In Marseille, where he has been living for twenty-five years, we met a few days before his mid-March visit to Gironde for a conference at Château Pape-Clément in Pessac. The meeting took place in a bar, late in the morning, at the junction of the popular district of Vieux-Port and the more upscale Endoume area. With long white hair, loosely tamed under a very “Mitterrandian” hat, “Fog”, at 77 years old, arrived with his arms full of Armenian specialties bought from a nearby grocery store. “I brought you your lunch.” This is a conversation that starts well.
In your dark depiction of contemporary France, you write about the near-total disruption, both financial and moral, of the country. But you reject the label of a declinist?
I do not recognize myself at all in this great French tradition of decadence or literary pessimism. Books like those of Maurice Barrès, for example, don’t appeal to me. However, I believe in the theory of economic cycles as developed by the economist Kondratiev. France has often fallen. It collapsed in 1870, in 1940. Then it came back. For me, we are in a slump. My whole point is to say: France is not done for, it can wake up, but if we persist in denial, we won’t make it.
What are the subjects of our denial?
The collapse of the authority of the state, our power, our industry, our cultural influence, the crazy explosion of debt… There is an undeniable truth: we are powerful in the world when we are strong economically. De Gaulle, the whole world listened to him because he was De Gaulle, but also for very concrete reasons: GDP, growth. France was identified as a major agricultural and industrial power. Without this economic foundation, a country’s voice doesn’t resonate anymore. That’s Macron’s whole drama.
We could mention many signs of French power in 2026. Aerospace, nuclear, luxury, tourism, LVMH, cinema… But you focus on deeper trends, supported by figures. The decline of our agricultural power worldwide, the fall of our agri-food trade balance, the abandonment of our industry, multiple relocations that affect the French industry much more than the German industry. We won’t succeed as long as fake economists disguised as jokers keep insisting we need to tax companies, big groups, even more…
Macron had everything to succeed, except for the essential: convictions.
Isn’t the answer in a true European industrial policy?
I will never say we’ll succeed with less Europe. But Europe won’t be able to change much if France continues to decline and make the wrong decisions.
