In Trappes, 12,000 people say enough to racism and to the media that amplify it

According to Reporterre, around 12,000 people gathered in Trappes (Yvelines) on 30 October against racism and Islamophobia, one week after the racist attack that struck the town. Demonstrators denounced the role of the Rassemblement national (the National Rally, the far-right party led by Marine Le Pen) and of media outlets such as CNews, the French rolling news channel, in spreading hatred. Abdoulaye, a 46-year-old heating engineer, came to pay tribute to the victims, but also to voice his worry and his anger. The report quotes his words: "Imaginez : maintenant, on a peur de laisser nos (…)" ("Imagine: now we are afraid to let our..."), which we cannot complete, as the available extract stops there. At this stage, we also do not know the details of the events, the number and identity of the victims, or the state of the investigation: what follows is our reading, not an established finding.

Let us begin with what this march says about itself. When 12,000 people ask "at what point will we say stop?", they are not merely posing a moral question; they are naming a mechanism. A racist attack should, in a reasonable order of things, open a discussion about racism. Instead, the habit in part of the media landscape is to turn it into a discussion about those who are its target: their place, their visibility, their "compatibility" with the Republic. The victim is asked to explain herself.

This is where the notion of hegemony is useful, without jargon. For Gramsci, a ruling class governs not only through coercion, but because its worldview becomes "common sense": what goes without saying, what no longer needs justifying. Rolling news channels and the political parties that find a permanent microphone there are trenches in this war of position. They do not need to lie. It is enough to choose the questions: "Should we be worried about Islam?" rather than "Why do people kill in the name of hatred?" Once the question is asked, the frame is already won.

One methodological remark can be added: ask who benefits from a given common sense. A country that debates Muslims is a country that does not debate housing, wages or public services in towns like Trappes. Racism also serves this function: it divides those who would have an interest in uniting. This point remains a working hypothesis, not a demonstration, and the report does not claim to make one.

What the march does show, by contrast, is the beginnings of a counter-hegemony: residents, a heating engineer, neighbours, who produce their own narrative rather than letting television studios write it for them. Organic intellectuals, in short, without a chair or an editorial page, but with an experience no commentator can replace.

Whether this narrative will break through the screen remains to be seen. Will the major media cover this march as a political event, or as a mere "moment of emotion" before returning to the usual debates? The answer will say a great deal about the prevailing common sense. In the meantime, Trappes has posed the simplest question, and therefore the most subversive: how far, and to whose benefit?