When the "golden sewers" seize national wealth

From the establishment of the Republic to the Punic Wars, conflicts between the common people and the patrician oligarchy gave rise to upheavals that reshaped the political order of ancient Rome. Nothing was more feared by the elite than the secessio plebis, those secessions of the people during which the plebeians collectively withdrew from Rome to demonstrate their opposition to patrician rule.

These civic and military strikes challenged limited access to land, the debts overwhelming peasants, and the arbitrariness of patrician magistrates. They led, after bitter struggles, to agrarian reforms, debt relief, and the creation of plebeian magistracies.

Twenty-five centuries later, under the reign of the capitalist oligarchy, any popular movement arouses the same anger of the wealthy. It's an old story: that of the wealthy, resistant to any sharing of wealth and power, barricaded behind the defense of class interests on which they intend to give nothing.

The vacillating power in France, whose policy consists of stripping those who have little in order to exempt the richest and protect their opulence, is hanging by a thread. Its record is calamitous. Since Emmanuel Macron's arrival at the Élysée Palace in 2017, the number of people living below the poverty line has jumped by 14%: there are now nearly 10 million.

At the same time, the combined wealth of the country's 500 richest people has doubled, reaching €1,170 billion, equivalent to 44% of GDP. France has become the European champion of dividend payments: half of the CAC 40's €150 billion in profits goes into the pockets of shareholders.

In short, a tiny minority is capturing a growing share of the national wealth. This is untenable. "A society where economics dominates politics (and within economics, competition, therefore calculation and the appetite for profit, which is the very definition of a market economy) is a society that creates unbearable inequalities," diagnosed Paul Ricœur, a philosopher dear to the heart of the President of the Republic, in 1998. France, the homeland of equality, can no longer tolerate these abysmal, indecent inequalities. It is on the verge of secessio plebis.