Sf the division of society into three major classes – upper, middle, working class – seems accepted today, a vagueness persists as to the contours, weight and political role of the latter. These hesitations are partly explained by the historical development of this category. Children of the XXe century, the middle classes experienced a first boom in the 1930s before becoming the social base of the “glorious thirty”. This gap with the modern working and upper classes, which were formed in the previous century, gives the middle classes an ambiguous role: if for fifty years they have been shaping their own trajectory, they are also participating in a broader reconfiguration of social relations inherited from the classic antagonism between capital and labour.
In the 1950s and 1960s, industrial revival and the power of the labor movement imbued society with an interpretation in terms of class struggle. In this context, the middle classes struggle to appear as such. Between bourgeoisie and proletariat, Marxism does not admit the existence of an autonomous entity. We then speak of “new working class” (for the sociologist Serge Mallet, 1927-1973), or vice versa “new petty bourgeoisie” (pour le politologue Nicos Poulantzas, 1936-1979).
May-68 and the struggles that emerged from it marked a turning point. These movements are largely driven by young people who have accessed higher education and aspire to find a place in the social and political order while challenging certain foundations: the place of women, sexuality, human rights , colonialism. Around the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) and the CFDT, a militant generation also invests the watchword of self-management. Central to these struggles, the middle classes nevertheless always find it difficult to be thought of as such vis-à-vis the other two classes.
Epicenter of social relations
The 1980s were another important stage in the evolution of the socio-political role of the middle classes. With the coming to power of the Socialist Party (PS), which had already begun in the 1970s through local elections, some of the social groups which had benefited from higher education and had until then been involved in protest and mobilizations finally find the means to assert their interests within the State. But whereas the forces of the left had hitherto continued to claim the working class and the class struggle, some perceive the turn of rigor of 1983 as the symbol of an unveiling: the middle classes henceforth defend their values , worldviews and personal interests. Without doing so openly: more than ever, through their intermediate situation, their nationals tend to universalize their struggles by (re)presenting themselves as the epicenter of social relations.
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