"To the aristrocrats she (Madame de Pompadour) was in incarnation of the (despised) Parisian bourgeoisie. While the nobles, living in a delightful insouciance at Versallies, neglecting their estates, gambling all of every night for enormous sums , spending far more than they could afford on horses, carriages and clothes...(they) were geting steadily poorer and more obscure, the bourgeoisie getting richer and more powerful...In his (Duc de Richelieu) eyes she (Pompadour) incarnated the abominable bourgeoisie, the wrong people with their deplorable ton, who were gradually accumlating money and power at the expense of all the right people..." Nancy Mitford, " Madame de Pompadour"
These aristrocrats - both in France and across Europe- evolved into today's intellectual, carrying with them the 200+ year contempt of the "abominable bourgeoisie" (both haute and petite),as well as the system that favors them (capitalism) and, last but certainly not least, the one nation that symbolizes it all: the United States.
Yes ---they consider themselves to be part of the "elite" and they despise what they consider middle class values and the middle class. They prefer aristocracies/oligarchies which allow a few elites to have all the power and control. It really irks them that a country that allowed peasants to have money became the richest and in many cases descendents of peasants came out ahead of the descendents of aristocrats.