NAÎTRE ET EN ÊTRE
Has the class struggle disappeared? Not if we believe Warren Buffet, American billionaire, who said in May 2005 in an interview with CNN: "There’s class warfare, all right," (...) "but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning."
According to a recent INSEE study, between 2008 and 2016, the annual disposable income of French households fell by 440 euros. In 10 years, from 2008 to 2018, according to the magazine Challenges, the top 500 fortunes of France saw their wealth multiplied by 10, from 65 to 650 billion euros. The French society at the beginning of the 21st century is a profoundly unequal society.
The photo essay " Naître et en être " (to be born and to be one of them), inspired by the work of sociologists Monique and Michèle Pinçon-Charlot, tries to lift the veil on the mysteries of the Parisian high society and show what constitutes in social class an apparently heterogeneous group. More specifically, this work illustrates in images the strategies deliberately set up within the elite to foster self-segregation.
Members of the Automobile Club de France enjoy cigars on one of the terraces of the prestigious Parisian club with their guests, during a meeting organized with senior police officers (on the far left, Jean-Marc Souvira, divisional commissioner and director of the Central Office for the Suppression of Serious Financial Crime).
Clubs like the Cercle de l'Union Interalliée are selective, discreet and generalist. Their leaders, like their members, see in it the guarantee of their political effectiveness: allowing the different fractions of the upper classes to overcome their differences.
The Travelers, exclusively reserved for men like many other select upper class clubs in Paris, is located in the last private mansion on the Champs Élysées, former property of La Païva, a wealthy courtesan of the 19th century.
Women, members of the Paris Polo, play bridge as a polo match takes place outside.
Members of the Cercle du Bois de Boulogne (nicknamed Tir au Pigeons) enjoy the swimming pool of the club ideally located between the beautiful neighborhoods of the 16th arrondissement and the business district of La Défense.
Madame de Lencquesaing attends the Prix de Diane from the ladies' stand of the Jockey Club (stand reserved for wives of Jockey Club members). The bourgeois not only carve out homogeneous spaces for themselves, but also command the discretion of those they perceive as intruders.
The Bal de Paris, an evening organized in a mansion in the 8th arrondissement of Paris by Michel Soyer and the Duchess Rixa von Oldenburg, aims to "promote the art of living, the first step towards business".
Parents watch their children aged 16 to 18 during a big rally evening organized in the Trocadéro aquarium, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The rallies are gatherings of teenagers from high society, carefully selected by their mothers, who learn to live together, to know and recognize each other, during cultural visits and lessons in "good manners" (between 12 and 14 years old) , dance lessons (between 14 and 16 years old), then dance evenings (from 16 years old).
The "X-tra" evening organized at the Maison des Polytechniciens in the 7th arrondissement of Paris by the student office of the Ecole Polytechnique, brings together young people from the beautiful districts of Paris, often students of prestigious schools such as Centrale, ENA or Sciences Po.
Le diner en blanc, organized here on the Champs de Mars in Paris, is a social gathering bringing together for a "chic picnic" guests dressed in white in an "exceptional place", often public, revealed at the last minute. .
The Intercercles car rally organized in Chantilly brings together, among others, amateurs and collectors of old cars, members of prestigious Parisian circles, first and foremost the Automobile Club de France.
