[Interview to be found in the autumn issue, at your newsstand or by subscription.] The LFI deputy for Val-de-Marne, Clémence Guetté, vice-president of the National Assembly, publishes For a Policy of Friendship with La Découverte, a subject nourished by queer literature.
Interview by Nicolas Scheffer and Thomas Vampouille
What could a policy of friendship look like?
I propose opening new rights to friendships, against the dominant model of the traditional family. Take the example of a sick friend. Today, you cannot take days off to accompany them. Why shouldn’t we have that right? I first tried, in my book, to anticipate objections that seem relevant as soon as we talk about legislating on this topic, such as the fact that we cherish our friendships for the flexibility of this particular bond. So I asked myself how, as a law-writing parliamentarian, not to weigh down friendship with all the weight that the civil code currently places on the couple and the family.
In another iconoclastic vein in politics, François Ruffin had proposed in Têtu a “public service for broken hearts” to address the “family risk” of separation. Does that speak to you?
I find this formulation somewhat absurd. Single-parent families are not composed only of broken hearts! A woman can choose to have a child alone, and separation can also be a relief. The problem posed is not the absence of conjugality; it is isolation and its consequences for mental health. In reality, it’s about the model of society we want. Why are people in a state of isolation? I read it in material terms: the material conditions of existence that neoliberalism imposes on people, based on competition, are atomizing and individualizing. How can solidarity be organized in a society so hindered? The answer, obviously, is through a public service, which we can call whatever we want.
You emphasize the growing loneliness of young people, especially since the Covid period. How do you explain such an epidemic?
There is first the precariousness of youths, who must have a job in the evenings, on weekends and during holidays to pursue studies. The overexploitation of youth is linked to the consumerist pressure on friendships. Thus, when I was a student, I have very clear memories of missing social opportunities for lack of money. We must encourage collective spaces more based on gratuity.
The associative fabric offers this kind of frame; how to preserve it?
Associations are weakened by lack of subsidies, but also by the lack of time of volunteers, the 35-hour workweek not being a reality for many people in this country. It is to regain time that the progressive camp must demand a 32-hour week, the sixth paid leave week, and mobilize to protect pensions, that is, a moment in life when many people engage in associations.
There is also little discussion of holiday camps, whose funding by companies was a battle picked up by the left under Mitterrand…
It is an omission in the book that I regret, because very interesting works show the cross-class character of friendships at a young age. Holiday camps long allowed children of executives to cohabit with those of workers. Yet this mix fades as life goes on. In the Assembly, we have filed proposed laws to help companies develop them.
You notably cite the works of philosopher Geoffroy de Lagasnerie. Do you subscribe to his challenge to familialist policy?
Geoffroy de Lagasnerie theorizes the replacement of all familialist policies by social policies. It is a tempting stance and a philosophy I understand perfectly, but which, as a parliamentarian, does not seem the most interesting exercise to me. It would amount almost to rewriting the entire Civil Code. Yet, as a political leader, I must align with public concerns and walk step by step in a society marked by a large dose of social conservatism.
In your view, is friendship a concept that would offend conservatives?
For the right and the far-right, work, production, and the accumulation of capital are cardinal values that stand well above our ties, our solidarities, our affections. Behind the progressive varnish of Macron’s era, its adherence to liberal economic doctrine takes precedence as soon as it comes to granting new rights to individuals and collectives.
Concretely, how would you define these new rights to avoid abuses?
Already, I am sure people will not abuse them. This accusation stems precisely from neoliberal suspicion. But I foresee a social partnership that can address this pitfall. It involves selecting someone in one’s life to affirm a form of solidarity for them. It is the PACS, but without the need for conjugality or cohabitation, to decide to walk together through life by inducing material solidarity. This opens forms of solidarity similar to those of marriage. If one is in debt, for example, the other is in solidarity. The philosophical ambition thus becomes very pragmatic.
Developing a policy of friendship also means trusting citizens?
Generally, infantilization of citizens by political leaders is extremely problematic. But it seems to me that when one is left, trust is a presupposition: citizens must be treated as adults.
