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Is France Racist?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2008

Extract

Is France racist, as Michel Wieviorka has suggested in a recent book?1 And if so, why? Is France more or less racist than her European neighbours, and is the degree of racism increasing or decreasing? These questions are being hotly debated in the wake of the electoral successes of the National Front, which is seen as a ‘racist’ party by three-quarters of French people old enough to vote.2

Type
Essays on France
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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References

1 Wieviorka, Michel, La France raciste (Paris: Seuil, 1992).Google Scholar An investigation of racism in the population at large by means of group discussions based on the principle of ‘sociological intervention’, the groups being made up of dwellers in areas of racial tension, policemen, social workers and skinheads, in five contrasting regions (Roubaix, Mulhouse, Marseille, Cergy, Montfermeil).

2 ‘Would you say that the National Front is “racist”?’ ‘Yes’ 87 per cent, ‘no’ 8 per cent, no answer 5 per cent. Opinion poll by SOFRES for Le Monde, Jan. 1994, nationwide sample of 1,000 French people of voting age.

3 On the origin and uses of the word see, in particular, the studies by Taguieff, Pierre-André, especially La Force du préjugé. Essai sur le racisme et ses doubles (Paris: La Découverte, 1987)Google Scholar; Face au racisme, 2 vols (Paris: La Découverte, 1991); Les Fins de l'antiracisme (Paris: Michalon, 1995). See also Colette Guillaumin, L'Idéologie raciste, Genèse et langage actuel (The Hague: Mouton, 1972).

4 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, De près et de loin (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1988), 208.Google Scholar

5 Discussion in the Senate and the Sorbonne, Paris, 27–28 March 1992, Université Paris XII Val de Marne. Transactions published in Mots, Vol. 33 (1992) under the title ‘Sans distinction de…race’.

6 AGRIF (Alliance Générale contre le Racisme et pour le Respect de l'Identité française et chrétienne) was founded by Bernard Antony, one of the leaders of the National Front, to counteract anti-racist organisations. It takes legal action against anything it considers to be a manifestation of ‘anti-French’ or ‘anti-Catholic’ hostility. See Camus, Jean-Yves and Monzat, René, Les Droites nationales et radicales en France (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1992), 377–81.Google Scholar

7 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, Race et histoire (Paris: Gonthier, 1961), 1920.Google Scholar

8 Opinion poll by SOFRES for the Centre d'Étude de la Vie Politique Française (CEVIPOF) between 9 and 20 May, based on a nationwide sample of 4,032 French people aged 18 and over, using quota method. See CEVIPOF, L'Électeur français en questions (thereafter L'Électeur français) (Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1990)Google Scholar, and the English translation edited by Boy, Daniel and Mayer, Nonna, The French Voter Decides (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993).Google Scholar

9 The most comprehensive study of the Protocol and its later exploitation was edited by Taguieff, Pierre-André: Les Protocoles des sages de Sion. Faux et usages d'un faux, 2 vols (Paris: Berg International, 1992).Google Scholar

10 Nonna Mayer, ‘Ethnocentrisme, racisme et intolérance’, in L'Électeur français, 17–43.

11 Cayrol, Roland, ‘Les Français, le racisme et la lutte anti-raciste’, in Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l'Homme, 1992. La lutte contre le racisme et la xénophobie (Paris: La Documentation française, 1993), 5976.Google Scholar CSA opinion polls of a nationwide sample of French people of voting age, Feb. and Oct. 1990, Nov. 1991, Nov. 1992. The sample was classified according to the responses: ‘Convinced racist’ 21.4 per cent; ‘Tinged with racism’ 33.9 per cent; ‘Not sure’ 7.4 per cent; ‘Lukewarm anti-racist’ 8.9 per cent; ‘Convinced anti-racist’ 23.5 per cent; ‘Militant anti-racist’ 4.9 per cent.

12 Adorno, Theodor W., Frenkel-Brunswick, Else, Levinson, Else and Sanford, Nevitt R., The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper and Row, 1950)Google Scholar; Allport, Gordon, The Nature of Prejudice (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1954).Google Scholar

13 See Selznick, Gertrude J. and Steinberg, Stephen, The Tenacity of Prejudice. Antisemitism in Contemporary America (New York: Harper and Row, 1969).Google Scholar

14 A slang word for an Arab, applied to children of immigrants from North Africa who were born in France.

15 ‘Would you say that you personally are quite racist (+ + ), a bit racist ( + ), not very racist (−) or not at all racist (−−)?’

16 Opinion poll of a sample of the adult population (aged 15 and over) of the twelve EC countries: 11,795 persons were interviewed at home by experienced pollsters as part of the Eurobarometer 30 scheme. The results were published as Eurobaromètre. L'opinion publique dans la Communauté européenne. Racisme et xénophobie (Brussels: Commission des Communautés Européennes, 1989).

17 On Italy in particular see Wieviorka, Michel, ed., Racisme et xénophobic en Europe. Une comparaison Internationale (Paris: La Découverte, 1994).Google Scholar

18 For an overview of Eurobarometers from 1988 to 1994 see the paper by Anne Melich, ‘Comparative European Trend Survey Data on Racism and Xenophobia’, given at the European Consortium for Political Research workshop on ‘Racist Parties in Europe: A New Political Family’, Bordeaux, 27 April-2 May 1995. For a detailed analysis of the Italian, French, German, Belgian and Austrian evidence see also the paper by Gilles Ivaldi, ‘Cognitive Structures of Xenophobic Attitudes among Supporters of Extreme Right-wing Parties in Europe’, Ibid.

19 See Mayer, Nonna, ‘L'antisémitisme français à l'aune des sondages’, in Wieviorka, Michel, Racisme et modernité (thereafter Wieviorka, Racisme et modernité) (Paris: La Découverte, 1992), 278–88.Google Scholar

20 Telephone survey of a sample of 936 French people aged 18 and over by IFOP for Le Monde, La Marche du siècle and RTL, 20–21 Sept. 1994: Le Monde, 13 Oct. 1994.

21 See especially Kinder, Donald R. and Sears, David O., ‘Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism versus Racial Threats to the Good Life’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 40 (1981), 414–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sears, David O., ‘Symbolic Racism’, in Katz, Phyllis A. and Taylor, Dalmas A., eds., Eliminating Racism: Profile in Controversy (New York: Plenum, 1988), 5384CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pettigrew, Thomas F., ‘The Nature of Modern Racism in the United States’, Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, Vol. 2, no. 3 (1989), 291303.Google Scholar For a dissenting view emphasising the persistence of‘biological’ racism see Lemaine, Gérard and Ben Brika, Jeanne, ‘Le rejet de l'autre: pureté, descendance, valeurs’, in Fourier, Martine and Vermès, Geneviève, eds, Ethnicisation des rapports sociaux (Saint-Cloud/Paris: ENS Editions Fontenay Saint-Cloud/Editions de l'Harmattan, Paris, 1994), 196235.Google Scholar

22 See the important book by Taguieff, Geneviève, La Force du préjugé. Essai sur le racisme et ses doubles (Paris: La Découverte, 1987)Google Scholar, and idem, Sur la Nouuelle Droite (Paris: Descartes et Cie, 1994).Google Scholar

23 Thomas F. Pettigrew and R. W. Meertens, ‘Le racisme voilé: dimensions et mesure’, in Wieviorka, Racisme et modernité, 109–26. National surveys in the four countries mentioned were conducted in 1988 with the assistance of Gérard Lemaine (EHESS, Paris), James Jackson (University of Michigan) and Ulrich Wagner (University of Bochum).

24 On racist violence in Europe and the complex relationship between racial violence and the electoral successes of racist and extremist parties, see the interesting paper of Ruud Koopmans, ‘A Burning Question: Explaining the Rise of Racist and Extreme Right Violence in Western Europe’, given at the ECPR workshop on ‘Racist Parties in Europe’.

25 On the factors contributing to the establishment of the NF as an electoral force, see the papers by Pascal Perrineau, ‘Les étapes d'une implantation électorale (1972–1988)’, and Piero Ignazi, ‘Un nouvel acteur politique’, in Mayer, Nonna and Perrineau, Pascal, eds, Le Front National à découvert (Paris: Presses de la FNSP, 1989), 3762, 63–80.Google Scholar See also Mayer, Nonna and Perrineau, Pascal, ‘Why Do They Vote for Le Pen?’, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 22 (1992), 123–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the structure and organs of the party and the development of a ‘frontist’ system of thought see Birenbaum, Guy, Le Front National en politique (Paris: Balland, 1992).Google Scholar