Menton, France: Racism remains Europe’s disease. It takes a range of forms from outright exclusionism to the milder practice of labelling everyone according to ethnicity or religion, and making broadly pejorative comments about people based on the above.
In France, the great current national debate is about “belonging and not belonging”. Who is French and who is not? France has had a divided soul on this question dating all the way back to the French Revolution. Much earlier than most other countries, France separated citizenship from ethnicity. In theory at least a citizen of France was French regardless of ethnicity. From this starting point---by the beginning of the 20th century---the concept of a secular educational system developed in which the teaching of religion and the display of religious symbols was banned.
But France has been very leaky around the edges since time immemorial on the creation of a society in which ethnicity and religion are not factors in determining social ranking. Although France was a country that opened its doors to immigrants for many decades---without immigration since 1945, the population of the country would be millions fewer than the current population of 62 million---the prejudice against immigrants has been a powerful, politically salient, issue over the past couple of decades.
The central target of anti-immigrant sentiment is the six million strong community of Muslims, who are mostly of North African origin. Several years ago, the French National Assembly passed legislation banning the wearing of religion symbols by students in public schools. While Muslims were not singled out in the legislation, the visceral political goal of the exercise was to ban the wearing of the voile (head scarf) by Muslim school girls. While secular republicanism was being proclaimed, a line was being drawn between the majority and the Muslim minority.
It is not difficult to encounter the sentiments that keep race, religion and immigration live issues in France. Over the past month in the corner of France where I reside---Menton and the rest of the Cote d’Azur---immigrant bashing has come up in many conversations, no matter what has been the ostensible topic of conversation.
Some immigrants fit in much better than others is the sentiment of one group of older French and Italian and speakers I encountered. This group settles on the idea that Chinese immigrants----of whom there are few in this region---are inoffensive and don’t make trouble, in striking contrast to other immigrant groups. Too many immigrants, one Italian tells me, won’t work in old, established societies such as France and Italy that have a great national culture to protect. In newer societies such as that of Canada, he says, this doesn’t matter so much because Canadians don’t really have such a prized culture. (I’ve encountered this idea many times. Europeans puff themselves up and proclaim their strong identification with a culture that goes back a thousand years and more. They look at me as though I am a naked, barely formed creature as a Canadian with much less to lose than they. Meanwhile, I watch them signing up for wireless Internet, and getting ready to try out their skating skills on the artificial rink being readied for Christmas on the shore of the Mediterranean. Christmas here, where there is no snow, is tarted up with pine trees sprinkled with something that is supposed to look like snow. The big movie here in recent weeks was the new James Bond offering. Apparently cultures can absorb all of these inputs, while the sight of brown faces threatens the supposed connections dating back to the dawn of time.) I meet a middle aged British woman who says she now feels no affinity with London. It is no longer a city where you hear English spoken on the Underground she says. In Central London, all you hear is Russian, she claims.
If these constant ethnic and racial narratives form the background, there is also the foreground where naked racism is on display. A few weeks ago a mob of Paris Saint Germain supporters converged on a McDonald’s in central Paris after a soccer game with an Israeli team. They moved in threateningly on one Israeli supporter and a black man who was nearby. Under threat, the black man, who was an undercover cop drew his weapon and fired, killing one man and wounding another. The policeman has since been cleared of wrong-doing on the grounds of self-defence.
The PSG fans were from an extremist group known as the Kop of Boulogne, whose adherents have attended games. Their practice was to sit together in one section where they chanted racist slogans and picked fights with other fans and supporters of other teams. Following the shooting at the McDonalds, the Kop of Boulogne section of the stands has been shut down and members of the group are banned from the games.
The fact that such racist groups have attached themselves to soccer teams in France, England, Italy and other European countries, bespeaks the wider problem of overt racist dialogue and thuggery.
I’ll have more to say on this question of “belonging and not belonging” in Europe in future posts.
In France, the great current national debate is about “belonging and not belonging”. Who is French and who is not? France has had a divided soul on this question dating all the way back to the French Revolution. Much earlier than most other countries, France separated citizenship from ethnicity. In theory at least a citizen of France was French regardless of ethnicity. From this starting point---by the beginning of the 20th century---the concept of a secular educational system developed in which the teaching of religion and the display of religious symbols was banned.
But France has been very leaky around the edges since time immemorial on the creation of a society in which ethnicity and religion are not factors in determining social ranking. Although France was a country that opened its doors to immigrants for many decades---without immigration since 1945, the population of the country would be millions fewer than the current population of 62 million---the prejudice against immigrants has been a powerful, politically salient, issue over the past couple of decades.
The central target of anti-immigrant sentiment is the six million strong community of Muslims, who are mostly of North African origin. Several years ago, the French National Assembly passed legislation banning the wearing of religion symbols by students in public schools. While Muslims were not singled out in the legislation, the visceral political goal of the exercise was to ban the wearing of the voile (head scarf) by Muslim school girls. While secular republicanism was being proclaimed, a line was being drawn between the majority and the Muslim minority.
It is not difficult to encounter the sentiments that keep race, religion and immigration live issues in France. Over the past month in the corner of France where I reside---Menton and the rest of the Cote d’Azur---immigrant bashing has come up in many conversations, no matter what has been the ostensible topic of conversation.
Some immigrants fit in much better than others is the sentiment of one group of older French and Italian and speakers I encountered. This group settles on the idea that Chinese immigrants----of whom there are few in this region---are inoffensive and don’t make trouble, in striking contrast to other immigrant groups. Too many immigrants, one Italian tells me, won’t work in old, established societies such as France and Italy that have a great national culture to protect. In newer societies such as that of Canada, he says, this doesn’t matter so much because Canadians don’t really have such a prized culture. (I’ve encountered this idea many times. Europeans puff themselves up and proclaim their strong identification with a culture that goes back a thousand years and more. They look at me as though I am a naked, barely formed creature as a Canadian with much less to lose than they. Meanwhile, I watch them signing up for wireless Internet, and getting ready to try out their skating skills on the artificial rink being readied for Christmas on the shore of the Mediterranean. Christmas here, where there is no snow, is tarted up with pine trees sprinkled with something that is supposed to look like snow. The big movie here in recent weeks was the new James Bond offering. Apparently cultures can absorb all of these inputs, while the sight of brown faces threatens the supposed connections dating back to the dawn of time.) I meet a middle aged British woman who says she now feels no affinity with London. It is no longer a city where you hear English spoken on the Underground she says. In Central London, all you hear is Russian, she claims.
If these constant ethnic and racial narratives form the background, there is also the foreground where naked racism is on display. A few weeks ago a mob of Paris Saint Germain supporters converged on a McDonald’s in central Paris after a soccer game with an Israeli team. They moved in threateningly on one Israeli supporter and a black man who was nearby. Under threat, the black man, who was an undercover cop drew his weapon and fired, killing one man and wounding another. The policeman has since been cleared of wrong-doing on the grounds of self-defence.
The PSG fans were from an extremist group known as the Kop of Boulogne, whose adherents have attended games. Their practice was to sit together in one section where they chanted racist slogans and picked fights with other fans and supporters of other teams. Following the shooting at the McDonalds, the Kop of Boulogne section of the stands has been shut down and members of the group are banned from the games.
The fact that such racist groups have attached themselves to soccer teams in France, England, Italy and other European countries, bespeaks the wider problem of overt racist dialogue and thuggery.
I’ll have more to say on this question of “belonging and not belonging” in Europe in future posts.
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