Ideological Battle Flags

In Unveiling the French Republic, Per-Erik Nilsson engages in a critical analysis of national identity, secularism, and Islam in France. He argues that secular ideology has been used to justify religious intolerance, mask ethnic prejudice, and reify French national identity.

In Unveiling the French Republic, Per-Erik Nilsson engages in a critical analysis of national identity, secularism, and Islam in France. He argues that secular ideology has been used to justify religious intolerance, mask ethnic prejudice, and reify French national identity.

What French food is would seem to be an unproblematic idea. Depending on one’s taste and familiarity, a croissant, or snails, might spring to mind. Those who are a little more intimate with French cuisine might suggest the taste of a coq au vin or ratatouille, and fewer still might suggest tarte flambee or cancoillotte. Whatever the relative popularity of the dish or food, the French culinary tradition is arguably so familiar and, indeed, loved around the world that almost everyone could name one or two French culinary objects. Moreover, as the (self-proclaimed) leader of Western cuisine, the style and taste epitomised by French cuisine and the associated dining experience are also arguably some of the most attractive aspects of French gastronomy. From this perspective, where French cuisine appears to be so familiar to the non-French, seeking to define what constitutes a French meal could seem to be an inane exercise. Nonetheless, in 2010, the Mission Francaise du Patrimoine et des Cultures Alimentaires (not officially translated), under the aegis of the French Ministry of Culture and Communication, put forward the nomination file "The Gastronomic Meal of the French" to UNESCO, defining in clear terms a particular image of French taste, in a bid to have the meal recognised as part of the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. With the number of specifically culinary elements protected by UNESCO more than doubling with the 2013 session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and with a further two in line for protection in the 2014 session, it would seem that an examination of these protected culinary traditions is in order. Rather than focusing on the problems associated with creating an intangible heritage list (Kurin; Smith and Akagawa), this article proposes an analysis of one nomination file, "The Gastronomic Meal of the French," and the ideas which structure it. More specifically, this article will investigate how the idea of taste is deployed in the document from two different yet interconnected points of view. That is, taste as the faculty of discerning what is aesthetically excellent, and taste in its more literal gustative sense. This study will demonstrate how these two ideas of taste are used to create a problematic notion of French culinary identity, which by focusing on the framework of local (terroir) taste seeks to define national taste. By specifically citing local food stuffs (produits du terroir) and practices as well as French Republicanism in the formation of this identity, I argue that the nomination file eschews problems of cultural difference. As a result, "non-French food" and the associated identities it embodies, inherent in contemporary multicultural societies such as France with its large immigrant population, are incorporated into a cohesive, singular, culinary identity. French taste, then, is represented as uniform and embodied by the shared love of the French "art of good eating and drinking".

Current French political discourses contain numerous references to food. The phenomenon began in the late 1990s with the issue of food safety and references to ‘la malbouffe’, as the population became increasingly anxious about the consequences of globalisation. In the 2010s the phenomenon gained momentum, particularly during the 2012 presidential elections as the debate focused on French identity and the place of Islam in France. Today, both the far right and the mainstream right include the issue of food in their discourses. Careful analysis suggests that the Identitaires, an electorally weak but ideologically influential political movement, were ahead of the tide before being followed by the Front National, which focused on the issue of halal meat, and finally other key figures from the former Union pour un Mouvement Populaire. This study highlights how the parties on the right appropriated the theme of food at different times and underscores similarities with regards to their frequent recourse to discursive strategies based on a dichotomy between ‘us’ and ‘them’. The topic of food therefore represents a new strand in the right’s and far right’s traditional discourses on immigration and identity and can be viewed as a new rhetorical tool to mark otherness.

Society and Culture edited by Marie-Christine Koop DATTA, VENITA. Heroes and Legends of Fin-de-Siècle France: Gender, Politics, and National Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. ISBN 978-0-521-19595-9. Pp. 264. $25.99. Datta’s book is thoroughly researched, well articulated, and provides an abundance of illustrations. She considers the most flamboyant (Cyrano de Bergerac), saintly (Joan of Arc), and autocratic (Napoleon) characters in order to illustrate her thesis: using the lens of gender, the author explores how these heroes helped to heal a nation, and to reinforce the unyielding sense of French patriotism and national identity. In her study, theater is viewed as a forum for political debates. Datta adds that the press and works of literature also became “laboratories” for the exchange of divergent views on French identity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The most important contribution of the book can be found in the study of historical issues as they related to gender. In doing so, Datta parts with the notion that heroes were necessarily males. She deconstructs the idea that females had to be sacrificial lambs and devoted solely to motherhood. In terms of the Dreyfus Affair, the book expands the political debate : Datta encompasses all aspects of heroism—female heroism in particular— during that crucial time. The main weakness of the book lies in its seemingly positive interpretation of France as a colonial empire. The author states that the French “had succeeded in putting an end to their international isolation by forging alliances with the Russians and the British, had successfully amassed a colonial empire, and moreover had hosted three international world fairs that displayed their might and innovation” (4) [my emphasis]. If these world fairs displayed the might of the French, they also displayed Africans in what is often referred to as “human zoos.” Acquiring a colonial empire is not to be viewed as an enrichment of French identity. Ignoring such issues undermines the author’s overall perspective. This book would have greatly benefited from a critical section dealing with the imperialistic policies of France at the time and their impact on national identity. In conclusion, the author has produced an interesting study within a gender perspective and vision. The illustrations enable the reader to better grasp the complexity of female heroism, and how it was expressed through theater in particular. However, the lack of debate pertaining to colonialism (an unavoidable issue today), and how it was linked to French nationalism at the time, weakens this work. Ohio University Yolande Aline Helm JORDAN, MATTHEW F. Le Jazz: Jazz and French Cultural Identity. Urbana: UP of Illinois, 2010. ISBN 978-0252077067. Pp. 312. $25. Once in a while, through pure randomness, one picks up a book that will reveal itself to be a fascinating read. This is exactly what Le Jazz is. Starting from the premise that cultures are constantly defining and establishing themselves by debating which art forms (as cultural and entertainment productions) should be embraced or repressed, Matthew Jordan argues that jazz “symbolizes” how “French culture 1178 FRENCH REVIEW 85.6 ...

В статье на основе речи президента Пятой республики Э. Макрона в Мюлузе (Франция) 18 февраля 2020 г. и новейшей французской литературы анализируется президентская программа по противодействию религиозной радикализации, исламистскому сепаратизму и банализации насилия в трудных пригородах крупных городов, которая будет реализовываться французским правительством в краткосрочной перспективе. На протяжении долгого времени Макрон дистанцировался от вопросов сохранения религиозной и национальной идентичности и распространения ислама во Франции, однако острота проблемы и повышенное внимание к ней со стороны СМИ и общества привели к тому, что президент представил свой взгляд на происходящие в стране процессы. Особое внимание в статье уделено тенденции по отказу от социально-экономического подхода в решении проблемы, при котором акцент делался на борьбе с безработицей и низким качеством образования в трудных районах, в пользу точечной борьбы с религиозным радикализмом и экстремизмом, то есть с влиянием представителей радикальных исламистских течений, прежде всего салафитов и «Братьев-мусульман», на мусульманское меньшинство Франции. В целом новая президентская программа носит умеренный правый характер, она не содержит в себе никаких радикальных мер (например, в ней нет полного запрета на преподавание арабского языка в государственных школах или тотального запрета на иностранное финансирование мест мусульманского культа во Франции), но при этом в ней представлены конкретные шаги, которые в случае их реализации могут принести позитивные результаты. Based on the speech of the President of the Fifth Republic E. Macron in Mulhouse (France) on February 18, 2020 and the latest French literature, the author analyzes the President's program to counter religious radicalization, Islamist separatism and banalization of violence in the difficult suburbs of large cities, which will be implemented by the French government in short term. For a long time, Macron distanced himself from the issues of preserving religious and national identity and the spread of Islam in France, but the severity of the problem and increased attention to it from the media and society led the president to present his view of the processes taking place in the country. Particular attention in the article is paid to the tendency to move away from the socio-economic approach in solving the problem, in which the emphasis was on combating unemployment and low quality of education in difficult regions, to a targeted fight against religious radicalism and extremism, that is, with the influence of representatives of radical Islamist movements, primarily the Salafis and the Muslim Brotherhood, to the Muslim minority of France. In general, the new presidential program is moderately right-wing in nature, it does not contain any radical measures (for example, it does not completely ban the teaching of Arabic in public schools or a total ban on foreign financing the construction and maintenance of mosques), but at the same time in it presents concrete steps that, if implemented, can bring positive results.

Society and Culture edited by Marie-Christine Koop DATTA, VENITA. Heroes and Legends of Fin-de-Siècle France: Gender, Politics, and National Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. ISBN 978-0-521-19595-9. Pp. 264. $25.99. Datta’s book is thoroughly researched, well articulated, and provides an abundance of illustrations. She considers the most flamboyant (Cyrano de Bergerac), saintly (Joan of Arc), and autocratic (Napoleon) characters in order to illustrate her thesis: using the lens of gender, the author explores how these heroes helped to heal a nation, and to reinforce the unyielding sense of French patriotism and national identity. In her study, theater is viewed as a forum for political debates. Datta adds that the press and works of literature also became “laboratories” for the exchange of divergent views on French identity during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The most important contribution of the book can be found in the study of historical issues as they related to gender. In doing so, Datta parts with the notion that heroes were necessarily males. She deconstructs the idea that females had to be sacrificial lambs and devoted solely to motherhood. In terms of the Dreyfus Affair, the book expands the political debate : Datta encompasses all aspects of heroism—female heroism in particular— during that crucial time. The main weakness of the book lies in its seemingly positive interpretation of France as a colonial empire. The author states that the French “had succeeded in putting an end to their international isolation by forging alliances with the Russians and the British, had successfully amassed a colonial empire, and moreover had hosted three international world fairs that displayed their might and innovation” (4) [my emphasis]. If these world fairs displayed the might of the French, they also displayed Africans in what is often referred to as “human zoos.” Acquiring a colonial empire is not to be viewed as an enrichment of French identity. Ignoring such issues undermines the author’s overall perspective. This book would have greatly benefited from a critical section dealing with the imperialistic policies of France at the time and their impact on national identity. In conclusion, the author has produced an interesting study within a gender perspective and vision. The illustrations enable the reader to better grasp the complexity of female heroism, and how it was expressed through theater in particular. However, the lack of debate pertaining to colonialism (an unavoidable issue today), and how it was linked to French nationalism at the time, weakens this work. Ohio University Yolande Aline Helm JORDAN, MATTHEW F. Le Jazz: Jazz and French Cultural Identity. Urbana: UP of Illinois, 2010. ISBN 978-0252077067. Pp. 312. $25. Once in a while, through pure randomness, one picks up a book that will reveal itself to be a fascinating read. This is exactly what Le Jazz is. Starting from the premise that cultures are constantly defining and establishing themselves by debating which art forms (as cultural and entertainment productions) should be embraced or repressed, Matthew Jordan argues that jazz “symbolizes” how “French culture 1178 FRENCH REVIEW 85.6 and identity renewed and remodelled itself through an encounter with and assimilation of a host of cultural differences” (3). Nowadays it is fair to say that France likes jazz and that there is a certain Frenchness in contemporary jazz, but this beautiful integration has not always been obvious. The relationship between France and jazz was, in the course of the twentieth century, a love-hate story. But what is even more fascinating is that France embraced jazz in a way that most American media never did. Through the analysis of how the different debates on jazz functioned in the French cultural discourse from the Occupation up to the years following the Libération, the book shows not only that jazz was perceived, at first, as a marker of otherness and un-Frenchness, but also that it went through a transvaluation that led it to become an inherent part of the modern definition of French identity. Jordan’s book offers a remarkable study on how “true” French culture changed, and how France came to term with the jazz art form. Jordan views the debate surrounding jazz, as...

This article departs from the conventional assumption that works of literature are only texts to be read. Instead, it argues that readers bring these works to life by contextualizing them within themselves and draw from their own life experiences to understand these literary texts’ deeper meanings and themes. Using Soumission (Surrender), a controversial French novel that utilizes stereotypes in its exploration of Islam in France, this research focuses on the consumption of literary texts by French readers who are living or have lived in a country with a Muslim majority, specifically Indonesia. It examines how the novel’s stereotypes of Muslims and Islam are understood by a sample of French readers with experience living in Indonesia. The research problematizes whether a textual and contextual gap exists in their reading of the novel, and how they justify this gap in their social practices. In any reading of a text, the literal meaning (surface meaning) is taken as it is or the hidden meaning (deep meaning), but in a text that is covert in meaning, the reader may either venture into probing the underlying true meaning or accept the literal meaning of the text. However, this remains a point of contention and this research explores this issue using critical discourse analysis in Soumission’s text, in which the author presents the narrator’s views about Islam. The question that underpins this analysis is whether a reader’s life experiences and the context influence his or her view about Islam in interpreting Soumission’s text. Five French readers participated in this survey by reading the novel and offered their opinions on the narrator’s views on Islam in France. Overall, the responses showed that the respondents based their readings not only on the literary text, but used a contextualization process to comprehend the work within their own social contexts. Their views about Islam differed significantly from the narrator’s in Soumission. They also used their life experiences to understand and process the literary texts, highlighting the value of varied life experiences and sharing others’ social experiences in the present socio-political climate.

Political liberalism suggests state power must be exercised and justified on terms all citizens can reasonably be expected to endorse, independently of their comprehensive identities or worldviews. For Rawls, a democratic community cannot be united by any shared ends or identities other than those connected with the political conception of justice itself. Republican political thought often seems to undermine this ‘liberal principle of legitimacy’ through its stronger demands of social cohesion and participative civic virtue. Conversely, however, it generally seeks to define citizenship independently of any non-political commonalities citizens might be assumed to share. This theoretical tension was reflected in recent French republican discourses on Islam, gender and national identity. France's recent prohibition on public face-veiling coincided with an officially orchestrated debate on national identity which seemed to challenge the traditional republican conception of national identity as a purely civic and political construct. While couched in republican terminologies, these recent discourses seemed to understand the principle oflaïcité, or constitutional secularism, as a bulwark for the pre-political dimensions of national identity. Accordingly, this article outlines how these discourses on religion and gender illuminated tensions and contradictions within the prevailing republican account of national identity.

This thesis is concerned with the ways in which language policy, planning and practices shape national and social identity. The research was conducted in the young nation of Timor-Leste, which achieved independence in 2002 after 24 years of illegal occupation by Indonesia. The Constitution of the new republic declared the former colonial language, Portuguese, and the indigenous lingua franca, Tetum, to be co-official languages. English and Indonesian were allocated the special status of working languages. The Constitution also allocated the 15 endogenous languages the status of national languages, to be protected and developed by the State. The thesis is structured around three classic language problems for developing nations, (i) dealing with the legacies of colonialism, (ii) reconstructing national identity, and (iii) managing the language ecology. The thesis is theoretically grounded in the ecology of language paradigm, which is founded on the assumption that languages exist and work in ecological relation to each other. Using multiple methods within an ethnographic design, the thesis provides a qualitative, holistic description and analysis of language policy, planning and practices in their cultural context. Taking a dualistic approach, the thesis studies language policy discourses at the macro (state) level and the micro (community) level. A sociolinguistic profile identifies the features of the language ecology; an historical study highlights the symbolic violence to the East Timorese habitus as a result of four distinct periods of language policy, planning and practice, the consequence of which was the fragmentation and hybridisation of identities. A qualitative analysis of contemporary language policy development discusses the issues and implications of the current trajectory for language policy-making, planning and use. The evolutionary study design culminates in a grounded theory analysis of data collected from 78 participants in semi-structured interviews and focus groups, in an effort to understand the relationships between language dispositions, language policy, and national and social identity. The narratives in the participant discourses were compared to those of official language policy. A key finding is that, while older participants in the research were willing to accept Portuguese as the language of national and international identity, younger participants tended to acknowledge a role for Portuguese as the primary source language for modernising and enriching Tetum and as a language of international communication. The participants were divided in their attitudes towards Indonesian. Older participants saw it as the language of the invader while many younger ones saw it as just another way to communicate. Whilst interest in English was high, it had little capital for the participants as a language of identity. In contrast, across much of the sample, there was deep and enduring loyalty to Tetum as the symbol of national unity and identity. However, negative, disparaging attitudes towards Tetum and doubts about its readiness to function as an official language were also elicited from certain participants. The thesis concludes that this has negative implications for reconstructing social and national identity and for achieving true parity between Portuguese and Tetum in the ecology. The data indicate that linguistic identities in Timor-Leste are multiple, situated and contested, particularly amongst the younger participants. However, the data also show that, in spite of these contestations, there is higher congruity between official and popular language policy discourses than might be expected, given the negative reporting East Timorese language policy has received in the Australian media. The thesis concludes that a more socially accommodating conception of identity would imply stronger efforts to promote respect for Tetum as the language of national unity and identity. This involves promoting it as a language fit for schooling and use in high-status domains. A socially accommodating approach to language planning would also imply a substantive commitment to indigenising literacy and promoting the national languages as symbols of local identity. The thesis presents the case for a consistently maintenance-oriented promotion policy approach that moves beyond mere tolerance and symbolic recognition of the endogenous languages. A language-as-resource ideology and a bottom-up approach to language planning which grants agency and voice to traditionally less powerful social actors and communities are advocated as essential to policy success. This is the first doctoral study of language policy, planning and practices in Timor-Leste. The methodological significance of the thesis lies in its respecification and integration of analytical tools from critical discourse analysis and ethnographic approaches in order to understand the effects of language shift and reform on language communities and their speakers. The theoretical significance of the thesis lies principally in its contribution to a theory of ecological language policy and planning in producing a set of principles for sustainable ecological language management.

The article analyzes the French migration policy in the 1960s and 1970s, when a large number of migrant workers from the Maghreb countries arrived in the country, with an emphasis on the significance of the decree on family reunification that came into force in 1976. In modern historiography, both French and Russian, there is an idea that this decree became one of the main mistakes of the presidency of Valery Giscard d'Estaing, symbolized the beginning of the policy of opening borders, attracting a large number of migrants from North Africa to the Fifth Republic and ultimately served as a starting point for the spread of Islam in France, the growth of religious radicalism and, in general, to the modern crisis of national and religious identity. The article is based on the latest achievements of French and Russian historiography. In particular, for the first time in Russian historiography, the results of the research of the French historian Muriel Cohen are introduced into scientific circulation, largely due to which the interpretation of the 1976 decree has changed in France. The article shows that in fact, the procedure for family reunification has not changed significantly since the end of World War II. However, depending on economic conditions and the degree of need for new migrants, law enforcement practice has changed. The French authorities liberally interpreted the issue of housing compliance with established standards in the 1960s during a period of shortage of workers, and vice versa, seriously approached the issuance of certificates of compliance with housing conditions in the 1970s. During the growth of unemployment and discontent of the French population with a large number of migrants from the Maghreb countries. Thus, the decree adopted in 1976 did not make significant adjustments to the migration policy of France and did not lead to an increase in the number of migrants in the country.

The aim of this chapter is to analyse the role of Islam in the religious policy of Kazakhstan, a country with a predominantly Muslim population, which at the same time maintains a secular political system. The author examines how the Kazakh authorities shape their relations with Islam, particularly in the context of striving to maintain a balance between national identity, internal security and the need to support traditional religious values. The chapter also discusses the influence of the Soviet legacy, the role of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Kazakhstan, countering radicalisation, and attempts to form a ‘national Islam’ in line with the official state policy. The analysis draws on relevant literature, government documents, and reports from international organisations.

Regionalism is an important element in the representation of French identity. Often considered as a right-wing ideology, it appeared as a left-wing movement in the 1960s, and references to regionalism are to be found in much French political discourse today. This article highlights the place of the regionalist element in French identity by advancing the hypothesis that for more than a century there has been a dual French identity. The Third Republic asserted that France was 'one and indivisible', but also that the country was richly diverse. The exaltation of diversity permitted the reaffirmation of French superiority over other nations. In order to develop a mass education grounded on patriotic feeling, those responsible for education declared that this had to be based on children's spontaneous affection for their 'petite patrie'. The regional identities celebrated in republican France are not at odds with national identity. The process of constructing national identities in Europe led to the creation of a 'check-list' forming the basis of all national identities. Regional identities were constructed on the basis of a dual relationship between the local and the national: the model of the national as a perfect mosaic of diversity, or the model of the 'mise en abyme', that is, the local representing the national in miniature.

Recent works of modern French history have found it fashionable, when focusing on the eighteenth century from across the jagged shoals of nineteenth- and twentieth-century France, to reductively treat Francophone national identity as the dialogical interaction of two related “imagined communities.” On the one hand, as scholars such as Joseph Byrnes have unconvincingly argued, French national identity after the Enlightenment and Revolutionary eras has been shaped by the more secular “Cult of the Nation,” nourished by the Revolutionary ethos ofliberté,égalité, andfraternité; on the other hand, there is the identity of France as Europe's first, most Catholic people. Such stark contrasts between opposing identities, which were in fact self-consciously nourished and cultivated by nineteenth-century writers, are overdrawn, and yet the increasingly dialogical character of French national identity in the centuries after the Revolution remains relevant to the subject of eighteenth-century historiography, for the definition of French national identity or identities is intricately intertwined with the unfolding of Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment identities that arose in various nuanced forms from the intellectual and religious history of France. Recently, provocative and timely work by Jonathan Israel, Dale Van Kley, and Darrin McMahon has taken up different aspects of these broader questions concerning why and when these competing visions may have sprung from the soil of eighteenth-century France. A remaining historiographical curiosity lingers as many historians of the French Revolution are quick to ascribe this dichotomy chiefly to the years after 1791 when the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the Oath of Allegiance made allegiance to the Revolutionary government more complicated for less Gallican, more ultramontane priests. On the other hand, historians of the French Enlightenment continue to focus on the inherently secular, scientific, and anticlerical nature of thesiècle de lumièresas though the Church were inevitably opposed to Enlightenment innovations after mid-century, preferring and harshly defending (as Jonathan Israel has recently and voluminously argued) a comfortable and cautious acceptance of Lockeanism and Newtonianism as the only forms of Enlightenment discourse considered acceptable and capable of synthesis with Catholic orthodoxy. Differing historical perspectives on the relationship between the Enlightenment and religion remain central to the identity of participants in the French Enlightenment at various points throughout the eighteenth century and after, and such questions continue to inform the definition of what it means to be “French” today. As such, the historical processes of Enlightenment identity formation continue to require examination; such processes—one of manylietmotifswithin the complex and invaluable conversations opened by the works of Israel, McMahon, and Van Kley—will be the subject of this article. For scholars remain far from a consensus on just what it meant to be Catholic and Enlightened together in the century preceding the French Revolution.

This chapter examines the ‘conflict thesis’, the assumption that science and religion are incommensurable, in its Irish context. As evolution, especially Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection, is so pivotal in these debates, the chapter is organized around the publication of Origin of Species (1859). It first surveys science and religion in early nineteenth-century Ireland, particularly the role of education, before exploring the variety of responses to Darwin and how these were not as acrimonious as commonly supposed. It demonstrates that ‘scientific’ denoted an epistemological and methodological approach rather than a discipline, and how this led to controversy over scientific approaches to the Bible. Next, it demonstrates how scientific naturalists such as John Tyndall appropriated Darwinism as a secular ideology as part of a contest for cultural authority. Finally, it considers how science, religion, and national identity became inextricably linked during the campaign for Home Rule and eventual partition of Ireland.