis, because they individualise problems. To understand oneself, one needs an analysis of history and of the collective. Questions such as: what social class were you born into? How many years of education have you had?
For example, I think we need to rethink the Oedipus complex. Difficulties between parents and children are often shaped by the fact that parents were forced to leave school at the age of 14 or 15 to start working. My mother started at 14, my father at 13, and I studied until I was 25. The next generation, which goes on to secondary and university education, has much broader access to culture; this also has an impact on their relationship with leisure, their notion of time, and their relationships. Everything that structures us is shaped by the time spent forming us. Diagnoses such as the Oedipus complex, which focus solely on the family, are less effective than an analysis of the contemporary functioning of social classes.
One of the main focuses of your research has been the analysis of violence. We are in Bilbao, one of the main Basque cities, where daily life was dominated by ETA2 until 2011. In theory, the conflict was framed as “us Basques against you oppressors”, although that did not prevent some of the victims from being workers, politicians and judges who supported the welfare state.
I don’t know enough about this chapter to be able to judge, let alone Basque nationalism. But I can say that I detest violence. I believe that major liberation movements are far more unifying than violent actions by minority groups. That said, in this context we must speak of respect for the minority languages and cultures of each region or community. If such violent responses existed, they were in reaction to attempts to restrict them. This does not justify violence, but respect is a necessary condition to prevent violent groups from forming.
There is something about violence that really strikes me: at first it is political, but then it becomes autonomous. It transcends those who perpetrate it and ends up acting on its own, detached from the political aim that gave rise to it. Walter Benjamin defined it very well in his essay “Critique of Violence”: violence for violence’s sake always ends up prevailing because it is impossible to control. That is why I believe we must prevent it from starting in the first place. I remember the article I read when ETA laid down its arms; what a beautiful thing.
You are one of the most valuable biographers of Michel Foucault, the Western philosopher who was perhaps most closely associated with the 1978 Iranian Revolution. How might we interpret this today?
The revolution did not originate solely from religious groups. Many secularists, Marxists, republicans and feminists took part in it. It was not just intellectuals: it was a general uprising. Every day there were mass demonstrations and the response from the authorities was terrifying. The Shah’s regime was one of torture and murder. A considerable number of intellectuals in France, and I imagine in the rest of Europe too, were horrified by these massacres and supported the protests. That is why Foucault did not hesitate when the Corriere della Sera asked him to travel to Iran as a correspondent, where he wrote a series of reports. He was fascinated by the crowds opposing the regime; perhaps that is why his reports were overly enthusiastic about the possible fall of the Shah.
When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power, he thought that, with the dictatorship overthrown, a more democratic regime would be established. He was wrong because he was not an expert; he did not understand the dynamics of the situation and could not have foreseen the emergence of a theocratic regime. This was, of course, a mistake that many journalists of the time also made. In my biography of Foucault, I say that he was perhaps too enthusiastic. His reports were based on testimonies from people he encountered on the streets. Most of those he interviewed were not religious and supported the revolution. Foucault supported the Iranian revolution, but never the regime that emerged from it. When Khomeini began persecuting the very same groups as the Shah, Foucault condemned him in his writings. However, in France there was a controversy that still persists: several media outlets reported that Foucault supported the ayatollahs.
There are also many who believe the farce that Sartre and Beauvoir travelled to support the Iranian regime. Can you imagine Beauvoir in a chador? So many falsehoods. Foucault did go to Iran to support the revolution, but when Ayatollah Khomeini was still living on the outskirts of Paris. The Europeans’ considerations were wrong, but they were objective.
“The possession of culture is a weapon of the ruling classes” is a reflection by Bourdieu that inspires you. Which book, film and music album would you recommend?
“The Memorable Ones” by the Portuguese novelist Lídia Jorge, because we’ve been talking about historical memory. “Pain and Glory” by Pedro Almodóvar, and the piano concertos by Béla Bartók.
This article is a translation. You can find the original Spanish interview here.
