Les Règles du savoir-vivre dans la société moderne

The rules of etiquette, for worldly, worldly use, are dogma. They govern life, love and death, and the rules of propriety exceed the rigor of the law. The meticulousness, the orderliness, the obsession with detail of the various ceremonies that mark out life suggest an even more severe straitjacket.

The "savoir-vivre" becomes liberticidal and damages bodies: with the moral order, it's the fascist order that's announcing itself...

Is it announcing itself?

The rise of the hard right in Europe echoes our thoughts on this text by Jean-Luc Lagarce, and prompts us to stage the mechanisms of traditionalism, of the taste for custom and "c'était mieux avant", of the fear of the unknown, of closing in on our customs, of withdrawing into our religious postures...

Matthias Claeys and Françoise Roche