The French have a peculiar talent for turning a dinner party into a political crisis. The latest storm in a teacup – albeit a very large, very gilded teacup – concerns a series of lavish banquets hosted by the Parisian elite. The radical left, ever vigilant for signs of aristocratic excess, has erupted in fury. But before we cluck our tongues at Gallic histrionics, consider this: these banquets are not merely a display of wealth; they are a symptom of a deeper rot that has historically preceded the collapse of civilisations.
Let us recall the Roman Empire, where the decline into decadence was marked by a widening chasm between the patrician class, gorging on peacock tongues and dormice, and the plebs subsisting on bread rations. The French Revolution, too, had its own culinary prelude: the 'cordon bleu' feasts of Versailles, where Marie Antoinette and her coterie danced while the people starved. Now, a direct echo: headlines scream of 'scandalous orgies of excess' as France's wealthy pay up to €10,000 per head for banquets featuring vintage champagne, truffles, and gold leaf. The left denounces this as a slap in the face to the struggling millions grappling with inflation and energy bills.
And yet, the response is disturbingly familiar. The radical left, embodied by figures like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, call for a cap on wealth and a 'citizen's revolution'. They brandish the spectre of the guillotine, albeit metaphorically. But the danger is not in the rhetoric: it is in the social myopia of the elite. When the wealthy retreat into their gilded enclaves, they lose touch with the realities of the nation. They forget that a society cannot survive if its elite refuses to share in the common burdens. This is not a matter of redistributive envy: it is a matter of social cohesion. The Roman patricians and the French nobility both learned this lesson too late.
Some will argue that this is mere sensationalism: that France's economy is resilient, its welfare state robust, and that a few dinner parties do not constitute a threat. But the slow drip of public discontent is cumulative. Polls already show a significant portion of the French public sympathising with the left's call for a 'more just distribution of wealth'. Add to that the fragmentation of the political centre, the rise of populism on both flanks, and the erosion of faith in institutions. The banquets are not the cause; they are the canary in the coal mine.
What France needs is not a puritanical crackdown on celebration, but a rediscovery of the art of noblesse oblige: the ancient duty of the elite to lead by example, to share, and to serve. Instead, we see an unseemly scramble for ostentation, as if to flaunt one's fortune in the face of national hardship. This is intellectual decadence of the highest order: the belief that wealth insulates one from social responsibility. It did not save the aristocrats in 1789. It will not save the modern oligarchs now.
If the French elite continue down this path, they will hasten the very revolution they fear. The guillotine is no longer a historical relic: it is a potent symbol of what happens when a society loses its equilibrium. Let the banquets be a warning. For if the left's fury is dismissed as mere envy, then prepare for a reckoning. History, as ever, is watching.
