Abstract
The first Moroccan woman to win the prestigious Prix Goncourt (in 2016, for Chanson douce), Leïla Slimani is the darling of the French literary world, a poster-girl of Macron’s France. But she is also accused of being a collabeurette, of pandering to white audiences and sensibilities. Chanson douce reveals the true cost of bobo (bourgeois-bohemian) life amongst the metropolitan elite. Exploring the pressures of gendered labour, compounded by economic and social stratification, Slimani holds up a mirror to French society, directly challenging any postfeminist claim that gender equality has been achieved. However, whilst racial – or at least linguistic, national and religious – difference is visible in the text, its presentation is dubious. In this article, I argue that postfeminist logic converges with the colour-blind universalism of France. I suggest that Slimani subsumes discussions of racial difference into a polemic which privileges gender and class inequalities, ultimately seeing her capitulate to French Republican values.
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