Save the Muslim Woman, Save the Republic: Ni Putes Ni Soumises and the Ruse of Neoliberal Sovereignty

Abstract

Using the successful Maghrebi-French feminist organisation Ni Putes Ni Soumises (NPNS) as an analytical springboard, this article examines the French Republic's sudden investment in promoting sexual equality and sexual freedom in the banlieues. Broadly, I hold that understanding the state's embrace of NPNS and its investment in Maghrebi-French sexuality requires that scholars attend to the historicity of the contemporary neoliberal moment in France. Specifically, I analyze the secular-republican discourse of a sexual clash of civilisations and the concomitant intersection of immigrant integration and sexual normalisation. I then examine how the state's investment in normalising Maghrebi-French women's sexuality is framed as the reassertion of a republican authority made vulnerable in an era of waning sovereignty. I argue that the embattled Muslim woman stands in ultimately for the embattled Republic, and that her sexual emancipation by the Republic saves the Republic as well. Finally, I double back to critically assess the rhetoric of waning sovereignty, suggesting that the self-narrative of economic and political impotence is a ruse of neoliberal sovereignty. I propose, therefore, that NPNS is an ally to and alibi for the neoliberal French state, enabling the simultaneous disavowal and reinstatement – indeed, the reinstatement under the guise of disavowal – of neoliberal power.