The French Minister for Ecological and Solidary Transition, François de Rugy, was not too long ago pressured to resign over public outcry at allegations of pointless extravagance at public expense—allegations that got very large publicity however which the previous minister has since denied. He says that he was the article of a “media lynching.”
Personally, I'm inclined to doubt the honesty of anybody who agreed to go a ministry with such a imprecise, obscure, and weird title. Transition to what, precisely? “Ecological” conjures environmental issues. As for the phrase solidary, fashionable English audio system can verify that it's not in frequent use. In response to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (which informs us that solidary is the precise translation of the French phrase solidaire), it means “characterised by or having solidarity or neighborhood of pursuits” or in authorized parlance “collectively and severally.”
I've some problem in construing the phrase “solidary transition.” It has an Orwellian ring, as if implying the observe of some sort of secret psychological engineering, using instruments reminiscent of blackmail, torture, and public shaming. Due to the operation of the Ministry, individuals who had been previously individualistic or hostile to at least one one other would possibly turn out to be laudably altruistic, and France henceforth a nation of Good Samaritans.
Courtesy of the British Nationwide Well being Service, I've numerous expertise with the bureaucratic use of phrases which have imprecise connotation however denote nothing particular. Virtually all the time, they're used as a pretext for the employment and promotion of individuals whose extended and pointless training has disqualified them from helpful work, and as an alternative ready them for militant time-wasting and obstruction of others, and for the diversion of helpful exercise into channels of irritating meaninglessness so that a lethal mixture of frantic busyness and terminal boredom supervenes. This works to the benefit of the highly effective: those that are obliged to work laborious at nothing are compliant and docile, for they worry to lose their jobs—who else would rent them?
A minister of ecological and solidary transition, then, is prima facie prone to be an individual of uncertain integrity, ethical and mental if not monetary. And so far as I could make out, M. de Rugy, regardless of what he has been accused of doing, has spent his total grownup life (he's now aged 45) swimming within the murky waters of the French political forms, as a member of that hated and despised class that not too long ago was the article of the Gilets jaunes protests.
The misdemeanor crimes of which de Rugy was accused had been—within the historical past of political wrongdoing—relatively minor. He held a number of dinners of some luxurious in his ministry, with allegedly uncommon wines (none of which, he claims, value greater than $35 a bottle), and involving a large number of lobsters. He additionally had his ministerial residence in Paris redecorated at a price of about $75,000, together with the development of a dressing room (or, on his account, cabinets) at a price of about $20,000. He additionally purchased—or relatively, induced to be bought—a hair-drier for about $600, first reported as gold-plated (however this was faux information). At no time was it instructed that he had enriched himself personally; furthermore, he stated that champagne offers him a headache and that he's allergic to shellfish.
Attending the dinners, nevertheless, had been stated to be a few of his associates relatively than individuals who may need enterprise with the ministry—lobbying and that sort of factor. If he did entertain these associates, which he denies, his behaviour sounds extra like adolescent exhibiting off than anything. Sadly for de Rugy, although, he made numerous enemies when he was a member and speaker of the Nationwide Meeting attributable to his repeated requires transparency within the incomes and expenditures of political figures. Revenge is a dish greatest eaten chilly—particularly when it's of lobster.
The commentary that adopted the publicity of this lower than world-shattering scandal fell into two important classes: the Caesar’s-wife-should-be-above-suspicion faculty and the victim-of-media-lynching-and-hypocritical-English-morality faculty. France isn't Sweden, stated an editorial in Le Figaro, the conservative newspaper, though it added that ministers ought to behave with restraint and good style.
In the identical newspaper, the thinker Luc Ferry used the event to discourse on the French nationwide vice of envy, which he stated the entire affair had introduced as soon as extra to gentle. In my statement, cash is to the French what intercourse is to the English—particularly, the topic of quite a lot of hypocrisy. The French (grosso modo) are concurrently egalitarian and avaricious, a contradictory mixture which may end up in solely one of many Seven Lethal Sins, envy.
By implication, then, the importance of the de Rugy affair (in keeping with Ferry) lies in the truth that the ex-minister turned the article of envy; that in essence, many individuals in France wish to eat lobster and drink effective wines within the eating room of a ministry, and subsequently hate those that presently get pleasure from this ethically-questionable job perk. Ferry quoted some very pointed phrases of no much less a patriot than Normal de Gaulle with regards to his countrymen’s envy:
Envy is our nationwide vice, it's the worst of the Lethal Sins, it's what projected the angels into Hell as a result of they wished to be the equal of God. It's worse than satisfaction as a result of satisfaction has a sure the Aristocracy, whereas envy is the sensation of the defeated and rancorous, it's the crime of Cain in opposition to Abel, of him who has failed in all the things and kills his neighbour as a result of he's profitable, it's the anger of losers. If the French didn't have this fault, one might forgive them for a lot of issues.
Ferry goes on to say that “As quickly as a person income, be it by ever so little or nevertheless authorized, from his place, homo democraticus is able to stand up in opposition to him.” And he says that if a person ought to rise above others, this similar homo democraticus instantly invents, to clarify his success, causes to tug him down: “if he has succeeded or is extra well-known, it's as a result of he took benefit of connections or immoral strategies, or belongs to a strong foyer, and so forth.”
Nobody who has lengthy dwelt amongst human beings will fail to recognise this, but it doesn't fairly appear to use on this case. Quite the opposite, it sounds extra just like the defence of a caste to which the writer himself belongs than a paean to meritorious endeavour.
Even when we can not say that dwelling effectively is an indication of demerit in itself, neither can we are saying that it's a signal of advantage. There are, in any case, things like ill-gotten positive factors. At a time when thousands and thousands of individuals discover themselves in a decent monetary nook regardless of having labored all their lives, I don't discover it stunning or appalling that they object to seeing a person who has lived all his life from the general public purse, and who raises no objection to public acts of envy, basking in luxurious, even when solely quickly (how quickly stays to be seen).
There may be nothing extra unjust than financial equality, however this doesn't imply that we can not ask in regards to the legitimacy or supply of wealth. In issues of hypocrisy and inequality, distinctions stay necessary.
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