French Ethnocentricity the “Epistemological Circumstances” of the Third World Concept

Abstract

The concept “Third World” (Tiers-Monde) originated in the 1950s during the French colonial wars and eventually came to designate the world’s non-industrialized nations. The embedding of the concept “Third World” in French religious and political discourse gave a specific texture and direction, not only to French-former colonial relations, but also to French-South relations. The uniqueness of the concept rests in the fact that it permitted a Franco-French dialogue between traditional political and social forces.1 Its articulation, one which would influence French politics toward the Third World for the next three decades, was reflected in the development of a political movement: TiersMondisme. A moral discourse on Third World issues between people on the French Left, both Marxist and Progressive Christian, Tiers-Mondisme had its roots in the post-War period and the Algerian War for independence. TiersMondisme (literally, Third-Worldism), was a political-consciousness-turnedmovement which promoted solutions (political, economic, technical, scientific, sociological) to Third World problems taken from the ideological reservoir of the New Left and later the Centre d’etudes, de recherches et d’education socialistes (CERES) (Christian and Laic).