What allowed our democracies to establish themselves was that we told the middle classes they would live better and better. The idea of progress is therefore attached to our democracies and to this balance.

We stopped keeping the economic promise. That began with deindustrialization. Globalization from the 1990s onward weakened that consensus through waves of relocation.

The promise that the political economy would continuously allow you to live better was no longer being fulfilled.

The great blow was the crisis of 2008–2012. And who paid the bill? The middle classes.

Even in countries that were less affected, some groups have still not fully recovered the purchasing power and living standards they had before that crisis. There was a sense of betrayal.