Chronicle · Behind the Media Scenes
Homo occidentalis is everywhere, and I ordered the book
No sooner had I ordered the book than I saw it on every set. And my instinct woke up.
October 4, 2026 · Reading ≈ 5 min · Jules Thomas
When a book is everywhere at once, it is not necessarily propaganda: it is often a well-orchestrated launch, and the criticism always arrives after the promotion.
As usual, I was doom-scrolling to fill my commute. And for the first time, I came across the theory of Homo occidentalis. On France Inter, the little left-wing radio station, as usual. Well, left-wing: since Radio Nova has existed, is France Inter still on the left? I no longer really know.
I listen with one ear, rather in agreement with the author's premises, even though I tend to doubt the method, and every new author who comes to tell us that humanity has changed once again. He is no less interesting for it. I do my little research, I read up on the subject, and I flatly decide to buy myself the book: rather than criticising while watching the media, I might as well buy it and make up my own mind.
No sooner have I ordered the book than what happens? I see it doing the rounds of the TV sets. And there, my instinct wakes up. How come I see it on left-wing stations as much as on right-wing ones, and everyone invites good old Fourquet to discuss his theory? Panic on my part? Are we facing a work of propaganda? Or, on the contrary, is it a passing fad?
A little research. I take my agent and send it to search the Internet. First contradiction: it puts me back in my place. Far from being a half-baked theory, it is rather serious work, and what I am seeing is above all a launch effect. And then I realise this is not the first time I have seen the phenomenon. These moments when an author appears on every set have become commonplace. So let's go and look behind the scenes.
What the book says
Homo occidentalis. Que sommes-nous devenus ? has two signatures: Jérôme Fourquet, who heads the Opinion department at Ifop, and Ruben Rabinovitch, a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. Seuil, 448 pages, in bookshops since 2 October.
Their thesis, roughly: we have moved from an “old psychic regime”, built on duty, frustration and sacrifice to the collective, to a “new regime” that commands us to enjoy, to perform, to fulfil ourselves. Love, death, the body, the family, the desire for children, authority: everything has supposedly shifted in a few generations. Their formula on the radio: the neurotic has given way to the depressive. And to be fair, they reject the idea of a paradise lost. Each regime has its own suffering.
Behind the scenes of “everywhere at once”
There is no conspiracy in there, there is a trade. A major publisher has a press officer, and the job consists precisely of placing the author on as many stations as possible, of every colour, around the release date. On 30 September, two days before it went on sale, Fourquet and Rabinovitch were the 8:20 guests on France Inter. Le Figaro already had its piece.
Then comes the snowball. When a book has been on two major stations, the others invite it so as not to look late. And Fourquet is the dream guest for TV sets: figures, catchphrases, a calm tone. Add the calendar: six months before the presidential election, a book on “what we have become” is a turnkey debate, one that lets you talk about identity without looking like you are doing politics.
Who applauds, who grumbles
What struck me is that everyone finds something in it for themselves. Le Salon Beige sees in it the village church replaced by “un trio psy, tatoueur et salle de sport”. Breizh-info hails a “grande bascule anthropologique”. Le Figaro speaks of a “rupture anthropologique”. France Inter gives it the peak listening hour. One single book, and everyone reads in it what they already thought.
The substantive critiques, for their part, have not yet had time to appear: the book is two days old. My doubt, I am keeping it: turning an addiction into a diagnosis of civilisation can quickly become bar-room chatter with opinion polls. A pollster and a shrink putting “the West” on the couch makes for a very marketable identikit. It remains to be seen whether anyone resembles it.
So, propaganda or passing fad?
Neither one nor the other: a well-oiled launch. The promotion always comes before the criticism, and that is precisely why I ordered the book. I will tell you what I think of it once I have read it, not once I have seen it on TV.
For those who want to make up their own minds, the book's page is at the publisher. I have nothing to gain from it: it is promotion, without being promotion.