Jean-Laurent Cassely is a writer and journalist at Slate.fr. He is the author of several works on the urban upper class. Monique Dagnaud is head of research at the CNRS at the Center for study of social movements (CEMS). She teaches at the EHESS school for social sciences. Her research focuses on the sociology of media, adolescent and post-adolescent culture, and since 2008 on the anthropological transformation brought about by the networked society.
This book offers a look at the 20%: the part of French society characterized less by high incomes than by its level of education, and which diffuses its cultural norms over the rest of society.
The product of the massification of higher education, these elites are far from forming a homogeneous group or from being cut off from the masses. In fact, according to Cassely and Dagnaud’s thesis, a portion of them has adopted an anti-establishment stance and is attempting to propose new coalitions and innovative social forms.
Based on an extensive survey, this book takes the reader along in the wake of these highly educated individuals who are often retrained and appear to be counter-models (artisans, co mics, creators of new media, cultural and social entrepreneurs…) and the places of their alter-innovation (incubators, undeveloped land, platforms, fab labs, coworking spaces, or Third Places…). After the euphoria of the year 2000 and that of its creative classes, the book shows that in this dawning period of uncertainty, the most educated citizens are going to clash as they attempt to impose their model of society. Our common future depends on the outcome of that battle.