SEMANTICS OF RACE AND NATION IN CONTEMPORARY FRANCE

Abstract

For centuries France has lauded a republican tradition that defines national belonging in terms of civic and legal parity. Within this conception of nationhood, race and ethnicity are seen as extraneous and inconsequential in extending the French citizenship to non-nationals. However, a historical survey of the politics of citizenship both within France and in the overseas departments yields a more complex narrative, where race and racialization have been problematically tethered to the practices and the politics of national belonging and the extension of the French civic parity. In the context of the recent presidential race, defined by the remarkable rise and appeal of the far-right, critical discussions around race and the racial politics of nation and national belonging have gained renewed currency, as several candidates mobilized longstanding themes of immigration and the anti-social impact of non-European ethnic settlement on meanings of Frenchness and the French national identity. This study seeks to analyze the recent electoral debates in light of the ongoing critical discussion around race and immigration in France. The prominence of immigration as a rallying point in electoral campaigning is viewed as a rather older development that can be traced back to at least the public discourse surrounding North African settlement in the 1980s and 1990s. An essential feature of this discourse is that it rearticulates and encodes “race” in more subtle, politically correct cultural idioms, notably “nation” and “endangered national French identity.”