S'inspirer, respirer : "The youth peril"
An event dedicated to social debates, the cycle « S’inspirer, respirer » conceived by journalist and author Jean-Marie Durand focuses on the environmental, social, racial and democratic impasses, among others, around which our era is woven.
« It’s hard to be 20 in 2020, » President Macron admitted in the midst of the Covid crisis. It remains so in 2022. The state of a society is measured in large part by the trials of its youth, or rather its youths. All the surveys published over the years on the issue are not content to recall the multitude of forms it takes, directly related to the differentiated levels of social and cultural capital, to the ways of approaching politics, to collective commitment, to the world of work… Young people are crossed by a diversity of experiences and apprehensions of the world, so that the indicators of intragenerational fractures are often stronger than the intergenerational fractures (the gendered, territorial and academic fracture). Heterogeneous, fractured in itself by social and cultural inequalities, youth nevertheless remains a moment of existence where common patterns emerge. All the studies insist on shared trials, as the health crisis has illustrated, which have to do with the impossibility, if not of fulfilling a dream, of constructing a life project based on desires. Critical of representative democracy, as it functions, these young people often do not recognize themselves as being close to any political party or trend.
For all that, they also place themselves at the forefront of society. Neglected for the most part by the public authorities, these young people manage to make themselves heard. The defense of the environment, which is today its great cause, is slowly infusing the whole of society. Their relationship to work, more focused on the fulfillment of their passions than on the quest for security, is at odds with what their elders were looking for. The new forms of her commitments to the reduction of inequalities and to questions of male domination also shed light on her awakenings, beyond her concerns.
Our three guests will illuminate these issues from their own fields of expertise, sociological, activist and artistic.
Director of political and opinion research at the Viavoice polling institute, Stewart Chau co-authored La Fracture (with Frédéric Dabi, published by Les Arènes, 2021), about the 18-30 year old generation, which is in a real fracture with the previous generations.
Director of the association Chemins d’avenir, Salomé Berlioux campaigns so that the voices of youth, especially in rural areas, are better heard. She will discuss the nature and scope of her actions to raise awareness of youth issues during the presidential campaign.
Novelist (77, G.A.V; Acte Sud editions), rapper, Marin Fouqué radiographs contemporary youth. His powerful texts capture in a subtle and singular way the trials of his disoriented generation. His words translate a part of the ills of youth.
Jean-Marie Durand
