As an American, but one very familiar with Central and Eastern Europe, I believe that integrated Europe is extremely important for several reasons. First of all, it is important for maintaining peace and stability, and thus, for overcoming terrible legacies of the Second World War, so devastating to Europe and the rest of the world. Secondly, European Union plays a crucial role in creating economic opportunities for all of its members. The current crisis should not make us forget how prosperous Europe is and can still be. Thirdly, European integration might be a driving force behind a process of creating broader sense of political identity. Europeans have so many different cultures and nationalities and there is a need to bring them together, so that they have some shared sense of community. Any European project has to take this into account, but at the same time create means for people to cultivate their own national identity at the local level.

The process of European integration has gone through a number of changes since the early 1990s. Some of them were very encouraging, and some problematic. The first dramatic change occurred right after 1989, when the long-lasting Soviet domination over a large part of the continent collapsed and many nations suddenly had to reinvent their states, drawing upon their own democratic traditions. In Poland or Czechoslovakia, as it then was, i.e. countries with some history and strong feelings for democracy, this transformation proceeded quite smoothly. In other states it was less clear on what traditions new institutions should be built. In Hungary, where I now live, there have been strong democratic traditions, but also strong authoritarian traditions, dating back to the Habsburg era. The same is certainly true of Romania, Bulgaria and other countries in the Central and Eastern Europe. These were the initial challenges, later developing in the 1990s.

At that time there were two major steps, Eastern Europeans were eager to take in order to revive and develop their democratic traditions. The first one was the NATO accession. Joining the alliance which has been at the center of the Cold War, but which was really committed to the defense of democracy, was a very important moment for them. Being admitted to the group meant becoming a member of the democratic community. The EU accession – the second of the steps – was more complicated, but perhaps even more important. Undoubtedly it created more excitement among the public, also because of some practical advantages of participating in the common market and being able to travel within the Schengen zone.

Ten years after the accession, we clearly see that at least some expectations of the public have not been met. Why? Firstly, there was a structural problem from the very outset. European Union was designed largely as an economic project and it failed to create effective instruments of political participation for the public. Centralization of the European bureaucracy in Brussels and the development of a highly structured regulatory governance system created a growing frustration among the Central European societies, and indeed among other European peoples as well. A democracy deficit at the highest levels is one of the major problems EU needs to tackle in order to develop. It has been partially addressed by the growing political influence of the European Parliament, which has become a more active player in representing opinions of the European electorate. But I think there is still a lot to be done in order to give people a sense of participation. Otherwise, they will always turn for help only to their national governments, which can sometimes act against Brussels.

The second big factor undermining trust in the European project was obviously the economic meltdown. The way the euro crisis has been managed so far seems to prove that southern and eastern regions of the EU are treated as secondary areas by the central economies of Germany, the Benelux area and to a lesser extent France. Economic instability has also created some further tensions, since people affected by the crisis want to identify the causes of it and punish those, who are allegedly to blame, i.e. immigrants and ethnic minorities. As a result in many European countries xenophobic sentiments are on the rise. The anti-immigrant, anti-Roma perspective that you see in Europe today is very disturbing. These are pan-European phenomena, not specific to the Central and Eastern Europe. Naturally, different politicians in different countries are using these processes to foster their own interests. This is particularly true in Hungary, but in other countries as well.

Will these two factors undermine the whole process of European integration? We should do all we can to prevent it. European integration is of crucial importance for the reasons of peace, stability, economic prosperity and democratic rule across the whole continent. This is even more true today than ever. That is why I was pleased to see Croatia becoming a member, and I think it is of crucial importance to bring in other Balkan countries. Dynamic European integration, even if it has serious problems today, should continue and must not be reversed.

* John Shattuk is an American legal scholar and diplomat. He was the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor from 1993 to 1998, under President Bill Clinton. From 1998 to 2000 he served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic. Since 2009 he has been the President and Rector of Central European University (CEU) in Budapest. This article originally appeared in Kultura Liberalna.

I recently returned from a very enjoyable and very fruitful week in Paris, combining business with pleasure. I spent time with family, and also enjoyed a series of meetings with my dear friend and colleague, Daniel Dayan. We continued our long-term discussions and debates, moving forward to a more concerted effort, imagining more focused work together. His semiotical approach to power will inform my sociological approach and visa versa, with Roland Barthes, Victor Turner, Hannah Arendt and Erving Goffman as our guides. At least that is one way I am thinking about it now. Or as Daniel put it a while back in an earlier discussion: my politics of small things will combine with his analysis of the politics of even smaller things.

We had three meetings in Paris, a public discussion with his media class at Science Po, an extended working breakfast and lunch at two different Parisian cafés, and a beautiful dinner at his place, good food and talk throughout. I fear I haven’t properly thanked him for his wonderful hospitality.

At Sciences Po, Dayan presented a lecture to his class and I responded. This followed a format of public discussion we first developed in our co-taught course at The New School in 2010. He spoke about his theory of media “monstration,” how the media show, focusing attention of a socially constituted public. He highlighted the social theory behind his, pointing to Axel Honneth on recognition and Nancy Fraser’s critique of Honneth, Michel Foucault on the changing styles of visibility: from spectacle to surveillance, Luc Boltanski on the mediation of distant suffering and especially J. L. Austin on speech acts.

At the center of Dayan’s interest is his metaphor of “the media as the top of the iceberg.” He imagines a society’s life, people showing each other things, as involving a great complexity of human actions and interactions, mostly submerged below the surface of broad public perception, not visible for public view. The media’s role is to go down and bring up, deciding what is important, what is worthy of attention, to show and illuminate. As Austin was interested in the fact that sometimes the mere articulation of speech – “acts,” Dayan is interested in how “media act.” By making some things apparent, and some not, they set the agenda, both forming and informing publics.

A key activity of the media, then, is witnessing, where the media record, translate and illustrate for its public. This is Dayan’s framework, as I understand it, most interesting in the details of its application as it provides a means to consider the relationship between media and power. Daniel draws on Austin here. He makes fine distinctions concerning media expression, applying to the media Austin’s terms: exercitives, verdictives, commissives, expositives and behavitives. As he explains it, this makes sense. But I have a concern, which he and I discussed at length.

Dayan focuses on the relationship between the media and power, making fine distinctions, applying Austin as a way of analyzing forms of expression and showing, but he does not make what I take to be the important distinctions between forms of power. Not only the disciplining power of the truth regime in the fashion of Foucault, and the Weberian notion of coercive power and its legitimation, but also the notion of power that emerges from the capacity of a group of people to speak to each other as equals, reveal their individual qualities through their individual actions and then develop the capacity to act in concert. In his presentation at Science Po, Dayan didn’t present in his framework how the media facilitate political power in the sense of Hannah Arendt. I pointed this out, and we discussed this extensively. We did not disagree; rather, we saw the topic of media and power from different directions, with different perspectives.

I illustrated my point by discussing gay marriage, an issue in the news that day in both France and the United States. In the U.S.: the opening hearings at the Supreme Court concerning two cases, one focused on the Federal Defense of Marriage Act and the other focused on a California referendum on gay marriage was widely reported. In France: at the same time, also widely reported, there was a mass demonstration in Paris against gay marriage, against a likely new law (since enacted) legalizing marriage equality. I noted that from the American court hearings commentators judged that it is highly likely that the official recognition of gay marriage would proceed, pushed by broad popular support, while in France, the legislation yielding the same result was meeting popular resistance. There is an interesting irony here.

Media monstration of actions in the Supreme Court revealed the relationship between official power and the power of concerted action. The popular support for gay marriage was a result of a long media monstrating march, from the Stonewall Riots to the Supreme Court, LGBT rights have been emerging as American commonsense. Gay activists meeting, talking and acting together, seen by their friends and colleagues, but also by many strangers thanks to media presentations, have appeared as normal citizens, worthy of full citizens rights. As Daniel and I might put it, the politics of small things became large, through monstration.

In the meanwhile in France, marriage equality’s road to legalization was more a consequence of big politics. It was part of the Socialist Party Platform, upon which François Hollande ran. Public opinion had not been clearly formed around the issue. More popular was the longstanding traditional commonsense that marriage, and more specifically parenting, should be between a man and a woman, and not between two men or two women. The long road of the politics of small things, shown by the media didn’t exist. While in the U.S. the story was of a conservative Supreme Court trying to keep up with changes in the society, in France official power was ahead of public opinion, at least this is the way it looked at the time of our discussion.

Dayan and I don’t completely agree on marriage equality, and more specifically on the importance of parenting equality. Yet, we both saw in this example (and others we discussed during my visit and our discussions) a platform for dialogue, about the connections among the politics of small things, big politics, monstration, and media and publics.

At our breakfast, lunch and dinner, we explored this. We discussed his ideas about media and hospitality, the analogy between media and museums, my concern that we have to consider not only the media, but also media as a facilitator of all social interaction, monstration as a sphere of gesture (thus our common interest in the sociology of Erving Goffman), the media as a system of monstrative institutions, the relationship between the new (small) media and big media, terrorism as it monstrates, our topic, and Israel – Palestine (a zone of conflict about which we disagree) and “politics as if.”

The politics of the consequential and the inconsequential: people, activities, events and monstrations, the relevance of irrelevance, this fascinates us. We will continue to work on it, and we will report here about our progress, from time to time. I will explain more in my next post.

At a Sixteenth Arrondissement party soon after I arrived in Paris in late 1984, I was cornered by a tipsy Frenchman who repeatedly exclaimed–in a tone more resigned than angry–“You’ve won! You’ve won.”  This was all he would say, elaborations and explanations apparently being unnecessary.

Once I began to look for them, signs of American triumph were everywhere: Carl Lewis’s Olympics a few months before, Reagan’s enthusiastic re-election a few weeks before, and a sense that personal computers coming from garages in Silicon Valley would displace the tiny Minitel terminals linked to a central network for which the French had instead opted (a prescient model, but ten years before the internet could have made real use of them). After several months in Paris, I realized this handwringing was a daily theme in the Parisian press: the United States had won the economic game.

The idea was everywhere: the news detailed France’s economic crisis and America’s ascendency; top journalists and other members of the intelligentsia analyzed how France had gotten into its sad state; academics wrote books setting the crisis in world-historical context; politicians spun grandiose plans for pulling France out of its malaise. But no one took the schemes of the politicians seriously: the crisis, everyone knew, was there to stay. Thus Le Monde‘s annual report on the economic state of the world in early 1985 had on its cover a tiny boat, its sail in disarray, about to drop from the crest of a wave, and a large ocean liner placidly moving along in the distance. The dinghy flew several European flags, the steamer those of Japan and the United States.

It was not just France: the entire “old world” was implicated. It was just that: old, weary, perhaps exhausted. Many French, if it fit their current political rhetoric, were fond of pointing out that France had done better than most European countries. The French were happy that they were not the Germans, the Swiss, or even the Swedes who had beaten them this time. It was America, which is after all America, and Japan, that fascinating but incomprehensible family corporation on the other side of the world. With conquerors like these, the French launched themselves into the crisis with enthusiasm.

Today, it is the Germans again, and the French are wringing their hands harder than in 1985.The new Gallois report recommends a neoliberal response to data showing that the Germans are gaining a competitive advantage. Even faster than in 1981, a socialist President is sounding less and less socialist, with talk of more flexible labor markets and cutting state spending.

Commentators, especially Americans, make a lot of the fact that 57 percent of France’s GDP goes through the government. The Economist (17 November 2012) editorializes about “a time-bomb at the heart of Europe” and calls for Hollande to reverse “the path his country has been on for the past 30 years.” Sixty years would be more accurate, or perhaps six hundred (since some of the trends may well have begun when the French finally managed to expel the meddlesome English).

Yet, on the other hand, it turns out that the French get a lot for their tax money. I recently had the good fortune to spend two months in Paris, reminding myself why it is so many people’s favorite city. The Metro arrives every two minutes, with announcements you can understand. An entirely new network of bike lanes is being installed. Grand trees line the boulevards, and sickly ones are replaced immediately. The city’s stock of handsome buildings, many of them hundreds of years old, is constantly and expensively renovated (even though part of a good renovation is to make them look as though they have always been just so). Trash is picked up, traffic flow, and bakeries are regulated to produce the world’s best breads and pastries, reasonably priced.

The French take enormous pride in Paris, I reasoned. They pour money into its care in ways that Americans do not care for its political capital, Washington D.C., or its cultural capital, New York. In fact, most Americans detest Washington and New York, and the elites who inhabit them. New York looks good these days because the city has learned to shake down the wealthy who live there. Washington looks like hell.

But I was wrong about French pride being channeled into Paris. When my wife and I took driving trips outside Paris, I was just as impressed. The roads were perfect; signage was clear and helpful. Medieval towns and baroque chateaux that would have been crumbling in most countries were in good repair.

For decades, Americans have labeled France as “socialist.” Most Americans never leave their own country, so they can spin any kind of grim fantasies about the big-spending countries of the Old World. Stereotypes survive brief touristic visits, too. I was unpleasantly seated next to an American couple at a Paris restaurant last winter, only to listen as they acknowledged various virtues to the city, only to dismiss them with the comment, “Well, they’re socialist.” I wasn’t sure what they meant (Sarkozy?), and I didn’t want to ruin my glass of Calvados to find out, but it seemed as though no amount of good living could compensate for some state of slavery implied by socialism. It was fine to come take advantage of all that infrastructure spending, but not to admit its source, taxes.

Even serious commentators have described France’s 35-hour work week as unsustainable, its pensions as too generous, its job protections as sclerotic, its proportion of government spending at 57 percent of GDP as disastrous. What has happened in three decades of worrying?

The French work less than we do and live better. All that government spending, especially on infrastructure, makes the French the most productive work force in the world, measured per hour worked. Working fewer hours undoubtedly makes those hours worked more intense, as well. Perhaps a glass of Calvados at the end of lunch doesn’t hurt.

France has some serious problems, including youth unemployment and a large immigrant minority that is not welcomed. But these are not problems of a large government sector. In fact, who is more likely to solve them: a neoliberal, hands-off state, or a state with extensive social programs and public spending? The means of fixing these problems are there, just waiting for the will.

The French are good at economic crises.  Their national identity and pride do not rest directly on commercial prowess. They are the guardians of Western Culture, including both the Arts and, perhaps even more, the art of living well.  The French are proud of their painters and their musicians, but nothing matches their unshakable confidence in their cuisine and their oenology.  They are proud of Paris for its churches and palaces, but they believe it is the world’s greatest city because of its life and excitement.  France’s proudest achievements are in living well, and this skill is rarely, let’s face it, compatible with dealing well. Hence the French are partly proud of not being good businessmen–like Americans and Arabs–and partly resigned to this fault as a necessary accompaniment to Culture. And culture, in both upper and lower case C, is what distinguishes France from most other advanced industrial nations. But in the end, none of that is innate. It is there because of government policies, and the taxing and spending to back them up.

I write here about the election in France, but first must note that the most important European news this week very well may come from Greece. The legislative elections there clearly show the disastrous political consequences of hyper-austerity. They demonstrate that the European handling of the crisis has not only brought no remedy. It has aggravated the problem. The results of the Greek elections provide the context for understanding politics in Europe, including France.

In France, François Hollande’s victory did not come as a surprise, but the nature of the victory indicates fundamental changes in the political landscape. The unexpected element was the relatively low margin of victory. He received only 51.6% of the votes after having led constantly in the polls, approaching 60% at times. Sarkozy’s far-right accented campaign shocked the so-called “Republican right,” leading the center right leader François Bayrou to vote for Holland in the second round of the election. It did, though significantly, enable Sarkozy to win substantial  support from those who voted for the far-rightist Marine Le Pen in the first round. This needs deliberate consideration.

Sarkozy’s hyper-nationalist, openly anti-European and strongly anti-Islam stance during the last days of the campaign ominously has reunited the right on an ideological basis. Of course, Sarkozy’s neo-nationalist turn was partly tactical, but now there is a real possibility of a dialogue between the far-rightist National Front and the “Republican” right (the President’s party UMP). The so-called “droite populaire,” a part of the UMP that claims 70 députés in the Assemblée nationale, is not against talking to Le Pen. The new ideological horizon for the French right is undoubtedly one of the most important consequences of the presidential election. Sarkozy has played the nationalist and anti-Islam card with an unexpected dedication, particularly if one recalls his attitude during the first years of his presidency, when he practiced the “ouverture” to the left and to ethnic minorities, appointing the French-Senegalese Rama Yade and the French-North Africans, Rachida Dati and Fadela Amara, to ministerial  positions. His late commitment to the old Nation was also contradictory with his previous “Merkozy” attitude, that led him to agree with the Kanzlerin in all circumstances. The reconstruction of the French right is underway, as are important changes on the left.

The Socialist Hollande shifted his trajectory during the campaign also, with interesting implications. Having started with a clear support of a form of leftist austerity and a strong commitment to reduce the French debt, he has turned to a more critical position vis-à-vis the German conventional wisdom, and has come up with new fiscal measures, such as the 75% tax on over one million euros income. This was done partly under the pressure of the rise of a new radical left led by the former member of the Socialist Party Jean-Luc Mélenchon and leader of the Front de Gauche, but not only. The Socialists have changed because the austerity packages clearly have not worked, in Greece, Spain or Portugal. While Hollande remains aware of the dangers of economic leftism that led Mitterrand to turn to austerity in 1983 after two year of big spending policy, he is now convinced that he will not succeed with the center-right policy that was advocated from within the Parti Socialiste by Dominique Strauss-Kahn. In this election, the Socialists have regained, partly with the support of the Front de Gauche, but not only, the majority of the clerical workers (58%) and the working class (68%) voted socialist, proving that the popular classes’ turn toward the nationalist and xenophobe National Front is far from an accomplished fact, but is in part the illusion, largely spread by the moderate left think tanks, particularly Terra Nova, according to which the Socialists should focus on middle classes only.

Hollande started his campaign with the claim for a “normal presidency.” Against Sarkozy’s bling-bling presidency, but also against Strauss-Kahn jet setter left. He was mocked for that: how could an average guy do an extraordinary job? But the “président normal” attitude proved to be his best asset in a time of political disenchantment. The French people don’t expect that much from him. It was clear with the celebration of his victory last Sunday night in the Place de la Bastille, which I observed on the scene. Although it might have looked as a replay of Mitterrand’s fête on May 10th 1981, there was no utopian mood displayed and no claim to “changer la vie.” Rather, there was a minimal modest claim: if life can’t be changed radically, it can be kept secure to some extent. Hollande will be a normal president for abnormal times.

Hollande, the unpretentious and “provincial” politician, could reveal himself to be a European Roosevelt, reinstalling the notion of public interest in the political landscape and offering a new deal to the European Union. But to do this, he must find strong allies against the “there is no alternative” mode of thinking. No one would have bet a single euro on Hollande one year ago, maybe it is not totally crazy to gamble now.

Just before the Sofitel Affair brutally ended his political career, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the director of the IMF, was considered as the great favorite of the French presidential election, and François Hollande, who had started earlier his bid for the primary polls organized for the first time on the left by the Socialist Party, was not taken seriously, particularly in his own camp. Nicknamed Flanby, Little Gouda, or even “couilles molles” (soft testicles) by his socialist contender Martine Aubry, Hollande very well may be the unexpected winner of the competition, on May 6^th, the final round of the French election. Although it has been a boring campaign, it also has been very interesting sociologically.

Strauss-Kahn embodied a center-left version of the “there is no alternative” line, smoothed by a reputation, acquired in happier times, of a rare economic competency that would alleviate the inescapable rigor ahead. Roughly, President Sarkozy and Strauss-Kahn shared the same views. The President had backed the very moderate socialist for the job at the IMF, and they navigated in very close social and economic circles.

But now, one can see almost every day a sea of red flags and an amazing number of raised fists during the Front de Gauche candidate’s electoral meetings, from the Place de la Bastille in Paris to the Prado beaches in Marseilles. Enthusiastic crowds appreciate the leftist Jean-Luc Mélenchon‘s tough rhetoric: his speeches are loaded with the most traditional items of the radical camp with a very strong French flavor (a daily celebration of the Bastille Day, but also of 1793 and Robespierre). Mélenchon’s fondness for Hugo Chavez, Raul Castro and the Chinese communist leaders does not seem to bother any of his increasingly young and socially mixed supporters. Mélenchon’s rise has totally reshuffled the campaign, that had started with Sarkozy taking up extreme right-wing issues (mainly immigration and security) and Hollande not saying much as he was so far ahead in the polls that he seemed to be afraid of taking any side that would shrink the support he received, mainly based on Sarkozy’s strong rejection, particularly among the working and lower middle classes.

Sarkozy’s strategy was partially a replay of his winning 2007 campaign: using populist rhetoric to siphon off the Front National, the populist and nationalist party that emerged in the Mitterrand years and has not left the stage since.  But, the strategy does not seem to be working this time for two reasons. First, the far rightist candidate, Marine Le Pen, “la fille du chef” (Jean-Marie Le Pen’s daughter) has softened her rhetoric and looks more palatable to moderate voters. Second, the “work more, earn more motto” that was so appealing in 2007, particularly among workers, has become impossible with almost one million more unemployed people and a stalled economy.  Sarkozy’s arguments are a mixed bag of traditional rightist elements (being tougher at the borders and in the rough areas of cities, fighting Islam night and day) and of self praise (I saved the country from the crisis; the Socialists will turn France into Greece after two weeks; all the European leaders, Angela Merkel leading the group, support me). Coached by a far rightist spin doctor, Patrick Buisson, Sarkozy has constantly gone to the right, with a few unexpected and short lived moves towards criticism of financial capitalism. In the last days, he has not seemed to believe himself that he would be reelected.

Spurred by Mélenchon’s radical campaign, the left, on the contrary, looks in good shape. The polls regularly show that the left vote is about as strong as it was in 1981, on the eve of François Mitterrand’s election. Of course, the old division of the left into two parts, dating back to at least as old as the opposition between Jean Jaurès and Jules Guesde at the turn of the 20th century, one oriented toward social-democracy, and another more radical, at least with respect to rhetoric, is very much alive and well .

This time, however, there is an irony in the story: the reformist and the radical candidates both come from the Socialist Party. Mélenchon spent 31 years on the left side of the PS, served as Minister and Senator before he left it in 2008 to launch the Parti de Gauche, the French version of the German Linkspartei. Mélenchon has been endorsed by the Communist Party that did very poorly in the former presidential elections, but has been rejuvenated by its new spokesman’s unexpected performance. Mélenchon benefits from the strong organizational capacities of the main workers’ union, the CGT, historically linked to the Communist Party. Their campaign is an outlet for the protesters who could not succeed in developing movements like the Indignados or Occupy.

There is a strong nostalgic flavor in this, and one of the leading French historians, Christophe Prochasson, views Mélenchon’s success as oriented towards the past (“passéiste”). It shows the French taste for reenacting great political ceremonies more than adding new items to the repertoire, as in the Occupy movement.

The absence of the rest of the world is a striking feature of the campaign, and it concerns all the candidates. Its beginnings were overloaded with petty issues taken from the National Front (banning halal meat in school cafeterias, or special hours for women in swimming pools) or even surprising issues, like democratizing access to the training for a driving license.

France focuses on itself as if the economic questions could be dealt with at the national level. Euro-scepticism is growing, even among Sarkozy’s supporters. The President has devoted himself to zealously following Frau Merkel in all her recent decisions, but now he seems to be about to change his mind about European integration. To be honest, not only Mélenchon could be labeled “passéiste” in this campaign. The present will brutally come back on May 7th, a day after the second round of the election.

In France, is Dominique Strauss-Kahn “presumed innocent” until proven guilty? In fact, he is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Or worse, he is presumed guilty, until confirmed guilty since the French media usually expect courts to confirm their own “enlightened” judgment and can be extraordinarily vindictive when they don’t. Thus, a petition signed by thousands of journalists “condemning” the court that condemned the national French TV Channel Antenne II for broadcasting unsubstantiated allegations. This post is about the media treatment of the presumption of innocence.

Consider a driver who deliberately speeds and runs over a policeman in front of a crowd of witnesses in order to avoid being checked at a road block. The driver is described in the news as the “presumed” author of the policeman’s coma. The word “presumed” here is a language automatism, an adornment, a legal curlicue. There is not a shadow of a doubt that this driver‘s car hit the policeman. No matter how grotesque, the word “presumed” tends to be repeated in such situations “ad nauseaum.”

With DSK, we are in a situation where the presumption of innocence matters because the facts are not established. Despite various forms of lip service, this presumption is resolutely trampled. In a recent talk show about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair, stand-up comedian Michel Boujenah expressed uneasiness about the fact that most of the journalists around him started from the premise that DSK was guilty. He reminded them that DSK had to be considered innocent until proven guilty. “Yes, yes,” said the journalists. Then they went on with their debate. To them, the presumption of innocence was an annoying contrivance, something akin to the presence of a vocal anti-racist at certain dinner parties; a presence that proves annoying since it prevents guests from cracking race jokes. The stand-up comedian reiterated his remark. He was definitely spoiling the fun. “OK,” replied one journalist, just add an “if” to everything I say. Just put my words in the conditional!” Then he resumed the discussion as if the guilt of DSK was beyond any doubt.

Ferry’s bomb

Such a contempt for the presumption of innocence serves as a background for a “public-sphere-bomb” that has just been thrown in the ongoing debate about Dominique Strauss-Kahn by the philosopher and former Minister of Education Luc Ferry.

In another talk-show watched by millions, Luc Ferry denounced a striking example of the silence observed by the French media when it comes to high political personnel, a silence that is now fashionably described as akin to Omertà, Ferry noted that no French newspaper had reported on the fact that one former French minister had been caught with young boys in a pedophilic party in Marrakesh, Morocco. Ferry added he had no proof of what he asserted. He also stated that had learned of such a scandal from a reliable source, a top-level government member whose name he did not provide.

The first and obvious response to this statement consists in seeing Ferry’s disclosure as detestable. Ferry might have spoken out of personal antagonism, out of spite, or as a form of revenge. Or, in compliance with the current mood among the members of the French journalistic establishment, Ferry would be combating the risk of Omertà by starting an inquisitorial process through an act of denunciation. If such a scenario were correct, I would unhesitatingly condemn Ferry. I know that any accused former minister could be identified in a matter of minutes. I also know that his life would be destroyed, whether the allegation is true or false. Submitted to an almost unanimous barrage of critiques, Ferry would also be required to justify his assertions in court.

Yet, this scenario does not seem convincing to me. Not only would I like to give the philosopher the benefit of the doubt, but, I have serious doubts about the meaning of his disclosure. Ferry’s carefully worded disclosure looks as if it had been supervised by a team of lawyers. Ferry does not give a name for the supposed pedophile. The high official he describes as his source remains anonymous. He insists that he has no evidence and no proof of what happened in Marrakesh. In other terms, Luc Ferry has entirely staged his public appearance as that of a rumor-mongerer. No name, no source, no proof. What game is he playing?

A fiction and a breakfast

I propose that Ferry’s “disclosure” could be a pedagogical exercise: a demonstration by a philosopher of the way the media routinely takes short-cuts and obstructs the process of justice. Ferry provides all the elements of a tragically recurring scenario. Here is a rumor without proof; a source that is not disclosed, an innuendo that precludes any possibility of refutation. In a way, Ferry’s charade expresses in a polemical form the uneasiness of the stand-up comedian.

Of course, this is my reading of Ferry’s gesture. Ferry has become a character in a story of fiction I am making up. But perhaps my fiction is not so far-fetched. Let me spell out what this fiction means. It means answering spectacle with spectacle. It means answering media traps with other media traps. It means holding in front of the media the irresistible bait of an unproven scandal. It means turning the table on a new form of inquisition that passes itself as journalism. It means pointing to the emperor’s new clothes. Ferry is using his clout as a minister and his prestige as a philosopher to hold a mirror to the French media. “You think what I just did is disgusting? How come you do it everyday? How come you do it right now?” Ferry is starting a guerrilla war. Humor can turn into a weapon. Let me conclude by appropriating an old joke.

Ferry enters a breakfast room and calls the waiter.

Ferry: “Please give me a cup of coffee, but tepid; two rolls, but stale; please also bring me a watery omelet and burned toast. Oh, and could you manage to be very, very slow?”

Waiter: “But, sir, how can you ask that? We have no such things in this hotel!”

Ferry: Oh really? Why then do you serve them everyday?”