The “breakage from below” and the “breakage from above”: the charge of Emmanuel Todd

ByMuhammad

On the set of Figaro TV, Emmanuel Todd invites us to look beyond the images of looting to question another form of destruction: that which he attributes to the ruling categories. The historian and demographer claims to be “personally horrified” by the store ransackings. “You have to work and pay (…) not steal,” he insists. But this condemnation is accompanied by a call to examine the degradation of the country as a whole: the “breakage from below” would be matched by a “breakage from above”, less visible, but far more serious with consequences.

“Nihilism”, according to Todd, thus characterizes elites who “no longer love their country” and no longer defend the nation more than the perpetrators of degradation. To illustrate his point, he contrasts the 400 million euros of damage mentioned in the interview with a cost of the euro for France which he puts at 4,000 billion euros, citing work by German institutes. An estimate whose sources and method are not specified in this extract, and which he himself presents with caution.

Its conclusion takes the form of a question: “Who must appear in immediate appearance? » Those who destroyed French industry, he asks, or those who ransacked stores? A way of asking the question of the responsibility of managers and the difference in treatment between immediately visible damage and that of economic choices.

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Muhammad

Muhammad is a visionary thinker and passionate writer who has been contributing to Understanding Islam for several years.