This year, at the Aix-en-Provence Economic Meetings, I will have the opportunity to discuss a question that now cuts across every Western democracy: Are the elites responsible for all of society’s problems?

The issue is far from anecdotal, something to occupy a handful of experts during a discussion in the heart of Parc Jourdan. It tells us something fundamental about our time. In this regard, the latest Reconciliation Barometer, conducted by the Institut Bona fidé for France Télévisions, offers a revealing finding. When public opinion is measured to determine what unites or polarizes society, the divide between the elites and the people is now perceived as the deepest of all. More strikingly, national politicians are seen as the primary force preventing the country’s unity.

One could interpret this snapshot of public opinion as yet another expression of democratic distrust. I believe the phenomenon runs much deeper. This divide is not merely the product of the economic, social, and institutional crises that have followed one another over the past fifteen years or perhaps even longer. It is also the consequence of a quiet transformation in political communication. As politics gradually ceases to be a space for persuasion and becomes a permanent competition for attention, it is not only trust that erodes; the very function of public discourse is transformed.

Pascal: The First Theorist of the Attention Economy

To understand this transformation, we must return to an author who might seem far removed from today’s debates: Blaise Pascal. His famous idea “to entertain in order to distract” is well known to readers of the Auvergne philosopher. Yet it has often been misunderstood. We have come to equate divertissement with entertainment. Pascal, however, was speaking of distraction in a much deeper sense. To distract is to divert human beings from confronting reality, uncertainty, and the complexity of their own condition. Entertainment is not simply leisure; it is a strategy of attention.

Four centuries later, this insight is remarkably modern. Social media did not invent distraction; it industrialized its mechanisms. In an environment saturated with content, where every post competes for visibility, capturing attention has become a condition for survival. This logic now extends far beyond the media landscape. It structures political communication itself. Public leaders no longer seek merely to persuade. They must first be seen, discussed, and shared. Politics accelerates, simplifies, and stages itself. It, too, has entered the attention economy.

Almost without noticing, we have moved from a democracy of persuasion to a democracy of attention capture.

The Populism of Distraction

The “temptation of the clown” is no longer merely an intellectual provocation; it has become a genuine political possibility. Raphaël Llorca’s work on “artisanal populism,” through the case of Patrick Sébastien, as well as the debates surrounding Cyril Hanouna, illustrates that entertainment is no longer the opposite of politics: it increasingly borrows and shapes its codes and mechanisms. Yet this interpretation, inherited from the anti-establishment wave of the 2010s, deserves to be taken a step further.
The clown of the 2010s was the child of public anger. He thrived on denouncing elites, promising rupture, and confronting institutions. The figure that may emerge tomorrow is of a different nature. It is born less from anger than from democratic fatigue. Opinion surveys reveal a slow but steady decline in public interest in politics: citizens are no longer merely rejecting institutions—they are disengaging from them altogether. In the vacuum this creates, those who capture attention gain the upper hand over those who articulate a coherent vision. Whereas traditional populism mobilizes conflict against a perceived enemy, the populism of distraction diverts attention away from reality and installs a form of democratic anesthesia—in precisely the sense that Blaise Pascal described.

Understanding 2027: The DEEP Theory

As the 2027 presidential election approaches, it would be a mistake to analyze political life solely through the lenses of programs, parties, or ideologies. These categories remain essential, but they are no longer sufficient. The coming campaign will also be a battle for attention. To understand it, I propose a new analytical framework: DEEP Theory.

D for Diversion. Power no longer lies solely in persuading people; it lies in imposing one’s rhythm, setting the agenda, and determining which issues dominate public debate.

E for Emotion. Digital platforms reward content that provokes immediate reactions rather than careful reflection. Emotion has become an accelerator of political diffusion.

E for Engagement. Not simply political activism, but platform engagement itself: commenting, sharing, liking, reacting. Interaction has become a new measure of political legitimacy.

P for Pleasure. An idea alone is no longer enough. It must provide an experience, an immediate sense of gratification, an emotional reward that keeps people engaged.

This framework is not intended to replace traditional political analysis. Rather, it offers a different way of understanding democracy in the age of platforms. A presidential election should be the moment when a democracy debates its future. The risk is that the 2027 election will become, first and foremost, a competition for our attention.
The danger is not that a clown comes to power. The danger is that politics permanently adopts the clown’s methods.
Pascal warned us long ago. The real danger is not that citizens are entertained. The real danger is that they no longer even see what their attention has been diverted from.