Abstract
The past decade has seen a dynamic and contradictory treatment of difference in French policy-making, both nationally and locally. However, the means by which local difference orientated policies redefine the national is understudied. This article bridges this gap with a case study analysis of Marseille and Lyon to assess and typologize the ways that difference is deployed in local policy to influence, contest and negotiate the discursive performance and construction of the nation. Of particular importance here are modes of municipal governance, the influence of European government and the co-option of local voluntary groups into policy. This article concludes that both Marseille and Lyon provide rich examples of not only how municipalities are increasingly concerned with the notion of difference in policy-making, but also how their policies and engagement with local actors in dealing with nationally salient issues might lead to a redefinition of the national.
Highlights
The past decade has seen scholars identify an increasingly contradictory and negotiated process of formulating recognition-based policies in France that deploy notions of ethno-cultural and religious ‘difference’ (Bhabha 1994)
The varying ways in which difference is deployed in France to renegotiate and redefine the national remains an important issue for scholarship
As seen from the evidence presented here, the national remains in France a very dynamic subject
Summary
The past decade has seen scholars identify an increasingly contradictory and negotiated process of formulating recognition-based policies in France that deploy notions of ethno-cultural and religious ‘difference’ (Bhabha 1994) This challenges the nationally ordained policy of assimilation, based around individual, formal, legal and political equality, in addition to the separation of church and state (laïcité), which has long worked as the guarantor of social integration and equality (Wihtol de Wenden 2003; Hargreaves 2007). This article seeks to add to this debate by shedding further light on the increasing use of such discursively constructed notions of difference at the local level (Moore 2003; Doytcheva 2007) and reflecting on their impact on the national.
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