Anti-elite, anti-ecologist… Alexandre Jardin, agitator of French anger

Don't be fooled by his calm, summer-goer appearance in white trousers and loafers, his impeccable tan. On August 29, Alexandre Jardin arrives at the Châlons-en-Champagne station in the Marne, moving like a high-speed train, determined to tell you about his obsessions without wasting time recounting his vacation. The novelist is sure of it: "revolt ," "chaos," and "war" are about to hit France. A war of the people against the elites, of the "beggars" against their lords, those elected officials and ministers nestled in their "palaces" and held by the "powers of money ." Men and women suffering from a "crisis of disconnection ," more concerned with "crusting" the French people's bread than distributing it to them.

The 60-year-old writer is as excited as an author who has rediscovered his inspiration. The National Assembly's June abolition of low-emission zones (LEZs) banning the most polluting vehicles from major cities—a major setback for the environmental cause—is somewhat his own. For six months, he helped bring the issue to the forefront, with a host of media interventions and agitation on social media, where his hashtag #gueux—an ironic formulation to highlight the contempt provincials are said to receive—flourished. He also published a small book from it, which sold 20,000 copies ( Les #Gueux, Michel Lafon, 2025).

Alexandre Jardin now feels invested with a new role, that of spokesperson for the "shabby suburban or provincial dwellers" angry at Paris and this "rich man's sport" that is supposedly ecology. He is no longer the literary phenomenon of the 1980s and 1990s, who paraded his romantic locks and his good boy smile on television, and whose chaste love stories ( Le Zèbre , Fanfan ) could sell up to 900,000 copies - before being adapted for the cinema with the stars of the time, like Thierry Lhermitte or Sophie Marceau. This character died out at the same time as the 20th ^century .

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