The last European elections saw the political landscape crumble. Traditional parties have paid the price, reviving reflection on their usefulness. In 1940 already, the philosopher Simone Weil called for their overtaking
What can political parties serve? The question would have seemed absurd, or even impertinent, until not so long ago. The existence of alternative visions of society and the defense of certain categories sufficed largely to justify their existence. They made parties the inevitable correlate of representative democracy and the guarantor of its vitality, since they formed the only effective relay between elected representatives and voters.
Their importance has eroded with the end of ideologies and the loss of influence of politics to the demands of the economy. This process is now maturing, if we can believe the barometer provided by the European elections last May: the political landscape to which we were accustomed has completely crumbled, right and left being diluted in favor of new cleavages more vague (populists / liberals, sovereignty / internationalists) or from a third party to the post-ideological creed (the Greens).
