Tuesday, January 29, 2019

Twilight of the Elites: A Look at France

If you ever want to be reminded of why a majority of Britons voted for Brexit, consider two French elitist reactions quoted by Mr. Guilluy: Businessman and political adviser Alan Minc claimed that Brexit "was the victory of uneducated people over educated people." The philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, meanwhile, saw it as the "victory of the little over the great, of stupidity over the mind." There is not the slightest empathy or generosity in those responses. Not a flicker of interest in why people would feel so fed-up with the European Union - its undemocratic nature, its trampling on national immigration priorities - that they might want to leave it. Just pure contempt. The fuel for a revolution.

- From Philip Delves Broughton's review of Twilight of the Elites by Christophe Guilluy in The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2019

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