L'identité nationale saisie par les logiques de racisation. Aspects, figures et problèmes du racisme différentialiste

Abstract

NATIONAL IDENTITY FRAMED IN THE LOGICS OF RACISATION The cross-roads term « identity », both essential and abstruse, gives place to some paradoxes in the field of ideologico-political discourse. The antinomy between individuo-universalism (absolutization of individual) and communitarism (absolutization of an exclusive type of group belonging) mainly underlies most of the conflicts taking the form of the opposition nationalism-racismlhumanitarism-antiracism. Three operations characterize the last fifteen years of French racist speeches : the « racialization » of vocabularies of culture, religion, traditions and mentalities ; the rhetorical shifting from the inegalitarian argument to the differencialist argument - (Mixophobia is the term suggested for designating the presently dominant form of racism integrated in nationalism, the bible of which being propagated by the national-populist discourse (Le Pen) and legitimated by the differentialism of the New Right) - ; the systematic use of a strategy of « retortion », defined as an operation of re-using- appropriation, self-legitimation and dis-legitimation of the ennemy. When interweaving nationalism and racism, the racist arguments can both justify and contest nationalist doctrines in the name of bio-anthropological sciences. An analysis of J.M. Le Pen's recent texts cause to distinguish three logics of racisation : differentialist, preferentialist and inequalitist.