Now we can look at the 2010s with a bit of perspective. And perhaps we can better understand why the decade started with huge popular protests with strong progressive content (2011 and beyond) to end with right-wing nationalism.

A key element in this drift from the Left to the Right was for me passage from *populism* of protest movements to *sovereignism* of the Right.

2011 was social and democratic populism at its purest. Protestors criticised elites and demanded popular democracy and equality. There was a criticism of globalisation, but nationalist demands for recuperation of territorial sovereignty were marginal.

Progressively, question of national sovereignty came to acquire more and more importance, especially in Europe in light of sovereign debt crisis and disfunctionality of the EU.

For some people this became a sort of article of faith: if only you take back national sovereignty all other problems will follow suit. What's worse for some people recuperation of national sovereignty was seen as calling for tactical Left/Right alliance in the name of democracy.

In the meantime, all the real progressive elements of the populist moment (criticism of inequality, neoliberalism, power of financial elites) were bracketed in the name of spurious national vs global opposition

Thus, ultimately fetishism of sovereignty has led to potential progressive potential of populist moment to be neutralised or worse. I have seen this in many movements, incl. Gilets Jaunes.

Sovereignty is not a "thing" nor an end in its own right. It is power, a condition and a means to do other things. In fact, the strongest criticism remainers made was that in fact Brexit meant a net loss of sovereignty for British people all things considered.