As often it is the opacity that leads to the suspicion not transparency

Rocked by the memory of its great men, our country often dream of having at its head of worthy to enter the Pantheon individuals. Evidenced by the reference persistent to General de Gaulle, able both to launch the appeal of June 18 and pay its electricity bills himself. This idealization of the policy is not in conflict with a strong distrust towards him: it is even the case. It is precisely because they want to elect saints that are both impassive and disinterested that the French are disappointed by the political class. But recurrent syndrome of "all rotten" is not the most negative consequence of this utopia of the unselfish politician. It has led us for decades to overlook the importance for the democratic life of independent balances and real transparency.

It seems that public opinion is currently starting to dispose of this dangerous mythology. Woerth is the developer of this positive development in our view, representations of the France policy.

In particular, this case dedicated slide in the opinion of the logic of the trial of intent than the conflict of interest. Is it need recalled: in France as elsewhere, conflicts of interest are everywhere. Rollup of local and national mandates for members of Parliament, employment of former bankers to formulate proposals for regulation of the sector, politicians who bought their public networks to private companies, MPs entrepreneurs etc. But as pointed out quite rightly the political scientist Yves Mény, the French democratic tradition, historically, denies the logic of the conflict of interest. Repressing the true nature, simply human, of politicians or the great clerk of the State, society prefers implicit bet on heroic momentum, which is to sacrifice the private interests on the altar of the public thing. In this context, suspect that a political conflict of interest may be reluctant, would be at best a fault of taste, at worst an act of slander.

Yet, elaborate upstream a conflict of interest does not amount to a moral condemnation of the person concerned. In fact, this clears instead. As often, it is the opacity that leads to the suspicion, not transparency. If conflicts of interest are recognized explicitly, the public will not look elsewhere. The interested parties themselves, under the pressure of opinion that knows how tempted now, will more easily find the strength to say "no" to private interests who seek. When conflicts of interest are tus, everyone can have a hidden agenda: it is the reign of paranoia.

The Norse or Anglo-Saxon democracies may be more pragmatic than us on the shortcomings of politicians, address the problem head-on. First solution: prohibit, purely and simply, some delicate situations for the interested parties themselves. It is for example the case of European Commissioners, who are unable to deal with cases concerning companies for which they worked. Second solution: inform the public. For example, in the United States, private companies finance a large fraction of political campaigns, which obviously posed a legitimate suspicion on their bias once elected. Knowing the weak flesh, American Parliament has therefore made the choice to the monitoring of public policies. Detailed information on the financing of campaigns is available on the Internet, easily accessible format (e.g. the site OpenSecrets. org). You can also learn a click if any particular regulator has left the public sector to join one of the companies he regulated. This flexibility of information would not be possible without Internet and goes hand in hand with the emergence of blogs and a new press which put on the Web and the investigation.

So one should not misunderstand the significance of the recent cases: our democracy is progressing in the right direction, the opinion seems finally to make the distinction between conflict of interest and corruption. But the site is not finished. The next step is to inform, via the Internet, all conflict of interest within the State: career officials, deputies and sénateurs financial interests and policies For democracy to be irreproachable, must be transparent.