Michaël Fœssel holds the “water bars” for the perfect symbol of what horrifies him: “hygienism”. “It’s a good enough paradigm to criticize what’s wrong with society”, he judges. The place he chose, rue de la Roquette, in Paris, is therefore “a restaurant, a wine bar… a place to live too! »as the Facebook page of the Planet walkers. Next to the piano, hung on the wall, the “one” that Freed dedicated to the last book of the philosopher. They serve him a glass of red, surely the pinot noir he likes – the exchange between regulars went without words. Michaël Fœssel lives in the neighborhood. It is on the terrace, grazed by the mirrors, that we sit down so that he can smoke in peace, he who has never tried to quit. “I’m an old-school, two-pack-a-day smoker. I admit that I am not overly driven by the principle of conservation. »
The voice is serious, the gaze velvety, which sometimes turns diabolical at the bend of an idea, the formulas elegant. A few days earlier, on the evening of the first round of the presidential election, the disciple of Paul Ricœur was at the Cirque d’hiver with ” leader “, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whom he publicly supported. They talked about philosophy, exile, Seneca. The admiration is evident. It is already the one who would later become the leader of the New Popular Ecological and Social Union that Michaël Fœssel had chosen to exchange, a few weeks earlier, in the pages of Philosophy Magazine from February, on the occasion of the release of his latest book.
After several notable attempts, including Recidivism, 1938 (PUF, 2019), Red light district. Pleasure and the Left (PUF, 204 pages, 17 euros), his tenth book, was preceded by a rumor full of hope. The philosopher denounces the takeover of the right on the theme of pleasure: it is up to it to defend a “French living well” which would be attacked from all sides by sad censors – feminists, vegetarians, ecologists. Faced with this good living right, the left would have forgotten the body, the senses, the enjoyment, in a penitent hunt for privileges which makes all pleasure suspect. But to change the world, “we must offer something other than self-criticism”, he writes. Leftism and pleasure, then, like two lost causes which, rubbed against each other, could spark a spark, perhaps a flame.
Hierarchy of pleasures
The ace. The topic, unsurprisingly, was only discussed in the campaign from a food perspective. He who deplored that the right monopolizes the notion of pleasure under the banner of the French art of living finds himself having to arbitrate on the left between the steak-red wine of Roussel and the couscous-favorite-dish-of-the-French by Sandrine Rousseau. ” VS‘is as if the problem of pleasure and politics could not be posed other than in the register of‘identify, he regrets. I would have liked us to talk about less expected subjects: sensuality, parties. »
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