“The challenges of ecological transition require us to rethink the terms of the social question”

Lhe omnipresence of injunctions to eco-citizenship has largely contributed to establishing the idea that the ecological transition is essentially a matter of transforming our individual consumption practices, our modes of travel and our ways of living. The data from a recent survey show, however, that the room for maneuver offered to individuals is tenuous and that the postulate of a causal relationship between concern and environmental action is proving to be fragile (The Ecological Conversion of the French. Contradictions and divisionsPUF, 272 pages, 23 euros).

In 2011, the majority of French people (53%) declared themselves to be very sensitive to the environment, whereas there were just over a third (36%) in this case in 1995. In 2017, 93 % of individuals questioned by the survey say they agree with the proposition “Human beings are seriously harming the environment”.

However, the evolution of lifestyles does not follow the same path. Certain ecologically “virtuous” practices have spread, but the evolution of our lifestyles remains marked by the continuous growth, since the “thirty glorious days”, in the volume of household appliances, recently taken over by electronic and digital equipment. leisure, while the demand for motor vehicles, which are heavier, more powerful, more numerous and more often renewed, is intensifying and our eating habits tend to be based on more processed foods from more distant sources.

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Attitudinal disparities continue to permeate French society. The survey highlights two major opposition scales. The first differentiates individuals according to the degree of environmental concern (or “eco-anxiety”) expressed, which is manifested by an unequal concern for environmental disorders. The second opposition refers to the degree of mistrust expressed with regard to technical progress.

deep divisions

The French seem very worried about environmental degradation and its consequences: only the least educated stand out on average with a lower level of eco-anxiety. The distrust of technical progress is more heterogeneous: maximum among the most educated individuals born between the beginning of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1990s, rather urban, with a fairly high income and located politically on the left, it is the lower in older generations.

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