a confused debate – Liberation

Billet

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–From Fabien Roussel to Marlène Schiappa, the controversy over the relationship between the left and work was above all an occasion to evoke many erroneous clichés.–

In France we like debates. But as in the kitchen, we like them arranged in a certain way, with three essential ingredients: confusion, misunderstanding and bad faith. Take the controversy of the moment about the “value of work”: here is a delightful debate. Is the “value of work” left or right? Is there a “benefit left” versus a “labor left”? Has the left fallen to the side of “welfare”, abandoning the “popular classes” who want only one thing, “work harder to earn more”? To find out, there is nothing better than pouring all these terms and expressions into the media, without worrying too much about defining or discussing them.

Above all, don’t dwell on what distinguishes work from work, which is that work is paid work. Why not, work – domestic for example – does not always have a salary in return. There is also the misconception that women are “emancipated from work”, which Marlène Schiappa he hastened to draw to counter a Sandrine Rousseau at the center of a thousand cross fires: in reality women have always worked, but they have not always been paid. What emancipates is not the self …

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