Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of Its Leaders Think So
By: Norimitsu Onishi
Well welcome to our world...................
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Politicians and prominent intellectuals say social theories from the United States on race, gender and post-colonialism are a threat to French identity and the French republic.
A demonstration against racism and police brutality in Paris last year. Protests across France were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States.Credit...Mohammed Badra/EPA, via Shutterstock
By Norimitsu Onishi
- Published Feb. 9, 2021Updated Feb. 10, 2021
Lire en francais
PARIS — The threat is said to be existential. It fuels secessionism. Gnaws at national unity. Abets Islamism. Attacks France's intellectual and cultural heritage.
The threat? "Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,'' said President Emmanuel Macron.
French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. "There's a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,'' warned Mr. Macron's education minister.
Emboldened by these comments, prominent intellectuals have banded together against what they regard as contamination by the out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture.
Pitted against them is a younger, more diverse guard that considers these theories as tools to understanding the willful blind spots of an increasingly diverse nation that still recoils at the mention of race, has yet to come to terms with its colonial past and often waves away the concerns of minorities as identity politics.
Disputes that would have otherwise attracted little attention are now blown up in the news and social media.The new director of the Paris Opera, who said on Monday he wants to diversify its staff and ban blackface, has been attacked by the far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, but also in Le Monde because, though German, he had worked in Toronto and had "soaked up American culture for 10 years."
The publication this month of a book critical of racial studies by two veteran social scientists, Stephane Beaud and Gerard Noiriel, fueled criticism from younger scholars — and has received extensive news coverage. Mr. Noiriel has said that race had become a "bulldozer'' crushing other subjects, adding, in an email, that its academic research in France was questionable because race is not recognized by the government and merely "subjective data.''
The fierce French debate over a handful of academic disciplines on U.S. campuses may surprise those who have witnessed the gradual decline of American influence in many corners of the world. In some ways, it is a proxy fight over some of the most combustible issues in French society, including national identity and the sharing of power. In a nation where intellectuals still hold sway, the stakes are high.
With its echoes of the American culture wars, the battle began inside French universities but is being played out increasingly in the media. Politicians have been weighing in more and more, especially following a turbulent year during which a series of events called into question tenets of French society.
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Women's rights activists protesting last year against Mr. Macron's appointment of an interior minister who has been accused of rape and a justice minister who has criticized the #MeToo movement.Credit...Francois Mori/Associated Press
Mass protests in France against police violence, inspired by the killing of George Floyd, challenged the official dismissal of race and systemic racism. A #MeToo generation of feminists confronted both male power and older feminists. A widespread crackdown following a series of Islamist attacks raised questions about France's model of secularism and the integration of immigrants from its former colonies.
Some saw the reach of American identity politics and social science theories. Some center-right lawmakers pressed for a parliamentary investigation into "ideological excesses'' at universities and singled out "guilty'' scholars on Twitter.
Mr. Macron — who had shown little interest in these matters in the past but has been courting the right ahead of elections next year — jumped in last June, when he blamed universities for encouraging the "ethnicization of the social question'' — amounting to "breaking the republic in two.''
"I was pleasantly astonished,'' said Nathalie Heinich, a sociologist who last month helped create an organization against "decolonialism and identity politics.'' Made up of established figures, many retired, the group has issued warnings about American-inspired social theories in major publications like Le Point and Le Figaro.
For Ms. Heinich, last year's developments came on top of activism that brought foreign disputes over cultural appropriation and blackface to French universities. At the Sorbonne, activists prevented the staging of a play by Aeschylus to protest the wearing of masks and dark makeup by white actors; elsewhere, some well-known speakers were disinvited following student pressure.
"It was a series of incidents that was extremely traumatic to our community and that all fell under what is called cancel culture,'' Ms. Heinich said.
To others, the lashing out at perceived American influence revealed something else: a French establishment incapable of confronting a world in flux, especially at a time when the government's mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic has deepened the sense of ineluctable decline of a once-great power.
"It's the sign of a small, frightened republic, declining, provincializing, but which in the past and to this day believes in its universal mission and which thus seeks those responsible for its decline,'' said Francois Cusset, an expert on American civilization at Paris Nanterre University.
France has long laid claim to a national identity, based on a common culture, fundamental rights and core values like equality and liberty, rejecting diversity and multiculturalism. The French often see the United States as a fractious society at war with itself.
But far from being American, many of the leading thinkers behind theories on gender, race, post-colonialism and queer theory came from France — as well as the rest of Europe, South America, Africa and India, said Anne Garreta, a French writer who teaches literature at universities in France and at Duke.
"It's an entire global world of ideas that circulates,'' she said. "It just happens that campuses that are the most cosmopolitan and most globalized at this point in history are the American ones.''
The French state does not compile racial statistics, which is illegal, describing it as part of its commitment to universalism and treating all citizens equally under the law. To many scholars on race, however, the reluctance is part of a long history of denying racism in France and the country's slave-trading and colonial past.
"What's more French than the racial question in a country that was built around those questions?'' said Mame-Fatou Niang, who divides her time between France and the United States, where she teaches French studies at Carnegie Mellon University.
Ms. Niang has led a campaign to remove a fresco at France's National Assembly, which shows two Black figures with fat red lips and bulging eyes. Her public views on race have made her a frequent target on social media, including of one of the lawmakers who pressed for an investigation into "ideological excesses'' at universities.
Pap Ndiaye, a historian who led efforts to establish Black studies in France, said it was no coincidence that the current wave of anti-American rhetoric began growing just as the first protests against racism and police violence took place last June.
"There was the idea that we're talking too much about racial questions in France,'' he said. "That's enough.''
Three Islamist attacks last fall served as a reminder that terrorism remains a threat in France. They also focused attention on another hot-button field of research: Islamophobia, which examines how hostility toward Islam in France, rooted in its colonial experience in the Muslim world, continues to shape the lives of French Muslims.
Abdellali Hajjat, an expert on Islamophobia, said that it became increasingly difficult to focus on his subject after 2015, when devastating terror attacks hit Paris. Government funding for research dried up. Researchers on the subject were accused of being apologists for Islamists and even terrorists.
Finding the atmosphere oppressive, Mr. Hajjat left two years ago to teach at the Free University of Brussels, in Belgium, where he said he found greater academic freedom.
"On the question of Islamophobia, it's only in France where there is such violent talk in rejecting the term,'' he said.
Mr. Macron's education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, accused universities, under American influence, of being complicit with terrorists by providing the intellectual justification behind their acts.
A group of 100 prominent scholars wrote an open letter supporting the minister and decrying theories "transferred from North American campuses" in Le Monde.
A signatory, Gilles Kepel, an expert on Islam, said that American influence had led to "a sort of prohibition in universities to think about the phenomenon of political Islam in the name of a leftist ideology that considers it the religion of the underprivileged.''
Along with Islamophobia, it was through the "totally artificial importation'' in France of the "American-style Black question" that some were trying to draw a false picture of a France guilty of "systemic racism'' and "white privilege,'' said Pierre-Andre Taguieff, a historian and a leading critic of the American influence.
Mr. Taguieff said in an email that researchers of race, Islamophobia and post-colonialism were motivated by a "hatred of the West, as a white civilization.''
"The common agenda of these enemies of European civilization can be summed up in three words: decolonize, demasculate, de-Europeanize,'' Mr. Taguieff said. "Straight white male — that's the culprit to condemn and the enemy to eliminate."
Behind the attacks on American universities — led by aging white male intellectuals — lie the tensions in a society where power appears to be up for grabs, said Eric Fassin, a sociologist who was one of the first scholars to focus on race and racism in France, about 15 years ago.
Back then, scholars on race tended to be white men like himself, he said. He said he has often been called a traitor and faced threats, most recently from a right-wing extremist who was given a four-month suspended prison sentence for threatening to decapitate him.
But the emergence of young intellectuals — some Black or Muslim — has fueled the assault on what Mr. Fassin calls the "American boogeyman.''
"That's what has turned things upside down,'' he said. "They're not just the objects we speak of, but they're also the subjects who are talking.''
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Even they get it
Trump and his supporters are off topic.
The French aren’t often right about that much but In the case of the subject here, they nailed it! Right on!
Get what? French intellectuals are all over the map as they have always been and their public 'discourses' are played out like professional sporting events and God forbid the rabble ever has the temerity to chime in.
Ummmmm....
Get what?
It's hard , unless one is familiar with the players in French politics and cultural matters, and I doubt if any of us are with the exception of Bob Nelson, to know what comments are coming from the right, the center or the left of French politics.
I thought this was a key section
France cannot blame the United States for their problems. They were a colonial nation in their own right and face their own karma. All the "racial" problems of today stem from the centuries that European countries colonized non white peoples. It is a sister issue to slavery in the US.
I'd say the great problems for France involve:
1) a declining population
2) EU laws on immigration
3) Multiculturalism
1) France's population is growing.
2) France has its own laws on immigration and since 2019 have become much stricter.
3) Multiculturalism is a squirrel that dies within a generation.
In the past ten years, France’s population growth rate has decreased significantly to 0.22%. This growth will become even smaller in the coming years until 2045 when population growth becomes negative.
2) France has its own laws on immigration and since 2019 have become much stricter.
According to immigration statistics, the majority of immigrants that move to France come from other European Union countries (45%) or from north-western African (Maghreb) countries (30%). For the last few decades, the flow of immigrants has increased, causing serious discussions in government. As a result, immigration policy was made stricter.
3) Multiculturalism is a squirrel that dies within a generation.
According to immigration statistics provided by the Institut national d'études démographiques , in the year 1999, almost a quarter (25%) of the population of France was defined as either being immigrants or having immigrant ancestors. For the last decade, this number grew dramatically.
Get what?
It's hard , unless one is familiar with the players in French politics and cultural matters, and I doubt if any of us are with the exception of Bob Nelson, to know what comments are coming from the right, the center or the left of French politics.
I thought this was a key section
France cannot blame the United States for their problems. They were a colonial nation in their own right and face their own karma. All the "racial" problems of today stem from the centuries that European countries colonized non white peoples. It is a sister issue to slavery in the US.
I wouldn't get excited.
[deleted] The linked article is actually entitled ''Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of Its Leaders Think So''
Not exactly the same, hmmm? It's a puff piece.
I've had seeds deleted for an altered title, but hey! [deleted]
Number one, it isn't Vic's seed no matter how you would like it to be. Number two, the story was linked to another story from the NYT. The title was not altered by me or anyone else. For your edification
One was in reference to the other. A simple google would have shown you that but, you be you. Oh, and thanks for reading.
Sorry, Jim...
[deleted]
When I clicked on the box in the article that reads "seeded content" it took me to a headline that says what Bob says it says ''Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of Its Leaders Think So'' .
Maybe you should go through your explanation again.
Don't you have that title here too?
Maybe you should look closer
I guess someone just changed it.
It's been that way since I got here.
Just Jim has already changed the title of this seed to match the title in the body of the seeded article. But if one looks at the browser tab for that article one will find that the title there is what Jim had originally shown when he first seeded it. That is the title that pops in when you go to use the "Fetch Seed" tool here at NT (I tried it to verify). Sometimes the actual title of the web source does not match the title they show in the body of the article.
So this has been much ado about nothing significant. Carry on.
I really dont care what the title was. I just mentioned that when you clicked on "seeded content" it showed the headline that Bob Nelson said it did. I believe he got some deletions for his trouble.
Slavery still exists in the world - in Africa.
Wow... those old, white, Frenchmen loathe us Americans. If the French public are finally catching up, good for them.
As someone that speaks with French coworkers / citizens weekly, let me tell you... most are just like you and me Jim. They believe in the live and let live ideology. They're just normal people with normal problems and "normal" families.
When my ancestors came to North America from France and Belgium, they were friendly with Native Americans; many of whom married and had children with them. Then, when Haitians began coming through the Port of New Orleans, some of my ancestors met and married some of them too. My ancestors came to North America for a different life than they could get in France or Belgium. The got it and helped form a lot of bonds and a lot of trust. My family also helped form many of today's Canadian, Michigan, and Wisconsin cities.
I read the article, and though I am quite unfamiliar with the names and ideologies of French politicians and university leaders, it seems to me that what the article is about is French society being challenged by ideas about diversity that are being absorbed from American sources. The French elites seem to think all their problems are solved by saying that are a non racial society. That isnt up to the elites, it is up to all the people of France. France held colonies in Asia and Africa , and North America, for centuries. Any racial or religious "unrest" taking place in France now can most likely be traced to resentment over that colonization history.
I dont get what your family history has to do with this.
You're right. It's not up to the elites. It IS up to the people of France. I do believe that I said, "If the French public are finally catching up, good for them."
My family history is just anecdotal, why you take issue with that, I'm unsure. My ancestors fled from asshole leaders in France... they helped fight for Native American and African Americans freedoms, so while yes anecdotal, it shows correlation in historical events. Hence, my comment about catching up.
I often wonder why you have to circumvent with rude commentary, especially when it's not even your article / seed... I wasn't even replying to you with that comment.
I dont think its rude to ask what you family history has to do with the French people coming to terms with the contradictions in their racial policies.
Not exactly. No one would be so foolish as make such a claim. More accurate to say that a non-racial society is an ideal.
They're opposed to ''communitarism'', undue allegiance to a community other than France.
It's tricky, because a necessary corollary is to include ''other'' in French traditions. Obviously, the largest community involved is the children of North African immigrants. Muslims. While France is militantly secular, most of the population is nominally Catholic. Few are practicing Catholics, but the traditions die hard.
North Africa was French colonies... a situation that ended with gunfire... and worse...
The North Africans in France came after independence, to work in French industry. And we all know what has been happening to labor since the 1970s...
It's hard to evaluate. There are plenty of examples of successful Muslims, and plenty of examples of how badly Muslim integration is going.
(The parallel is race, in America.)
Anecdotal evidence is always welcome MsAubrey.
Seems that Macron is trying to get Le Pen and the far-right into his camp. It's election time.
''mooshchipiikishkwayhk'' this is a world from the Metis Language meaning nonsense. The Metis people are French/Ojibwe/Cree or Menominee and are the largest indigenous group in Canada and they are also in Montana, ND, MN and WI, and MI. Their language is a combination of French, Cree, and Ojibwe. I'm sure that they are ROTFL over this article.
BTW, the title of this article isn't as shown here. If you click on seeded content this is the title of the article.
Will American Ideas Tear France Apart? Some of Its Leaders Think So
It is my understanding that changing the title of a seeded article isn't allowed.
See my post above to Bob and note I changed it to stop the ............."objections" to the other NYT article
Maybe you should have seeded the other one.
All I did was the fetch. Not sure how it associated the two.
" I MADE A MISTAKE! I CORRECTED IT AS SOON AS IT WAS BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION!"
Please see my post above at 3.1.8
Woke? Did someone say "WOKE"? ... aw crap, did I miss it?
Nothing important. Go back to sleep.
Perhaps this has something to do with their forward looking sight.
Perhaps they don't want this to happen..........
Maybe they don't want this to catch on after the questions raised in our election about mail in.
Snark usually masks ignorance. If you don't know what you're talking about, you're doubling down.
French voting is completely different.
First, the election is for one single office. President, mayor, region, parliament, EU. That's lots of elections, but each is clear. One ballot.
(Functions like judge or police or dog-catcher are not elected.)
Second, voting is on Sunday, not on a work day. (There is no party trying to prevent people from voting.)
Third, no waiting. I have never waited more than five minutes.
Fourth, rapid results. The polls close between 5 and 6 PM, the big cities being open later. The results are broadcast at 8 PM. Changeover never takes more than a few days.
Vote Sunday. Five minute wait.
Maybe we should build a statue and send it to them