From “Ethic of Care” to “Welfare Society”: Politicization of the Ethic of Care in French Socialist Party

"In an interview for online newspaper Mediapart in spring 2010, First Secretary of the French Socialist Party Martine Aubry promotes a “society of care”, rooted in the ethic of care theorized by American scholar Carol Gilligan. Facing violent reactions in newspapers following this interview, actors of the introduction of the ethic of care in France adopted two distinct positions: the actors of the academic reception denounced the “misogyny” of the French political and intellectual elites as well as the “amateurism” of the PS on the matter, whereas actors of the political receptions tried to fix misunderstandings in the first public reactions. The paper focuses on the political sequence of the introduction, particulaly on the political investment of the ethic of care in the think tank Laboratory of socialist ideas. By looking into forms and processes through which scholars accept to submit themselves to a political command (1), one can highlights how the meanings of the ethic of care are radically transformed, depending on the social fields it is invested in (2) : first opposed to deconstructivist tradition of French feminism and John Rawl’s theory of justice, the ethic of care becomes the theoretical instrument of a new conception of the welfare State in the Socialist Party."