The theme of transparency is ubiquitous in public debate

The theme of transparency is ubiquitous in public debate. The management of the nuclear disaster in the financial regulation of the Woerth case scandal Mediator consensus emerges: private operators must disclose more information and a large part of it must be made public (data for financial transactions, conflicts of interests of members, etc.). Because the regulation takes the form of a discussion in private closed between regulator and regulated, should expect to wait, the connivance or even corruption. The turn of the transparency is thus a chance for democracy.

However, this movement is in France of strong reservations. They have no surprise when they come from those who benefit the opacity. But often, they are citizens without conflict of interest who denounce the "dictatorship of transparency." This rejection is organised around three recurrent sophistry to be denounced as such. Transparency, it is the end of privacy: this is the first of these fallacies, deeply rooted in our collective neurosis of the texts inherited from Vichy. It is in the current debate a full off-topic: whether in what products your bank has invested or what companies your MP holds interests don't say you that your neighbour spent his evenings.

The second fallacy is that transparency is only add confusion to debates already complex. Mountains of new information would not obscure and divert the minds of the citizens... Again, this is a rhetorical scarecrow: for example, even if the majority French cannot read an accounting balance sheet, it is crucial that listed companies make them public. It is sufficient that a small number are able to analyze the published information to make transparency work. What is important is that this group of insiders is not closed. Or for a large number of public policy issues (effectiveness of drugs for example), the access to information is restricted to too narrow circles. It can even go further: in many cases, the collective intelligence of engaged citizens is preferable to licensed expert committees. As demonstrated by the American psychologist Philip Tetlock, experts overestimate the quality of their judgment and are not immunized against conformism.

Finally, a third fallacy is that transparency is harmful because the secrecy is necessary for the proper conduct of public affairs. Developed from the pressure of public opinion, politicians have said, the more free rein to negotiate effectively with trade unions, the foreign powers or multinational corporations. The opacity would issue the policy of the short-termiste dictatorship of polls. Yet, the very spirit of democracy is rather doubtful that the seal of secrecy is politicians benevolent wisdom... More deeply, while it is true that secrecy is sometimes in the heat of the action, it stops with the time to be necessary. We must then establish a time transparency: If the secret could help Sarkozy to negotiate the release of the Bulgarian nurses, the cost to reveal the underside of the case five years later appears very low.

Today, the collection, storage and processing of information cost almost more nothing: the State must take note of this fact. The fallacious arguments on the dictatorship of the transparency mask a fundamental generational difference that the WikiLeaks case has exposed. Those who were raised in the shadow of the traditional media expect a layered, filtered and predigested information. Younger generations are claiming the right of access to the raw information. The burden of proof will be gradually reversing: secrets and their lawyers are becoming the exception.