TRIBUNE – In certain countries, at certain times, the behavior of ministers, civil servants, judges, journalists was, when the rulers were identified as “dictators”, independently of the legal system, clearly dependent on the personality of the latter .
But apart from these particular and extreme cases, little attention is paid to the character traits of people who have power over others. However, everyone has witnessed facts like this:
In a college, everything goes admirably. Parents struggle to enroll their child. The principal retires and is replaced by another. The teaching staff remains the same. But, quickly, everything goes down the drain and the parents withdraw their children from the establishment.
In a high school, the teachers arrive late, act roughly, the students behave badly… And then the principal changes: the same teachers arrive early, their lessons are appreciated and the students no longer have the taste for behaving like ill-learned people.
We see this phenomenon everywhere. People do anything when they know that the boss won’t say anything, that the boss lets it happen (anything), when he’s a fool, or when he’s afraid of being disavowed by his own boss… And so on. A bit, starting from the chief of chiefs, as with the theory of… trickling.
In short, the leader is often a catalyst
. A catalyst for good things, or, according to the somewhat abrupt expression heard in the teaching profession, “a catalyst for m…. “. Catalyst which (first case) allows the good sides of human beings to reveal themselves and render service. Or (second case) who awakens and prospers the bad sides of the same people, whose behavior will harm others and the functioning of their service.
It is not the training, the diplomas, the recruitment, the status that allow the leader to be placed in one or the other of the categories of catalysts. Since, as in the example of the principals, the predecessor and his successor have the same training, the same grade, have passed the same competition, and enjoy the same status and have the same prerogatives.
It is likely that the same is true with heads of state
.
Today, we have the feeling that nothing is going as it should. Nowhere. That the decisions that are made are not considered. That France’s situation in the world is making people smile more and more (especially after the former colonized Malians threw French troops out of their homes). That rulers are not very capable of designing anything other than arguments… to last. Or to follow a line of road that they camouflage.
In the “time” of General de Gaulle, France was respected: there was no question of the nation’s policy being determined on the stock market, or by uncontrollable foreign bodies; it was impossible for the French soldiers to follow the Americans in their warlike operations as the children followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin. France was present in Africa and was not driven out. We made sure, through a thoughtful and programmed industrial policy, that the most humble had a real job, and lived in decent conditions. And when the Head of State spoke to the French, it was to suggest that they move forward, and not to tell them of his desire to “annoy” them.
In other words, the heads of state of yesteryear and now would not, according to this theory
, “catalysts” of the same species. This would explain the state of France and the functioning of the institutions at these different times. State of France that classic institutional analyzes would have difficulty explaining.
It would indeed be interesting to investigate whether, at a given time (starting with today), the role and the concrete activity of a minister, of a member of parliament, of such and such a portion of magistrates, of senior civil servants, part of the journalists, etc. would not be explained by the membership of the President of the Republic (or would not reveal the membership of the President of the Republic) of the first or second category of catalysts .
In any case, this is what the so-called school of Nanterre, which includes eminent publicists, supports. This article is based on their work. Marcel M. MONIN is an honorary university lecturer.