La catastrophe à l’essai. Le discours collapsologique en France de 2015 à 2024

The myth of the collapse of Western civilisation, spread in France since 2015 by the public success of books by Pablo Servigne, Raphaël Stevens and a few other authors, has given rise to sometimes harsh criticism. This article recalls the main theses of the collapsologists and the most important objections made to them before looking at the responses they provide and the evolution of the collapsological discourse over the last ten years. Finally, we look at the collapse as a myth in the sense of Roland Barthes’ Mythologies: a depoliticising discourse that freezes an ideology in an image to make it indisputable.