French business banker and left-wing media mogul Matthieu Pigasse claims the world has entered a “civilisational war” as US President-elect Donald Trump is set to assume office.
“We have entered a civilisational war,” he said on social media on January 19.
Pigasse urged resistance to what he described as the “international radical Right and its media enforcers” and warned that the world was inching closer to the “end of democracy”.
“The recent elections in both the United States and Europe are not isolated incidents but part of a long-term trajectory steering us towards democratic collapse,” Pigasse asserted.
He referenced the ancient Greek historian Polybius who theorised about the cyclical nature of political systems.
“He spoke of ‘anacyclosis’ — a cycle where governance transitions from monarchy to aristocracy, to democracy, and ultimately to mob rule, or ochlocracy, before devolving back into tyranny,” Pigasse said.
He claimed that today the world was lurching dangerously towards that sort of mob rule.
“We are on the brink of a government led by populism and demagoguery, characterised by ignorance, conspiracy theories, economic Liberalism and social Conservatism, all manipulated by a privileged autocratic elite,” he said.
Following President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the United States, the French hard-left party La France Insoumise has called for a shift towards left-wing “radicalism” to counter the far-right. https://t.co/CfeXPbeEgV
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) November 7, 2024
Pigasse is well known for his criticism of the Right in France.
During France’s legislative election in the summer of 2024, he endorsed the left-wing coalition New Popular Front (NFP).
“I’m calling for a Nouveau Front Populaire [NFP] vote because I think we need to do everything we can to block the Rassemblement National, [National Rally],” he said at the time.
In an interview with the left-wing newspaper Liberation, published on January 15, he declared he wanted to bring the media he controlled into the fight against what he termed the radical Right.
Pigasse founded Combat, an independent media and cultural group, in 2009. Its website describes itself as follows: “Combat is committed to an open, mixed society, and a responsible, humanist future, opposing power … and constantly questioning the actions of others through free expression and the debate of ideas.”
Combat is a major player in France’s cultural life and audiovisual landscape operating the well known cultural newspaper Les Inrockuptibles, feminist magazine Cheek, radio station Radio Nova and the Rock-En-Seine music festival.
Pigasse is also a member of the daily newspaper Le Monde shareholders’ group.
Many in Brussels seem to agree with his outlook.
MEPs from the pro-federalist Volt party sounded the alarm about the forthcoming Trump presidency, predicting “doom” days.
In a dramatic narrative shared by Volt recently, the party laid out a dystopian vision of Europe just four years after Trump’s return to power. It painted a grim picture of a continent dominated by hard-right leaders and ravaged by natural disasters.
“Following Trump’s re-election, a fragile ceasefire was brokered in Ukraine, but it came at a cost. Germany, now under the control of the AfD, cut off all military, financial, and humanitarian aid,” Volt wrote in its prediction on January 17.
“After Trump’s return to office, a temporary truce was established in Ukraine – which stopped receiving any military, financial or humanitarian support from Germany, now ruled by AfD,” it added.
“Putin used the lull to regroup, and deployed tactical nuclear weapons, reducing Kyiv to rubble, while Zelensky ‘fell out of the window’.
“Wilders and Orban promoted an EU-wide immigration ban and effectively deported all migrants back to their countries. Prague and Milan lay flooded, while Lisbon and Athens are disappearing in the smoke of wildfires,” it concluded.
It was not only the Left who have been sounding the alarm bells.
Right-wing libertarian and Argentinian President Javier Milei in early December spoke of a coming “cultural war”, signalling that the rhetoric of conflict was being adopted across the political spectrum.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei rallied right-wing leaders and supporters at CPAC in Buenos Aires, urging them to unite in what he called a “cultural war” to protect Western civilisation from the influence of socialism. https://t.co/Tc8pMNHWMK
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) December 5, 2024
