Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America: Multicultural Perspectives on Political, Cultural and Artistic Representations of Immigration 9783030301576, 3030301575

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Chapter 1: Introduction: The Realities of Multicultural Societies
References
Part I: Citizenship and Integration: Espousing or Combating Official Political Discourses on Multiculturalism and National Identity
Chapter 2: Nationalistic Secularism and the Critique of Canadian Multiculturalism in Quebec
Introduction
Quiet Secularization
Invisible Secularism
Nationalist Secularism
Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Francophones, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism in Canada, Quebec and Europe
Will Kymlicka’s Definition of Culture
Kymlicka’s Multiculturalism: Views and Inquiry
Multiculturalism and Religion
Tariq Modood and Multiculturalism in the United Kingdom
Christian Joppke’s Is Multiculturalism Dead?
Interculturalism in Europe
Interculturalism in Quebec and Canadian Multiculturalism
The Bouchard-Taylor Commission (2008) and Cultural Relations in Quebec in 2019
Doug Saunders and Arrival City
The Desire to Belong?
Conclusion
References
Chapter 4: The Regulation of Migration, Integration, and of Multiculturalism in Twenty-First-Century France
Introduction
Theoretical Considerations: The Politics of Migration
Theoretical Considerations: The Politics of ‘Integration’ and Multiculturalism
Migration Policy and Integration Under Sarkozy and Hollande
Sarkozy’s Regulation of Migration
The Politics of Integration Under Sarkozy
Migration and Integration Under François Hollande
Macronisme, Migration, and Integration
Conclusions
References
Chapter 5: Representing French Citizenship and Belonging in La Desintégration (2011) by Philippe Faucon
Contextualization of the Malaise in France and the Rise of Youth Radicalization
Disintegration of the French Republican Model in Faucon’s La Désintégration
Conclusion
References
Part II: How Can One Be Muslim, Immigrant and French? Literary and Cinematic Expressions of Belonging in France and Québec
Chapter 6: Redefining Frenchness: Thomté Ryam’s Banlieue Noire and En attendant que le bus explose
Fictional Testimonies, Testimonial Fictions
Narrative Polyphony and Multi-Ethnic Urban Peripheries
References
Chapter 7: The Integration of Muslim Maghrebis into Quebec: France as the Model Not to Follow
Introduction
From France’s Rejection to Quebec’s Seduction
French and Quebec Politics: Similar Debates, Different Answers
Maghrebis of France and Quebec: A Shared Socio-Economic Reality, a Shared Future?
Maghrebi Writers of Quebec: Becoming Quebecers
Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Feminist Citizenship in the Banlieue: Houda Benyamina’s Divines (2016)
References
Filmography
Chapter 9: “Let me explain: this is who I am”: Interview with Anita Aloisio with Introduction by Dervila Cooke
Introduction
Interview with Anita Aloisio
Conclusion
References
Part III: Framing Identity and Nationality: Crimmigration, Islamophobia and the Politics of Ethnic Exclusion
Chapter 10: Shy Elitism: A New Keyword in Critical Multiculturalism Studies
Introduction
“Gentlemanly Experts in the Business of Fighting Gentleman Bigots”: The Early Years of Multiculturalism
“Racists and Liberals Differed Significantly”: Frances Henry and a Canadian Race Relations Industry
Multiculturalism Means Business
Conclusion
References
Chapter 11: On the Islamophobic Mind and Its Agenda in France
Islamophobia and the Intellectual Landscape in France
Conceptualization of Islamophobia
The Return of a Concept
Phobia Between Feeling and Fueling the Feeling
Islamophobia and the Perverted Meaning
Islamophobia and Its Agenda
References
Chapter 12: Framing the Immigration Discourse and Drawing the Citizen: Concrete Representations of the “Migration Crisis” in Comics Journalism
Mis-representing Immigrants: What’s in a Word?
The Reporter as Author and Witness: Literary Reportage Versus News Coverage
Conclusion
References
Chapter 13: Navigating Diversity: Multiculturalism as a Heuristic
Introduction
The Political Challenges of Cultural Diversity
Multiculturalism and Political Intent in Canada
Multiculturalism as a Heuristic
Multiculturalism and Hope
References
Index

Citation preview

Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America Multicultural Perspectives on Political, Cultural and Artistic Representations of Immigration

Edited by Ramona Mielusel · Simona Emilia Pruteanu

Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America

Ramona Mielusel  •  Simona Emilia Pruteanu Editors

Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America Multicultural Perspectives on Political, Cultural and Artistic Representations of Immigration

Editors Ramona Mielusel Modern Languages Department University of Louisiana at Lafayette Lafayette, LA, USA

Simona Emilia Pruteanu Department of Languages and Literatures Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, ON, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-30157-6    ISBN 978-3-030-30158-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Alex Linch / shutterstock.com This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To all the people in movement through countries, borders and identities looking to belong

Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to the wonderful contributors to this volume. In alphabetical order, we thank Abderrahman Beggar, Daniel McNeil, David Koussens, Dervila Cooke, Michael Samers, Michela Ardizzoni, Patrick Imbert, Rebecca Blanchard and Typhaine Leservot. You have been with us on this journey from the beginning, written compelling chapters and have always gracefully and swiftly responded to all our requests. We would be remiss if we did not acknowledge Chris Anderson, not only as the author of the poignant concluding chapter but also for gracefully reading all the submissions and providing us with invaluable feedback and constant positive support. Michelle Chen, our editor, is the epitome of professionalism: we could not be more grateful for their help and guidance. Thank you for your enthusiasm and trust in our ideas. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of our proposal for their detailed analysis and comments that were helpful in developing our ideas further and filling in the gaps on the complex aspects of the discussions on multiculturalism and national identity both in France and in Quebec. We are also grateful for the extremely careful reading of each individual chapter by external reviewers who have provided our contributors with many insightful comments and suggestions. We all feel that this thorough process has resulted in a stronger manuscript. To our Wilfrid Laurier colleague, Jane Newland, a special thank-you for fine tuning our English on more than one occasion throughout this process. vii

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Last but not least, Ramona Mielusel would like to thank Mazen and Simona Pruteanu Ariana and Cosmin for allowing us to devote so much of our time to this project. As coeditors, we are thrilled to bring these debates on multiculturalism to the public.

Contents

1 Introduction: The Realities of Multicultural Societies  1 Ramona Mielusel and Simona Emilia Pruteanu References  13 Part I Citizenship and Integration: Espousing or Combating Official Political Discourses on Multiculturalism and National Identity  15 2 Nationalistic Secularism and the Critique of Canadian Multiculturalism in Quebec 17 David Koussens Introduction  17 Conclusion  28 References  31 3 Francophones, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism in Canada, Quebec and Europe 33 Patrick Imbert Will Kymlicka’s Definition of Culture  35 Kymlicka’s Multiculturalism: Views and Inquiry  37 Multiculturalism and Religion  37

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Contents

Tariq Modood and Multiculturalism in the United Kingdom  39 Christian Joppke’s Is Multiculturalism Dead?  40 Interculturalism in Europe  42 Interculturalism in Quebec and Canadian Multiculturalism  43 The Bouchard-Taylor Commission (2008) and Cultural Relations in Quebec in 2019  43 Doug Saunders and Arrival City  45 The Desire to Belong?  46 Conclusion  47 References  51 4 The Regulation of Migration, Integration, and of Multiculturalism in Twenty-First-­Century France 55 Michael Samers Introduction  55 Theoretical Considerations: The Politics of Migration  57 Theoretical Considerations: The Politics of ‘Integration’ and Multiculturalism  59 Migration Policy and Integration Under Sarkozy and Hollande  61 Macronisme, Migration, and Integration  67 Conclusions  70 References  72 5 Representing French Citizenship and Belonging in La Desintégration (2011) by Philippe Faucon 77 Ramona Mielusel Contextualization of the Malaise in France and the Rise of Youth Radicalization  78 Disintegration of the French Republican Model in Faucon’s La Désintégration  81 Conclusion  90 References  95

 Contents 

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Part II How Can One Be Muslim, Immigrant and French? Literary and Cinematic Expressions of Belonging in France and Québec  97 6 Redefining Frenchness: Thomté Ryam’s Banlieue Noire and En attendant que le bus explose 99 Rebecca Blanchard Fictional Testimonies, Testimonial Fictions 101 Narrative Polyphony and Multi-Ethnic Urban Peripheries 106 References 113 7 The Integration of Muslim Maghrebis into Quebec: France as the Model Not to Follow115 Typhaine Leservot Introduction 115 From France’s Rejection to Quebec’s Seduction 117 French and Quebec Politics: Similar Debates, Different Answers 119 Maghrebis of France and Quebec: A Shared Socio-­Economic Reality, a Shared Future? 122 Maghrebi Writers of Quebec: Becoming Quebecers 124 Conclusion 128 References 131 8 Feminist Citizenship in the Banlieue: Houda Benyamina’s Divines (2016)135 Michela Ardizzoni References 147 9 “Let me explain: this is who I am”: Interview with Anita Aloisio with Introduction by Dervila Cooke151 Dervila Cooke Introduction 151 Interview with Anita Aloisio 155 Conclusion 165 References 167

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Part III Framing Identity and Nationality: Crimmigration, Islamophobia and the Politics of Ethnic Exclusion 169 10 Shy Elitism: A New Keyword in Critical Multiculturalism Studies171 Daniel McNeil Introduction 171 “Gentlemanly Experts in the Business of Fighting Gentleman Bigots”: The Early Years of Multiculturalism 175 “Racists and Liberals Differed Significantly”: Frances Henry and a Canadian Race Relations Industry 181 Multiculturalism Means Business 183 Conclusion 188 References 194 11 On the Islamophobic Mind and Its Agenda in France199 Abderrahman Beggar Islamophobia and the Intellectual Landscape in France 199 Conceptualization of Islamophobia 201 The Return of a Concept 202 Phobia Between Feeling and Fueling the Feeling 204 Islamophobia and the Perverted Meaning 206 Islamophobia and Its Agenda 209 References 214 12 Framing the Immigration Discourse and Drawing the Citizen: Concrete Representations of the “Migration Crisis” in Comics Journalism217 Simona Emilia Pruteanu Mis-representing Immigrants: What’s in a Word? 218 The Reporter as Author and Witness: Literary Reportage Versus News Coverage 220 Conclusion 229 References 232

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13 Navigating Diversity: Multiculturalism as a Heuristic235 Christopher G. Anderson Introduction 235 The Political Challenges of Cultural Diversity 237 Multiculturalism and Political Intent in Canada 239 Multiculturalism as a Heuristic 244 Multiculturalism and Hope 249 References 251 Index255

Notes on Contributors

Christopher G. Anderson  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the Wilfrid Laurier University. His research encompasses both historical and contemporary studies of Canadian citizenship, multiculturalism, immigration and refugee policy. He is the author of Canadian Liberalism and the Politics of Border Control 1867–1967 and coauthor with J. H. Black of the study The Political Integration of Newcomers, Minorities, and the Canadian-Born: Perspectives on Naturalization, Participation, and Representation (2008). Michela Ardizzoni  is an Associate Professor in the Department of French and Italian (with an affiliation in the Department of Media Studies) at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her book Matrix Activism: Global Practices of Resistance was published with Routledge Press. Abderrahman Beggar  is a Full Professor in the Department of Religion and Culture at the Wilfrid Laurier University. His research, which includes seven authored books, covers questions of ethics, transculturalism and collective memory. He is also the author of two novels. Rebecca  Blanchard completed her PhD at the University of Toronto, where she holds a Limited Term Appointment. She has authored several book chapters and articles such as “Carceral States in Kaoutar Harchi’s Zone cinglée,” in Journal of Romance Studies (vol. 36, issue 1–2) Banlieue Narratives: Voicing the French Urban Periphery, 2018; “Militant or moderate? Abd al Malik’s Literary Representations of the French Banlieue,” in Radical Action, Radical Subject: Roots, Representations, Symbols and xv

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Creations (2015), edited by Nicholas Giguère and Dominique Hétu; and “Ferdinand Oyono and Ahmadou Kourouma: The Fictional Diary and the Postcolonial Quest for Identity,” in Autobiography as a Writing Strategy in Postcolonial Literature (2015), edited by Benaouda Lebdai. Dervila Cooke  teaches French and Francophone literature and language at Dublin City University, Ireland. Publications relevant to this volume include a 2011 article on the Italo-Quebecois author Marco Micone (“Hybridity and Intercultural Exchange in Marco Micone’s Le Figuier enchanté,” The French Review), and the December 2016 volume of Comparative Literature and Culture (online, CLCWeb), entitled “New Work in Immigration and Identity in France, Québec, and Ireland,” which she edited. The introduction to the latter volume is complemented by a 450-item thematic bibliography, mainly of works produced since 2000. Patrick Imbert  is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Ottawa. He is also the director of the University Research Chair entitled “Canada: Social and Cultural Challenges in a Knowledge-Based Society.” He has published 43 books (among them 5 fictions) and 300 articles dealing with multiculturalism, transculturalism, exclusion/inclusion, Québec and French literatures, and semiotics. He is the director of an SSHRC (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada)-funded project entitled “Stories which are told to us: between exclusion and inclusion.” David  Koussens is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, University of Sherbrooke, where he holds the Research Chair in Law, Religion and Secularity. Based on this dual sociological and legal perspective, his research analyzes the interactions between social representations on secularism and legal arrangements regulating religious diversity in Western societies. Typhaine Leservot  is Associate Professor of French in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and Letters at Wesleyan University. Leservot’s research focuses on Maghrebi (Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian) and Caribbean literatures, cultures, and diasporas in France and Québec. Leservot’s publications include Le Corps mondialisé: Marie Redonnet, Maryse Condé, Assia Djebar (L’Harmattan 2007), and articles and book chapters on Maryse Condé, Assia Djebar, the Muslim veil in Québec, Saint-Domingue refugees in Louisiana, Occidentalism in Marjane Satrapi’s Persépolis, and Francophone Postcolonial theory.

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Daniel  McNeil is an Associate Professor at Carleton University, Canada. McNeil’s award-winning research contributes to the multidisciplinary, transdisciplinary and antidisciplinary analysis of the African and Black Diaspora. His recent publications include chapters in Film Criticism in the Digital Age, American Shame: Stigma and the Body Politic and Slavery, Memory, Citizenship. He is also the author of Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic: Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs (2009). In recognition of his recent and ongoing research projects, McNeil received the 2018 Research Achievement Award from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Office of the VicePresident (Research and International) at Carleton University. Ramona  Mielusel is Associate Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA.  Her research interests include Francophone Migrant Literature and Cinema, Transnational Studies, Contemporary France and the Maghreb. Her research focuses on contesting national identities in the works of artists of Franco-Maghrebi origin in France. She is the author of Langue, espace et (re)composition identitaire dans les oeuvres de Mehdi Charef, Farid Boudjellal et Tony Gatlif (L’Harmattan 2015) and Franco-Maghrebi Artists of the 2000s: Transnational Narratives and Identities (2018). Simona Emilia Pruteanu  is an Associate Professor in the Department of Languages and Literatures at the Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Her first book entitled Migrant Writing in France and in Quebec: A Comparative Analysis was published in 2013. Her research interests also encompass the concept of americanité in Québec and in Latin America. Among her most recent articles she counts “Entre l’Amérique du Nord et l’Amérique du Sud: création d’un nouveau métarécit québécois dans trois romans d’Alain Beaulieu” (Études en littérature canadienne 41.1, 2016), “Cooking, Language, and Memory in Farhoud’s Le Bonheur à la queue glissante and Thúy’s Mãn” (CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 18.4, 2016). Michael Samers  is an Associate Professor at the University of Kentucky. His research and teaching interests lie broadly in economic and urban geography but particularly in the political-economic, urban, and socio-­ theoretical dimensions of migration/immigration, as well as alternative forms of economic development and international finance. He is the coauthor of four monographs and the single author of a submitted manuscript entitled Beyond the banlieue: On the economic lives of young people of immigrant origin in France’s ‘poorest city’.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Realities of Multicultural Societies Ramona Mielusel and Simona Emilia Pruteanu

In 1971, Pierre Eliott Trudeau announced to the House of Commons the creation of multiculturalism as an official Canadian policy, based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. In the 1970s–1980s, multiculturalism was first understood in the context of recognizing cultural diversity and perceiving it as being positive and desirable. Cultural groups, other than French and English Canadians, were encouraged to maintain their identity within the bilingual framework. Trudeau’s initiative was presented as an end to racial and ethnic inequality, so it came as no surprise that it was accepted unanimously by all parties except for the strong objections of Quebec premier Robert Bourassa, which were formulated in an open letter to Trudeau and first published in Le Devoir on November 1971.1 Bourassa would not R. Mielusel (*) Modern Languages Department, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. E. Pruteanu Department of Languages and Literatures, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_1

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accept that French-Canadians were placed on the same level as other ­ethnic groups in Canada and concluded in his letter that since the federal government was taking charge of “all the other cultures which are to be found in Canada, Quebec must take on within its own territory the role of prime defender of the French language and culture”.2 This is why, to date, Quebec still rejects what Jocelyn Maclure defines as “the imposition of Canadian-style multiculturalism in Quebec”,3 a policy which is seen as encouraging ghettoization and fragmentation, and as conflicting with Quebec’s own integration policy, that is, “interculturalism” (“After the Bouchard-Taylor Commission” 31).4 The reaction against multiculturalism in Quebec has sparked numerous debates on ethnic, cultural, and religious values5 and culminated in what has become known in the media as the “crisis”6 of “reasonable accommodations” (2006–2008). While the Bouchard-Taylor Commission came to a more optimistic conclusion in 2008 regarding the lack of danger surrounding the foundations of collective life in Quebec, many have been quick to point how this debate helped the agenda of entities such as the Parti Quebecois or extreme right-wing groups, which are openly anti-immigration, such as Maryse Potvin notes: This debate also revealed a sort of backlash to legitimate, inclusive, egalitarian discourse in the social fabric of Quebec. It left the field open for racializing discourse that inverted the values enshrined in the charters and human rights legislation. The persistence of the UsThem barriers became obvious, as did the feeling among some members of the public and elected officials that their identity was threatened. (“Social and Media Discourse”)

The Canada Multiculturalism Act of 1988 legally acknowledged multiculturalism as a key feature of Canadian society which allowed all individuals to celebrate their cultural heritage with no impediments to their participation in Canada’s social and political scenes. While other countries with a similar influx of immigrants seemed to be promoting assimilation, Canada was the first country in the world to officially advocate for integration. This ‘cultural mosaic’, to reprise John Murray Gibbon’s 1938 title, was also glorified in contrast to the American ‘melting pot’ ideal, with some researchers pointing to the fact that it is easier to avoid assimilation when one does not have a strong identity model by which to be assimilated: “the absence of a national type and the absence of a clear and specific national faith which all Canadians could profess, meant that there was nothing to which an immigrant could be required to assimilate”.7

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Since the 1970s, a version of this model of inclusiveness, anti-racism, and opening toward other cultures has been adapted more or less successfully by other highly ethnic and diverse European countries like England, the Netherlands, and Sweden. In another category, we have France, Germany, Denmark, and Italy, countries which Pieter Bevelander and Raymond Taras refer to as multicultural societies without multiculturalism, “that is societies that are characterized by diversity despite the absence of a policy specifically promoting multiculturalism”.8 France, one of the most culturally diverse countries in Europe due to its colonial past, has never adopted the term multiculturalism as it would clash with its republican core model.9 This political model does not recognize minority groups as such, be they ethnic or religious. The archetypal republican model of integration, where citizens are considered to be equal political actors independent of specificities (cultural, ethnic, and religious), is of prior importance in the Hexagon. Jeremy Jennings (2000) brings into discussion an interesting point of view in this sense, stating that France, despite an astonishing level of cultural as well as ethnic diversity and despite being an immigrant society, has remained a monocultural society (575). He shares this opinion with other specialists in the field by stressing the idea of individual rights and equal opportunities for the French nationals without any exception of race, gender, or social class: “Multiculturalism is […] un-French. It sanctions unequal rights. It countenances communities closed upon themselves. It places culture before politics, groups before individuals” (589). Therefore, after several failed attempts to apply multicultural principles to French society, politicians and theoreticians alike concluded that it was not a proper policy in the French context. History attests there has been no clear institutional recognition of the differences and of the pluralism of identities in French society. Jennings believes that for the French citizen, belonging to the French Republic constitutes a political act, one that also brings into the light a vocation toward universalism and secularism (577). The educational and military systems have always been seen as the principal sites, or locations, of individual emancipation and national acceptance. However, they have started to be perceived by new generations with an immigrant background as a form of European ethnocentrism that is nothing else but a form of domination and an imposition of neo-colonial rules (579). Sophie Duchesne, in Citoyenneté à la Française, proposes two models which serve to characterize distinct self-representations of French citizenship in contemporary France: citoyen par héritage and citoyen par

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scrupules. In this line of thought, French citizenship is tied to a specific culture and a specific national past (581). Nevertheless, the universalism and secularism of the French Republic have been put into question over the last 20–30 years by the reality of Islam. For example, for the young people of France, Islam has come to signify the construction of a certain identity within French society. The recent public debates/laws around the wearing of distinctive religious signs while in the public sphere (most of them aimed at the veiled Muslim women or bearded integrists) have opened the discussion on Jacobin values such as laïcité, integration, and freedom of expression. According to Gaspard and Khosrokhavar, in their co-signed book Le Foulard et la République (1995), for young French Muslim women, the veil has turned more into an expression of identity than a sign of Islamic fundamentalism. It represents, for a great majority, a desire for integration without assimilation, an aspiration to be French and Muslim. These recent debates raised the reasonable question that comes to French nationals’ mind: “How can France adapt and how far should it go in modifying the basic principles of republicanism to include the ethnic diversity on its soil but keep its Jacobin founding principles?” Dominique Schnapper, a member of the Constitutional Council of France from 2001 to 2010 and a renowned sociologist, suggested a modernizing republicanism where the Republic has to become a “community of citizens” (cited in Jennings, 589) who share common republican values while preserving their specificities as part of their heritage. Joël Roman, in his book Un Multiculturalisme à la Française (1995), proposes a model of multiple French identities that would reflect the diverse ethnicities on French soil. In his opinion, the French people must give up this idea of France being an exception when it comes to dealing with diversity and starts to recognize the diversity of society and of the groups of which it is composed. The state must give French nationals, by adoption, legal recognition (droit de cité) while also promoting dialogue between the groups to bring dynamics of equality into society. Regardless of the terminology, we can conclude that the French model has been challenged by the events that took place in recent years, and major changes in its core principles are required in order to align with contemporary multicultural practices and new perceptions of citizenship and belonging in the new geopolitical realities. For the time being, as Taras and Bevelander aptly point out, it is, perhaps paradoxically, “within

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this group of states […] that we find today the bitterest repudiations of multiculturalism” (15). Thirty years after the Canada Multiculturalism Act came into effect the enthusiasm about multicultural societies seems to have faded out. As a consequence of the recent events in the west (the 2008 global financial crisis, increasing waves of refugees, and the disassembling of the European Union, among others), multiculturalism is perceived and especially presented by certain political leaders as a detrimental factor in the country’s cohesion rather than one of the founding principles of Western democracies. While visiting Munich in 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron painted state multiculturalism as a “forced marriage” which pushed different cultures to live separate lives.10 Cameron’s statement followed the same tone adopted by German chancellor Angela Merkel in 2010 when, during an address before young members of her Christian Democratic Union party, she claimed that the country’s attempts to create a multicultural society had utterly failed. What emerged from both leaders’ new approaches was a commitment to stronger efforts to ensure immigrants’ integration by protecting the founding principles of their countries and their “national identity”. Even then-French president Nicolas Sarkozy joined in the debate, sounding multiculturalism’s demise despite France’s history of never having adopted multiculturalism as official policy. This raises two questions: What sort of multiculturalism is he talking about? and Does everyone have a different notion of what multiculturalism stands for? It would seem so, and in his introduction to European Multiculturalism Revisited (2010) Alessandro Silj takes ample opportunity to comment on the persistent ambiguity of the term which is too easily replaced by a myriad of alternative words in scholarly articles and political debates alike: In addition to ‘integration’, ‘assimilation’ and ‘multiculturalism’, some have used ‘incorporation’, and others ‘pluralism’, and even ‘plural monoculturalism’ (Amartya Sen) or ‘pluriculturalism’, ‘interculturalism’, ‘communitarianism’ (co-existence of communities within the same political space), and still others such apparently intricate concepts as ‘disintegrated multiculturalism’ and ‘integrated multiculturalism’ (Michel Vieworka, in discussing the USA, on one hand and the case of Canada, Australia and Sweden, on the other). Some have spoken of ‘assimilation without participation’ (related to Switzerland). Finally, multiculturalism has been described as a fraudulent alternative to equal opportunity (John Rex).11

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The above examples clearly show that a debate over terminology would be a never-ending one, as would be trying to come up with the “right” answer to the question: Is multiculturalism really dead? A simple Google search with these exact terms brings up no less than 5,090,000 results in the form of book titles, scholarly and newspaper articles, and blogs and radio show transcripts, to name just a few. If we were to choose one answer we favor Christophe Bertossi’s analysis of the “European multicultural model”, which, he claims, has never existed as it is defined in Canada or Australia, not even in Britain: When politicians, opinion leaders and scholars dispute the ‘failure’ or the ‘successes’ of the British policies of integration in terms of ‘multiculturalism’ being (or not) a ‘solution of the past’ and implying (or not) ‘separation’, the normative battle around ‘multiculturalism’ hides the rapid transformations these policies have gone through over the past thirty years, with a shift of their focus respectively from ‘race’ to ‘ethnicity’ and now to ‘religion’, including Islam.12

However, Bertossi does not imply that “French republicanism” or “British multiculturalism” are mere fantasies. Instead he calls them “mistaken models” which scholars have long taken for granted without questioning, for example, the functioning of a single univocal model of French republicanism. In addition, journalists, sociologists, political scientists, and ordinary citizens adopted the terms without question. Nonetheless, the meaning of concepts such as laïcité or ‘multiculturalism’ differs from one social group to another, with visible consequences in practice. This is what Bertossi and Jan Willem call the “performative effect” of national models whose concrete materialization in social life must be analyzed per se: In France, the ‘mistaken model’ (i.e., the idea of a consistent French republican tradition since 1789) results in a re-emphasis on the so-called ‘republican values’ that must be defended against the challenge of Islam, and in a return to policy narratives that had been abandoned in the mid-1980s when ‘integration’ replaced the notion of ‘assimilation’. […] The very existence of the ‘republican model’ is not discussed.13

Bertossi concludes that the existence of these contradictory and unstable national models, not multiculturalism, is what led to the current “integration crisis” in Europe, which has never been applied as such. Furthermore, he sees the theme of “integration crisis” as a “strategic and discursive

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idiom of European politics today” which serves in what he calls “the ultrapoliticization of immigration, race and ethnicity” (247). Nowadays, the ‘crisis of multiculturalism’ seems to center on notions such as national identity and citizenship, which also need re-framing. In addition, with the European Union seeming to fall apart after Britain’s exit, we also see the end of a project that 20 years ago hailed a common European citizenship. Instead, “under the pretence that multiculturalism is the problem, national politics in Europe have converted to the idea of homogeneity, which stands as an impossible political narrative on which de facto multicultural societies will achieve the project of equality and inclusion they claim to be ground on” (Bertossi, 249). The present contributions seek to offer a critical assessment of the way in which current filmmakers, authors, policy-makers, and politicians from France and Canada discuss notions of citizenship and belonging in the context of changing views on national identities and immigration policies worldwide. The United States, while mentioned in several chapters, is not really a focus of this volume. For the state of the debate there, we recommend edited volumes such as American Multiculturalism after 9/11: Transatlantic Perspectives (2009) or Jack Citrin and David O. Sears’s comprehensive study on American Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism (2014). The majority of the contributions in this volume dwell on the topic of cultural or religious differences, which distinguishes the debate from the one within the US borders, as Chloé Fabre points out: “While in the United States minorities are designated ethnically or racially, in Europe, the only viable description is cultural  – is there any ethnic difference between a Catalan and a Spaniard?”14 While most of the chapters concentrate on visible minority groups in France and Quebec, we can notice a recurring group throughout the volume: the (Franco)-Maghrebi. This tendency on focusing on this particular ethnic group can be explained in the current political and cultural context on both continents by the spread of Islam seen as becoming the second largest religion after Christianity and by the growing nationalist and Islamophobic trends in France and Canada. Especially concerned with preserving the national identity core and principles on one hand and the internal security on the other, both countries fear the presence of Muslims on their soil and try to regulate it. French conservative and reactionary writers are especially vocal when it comes to proposing controversial, yet, popular ideas against immigration, targeting Islam followers. For Renaud Camus, author of the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory (2011), the

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Franco-French population (White and Christian) is being progressively replaced by the non-European populations. He represents a prominent intellectual figure who urges France “to stay French”. Lest they be replaced with subsequent generations of non-white non-Christian populations. This argument was later resumed by Éric Zemmour, right-wing French writer, journalist, and political analyst, the author of Le suicide français (2014) and Le déstin français (2018). In his view, Islam (embodied by the immigrant populations residing in Europe)15 is the cause of the identity crisis in Europe. Taking the French model as an example, he argues that the immigrant populations are not willing to integrate the French nation and obey the secular rules. On the contrary, they are looking at integrating a diaspora and at preserving their own cultural traits and imposing the religious laws of their faith, Islam. Therefore, he sees this phenomenon as a cultural rebellion that creates partition in France and, if addressed, could possibly lead to the creation of an état dans l’État (state within the State) and even a civil war. On the other side of the spectrum, there are left-wing intellectuals who go in the same sense as Macron and support a France that has to accept the consequences of its past and adapts to the realities of the present. In Bernard-Henri Lévy’s view, France has a moral responsibility in accepting the Syrian refugees and the other immigrants coming from the south as they were involved in the war and violence in those respective areas. He invokes the idea of French hospitality that is the fundamental principle of the French nation. Patrick Boucheron joins Lévy’s idea in his book Histoire mondiale de la France (France in the World) published in 2017 by talking about the influence of foreign cultures over French life throughout the centuries. The left intellectuals such as Lévy and Boucheron are calling for a revision of the French and European views on extreme nationalism and protectionism that can lead to division and conflicts by showing that historically France was an inclusive and diverse society. We consider therefore that by paying particular attention to this political, social, and cultural aspect, we can contribute to the conversation about the role Muslims and (Franco)-Maghrebi play in contemporary French and Canadian politics. We have grouped the contributions in three main parts which share a key theme: that of re-thinking the concept of citizenship in today’s world. This structural organization is intended to offer a comparative approach to the topic of multicultural studies in the light of immigrant processes and their consequences/implications on national and international policies. The volume provides an extensive overview of political, cultural, and

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a­ rtistic representations of the interrogations on citizenship and belonging in France and Canada in the last 20 years, offering an insider/outsider view on both legal/clandestine immigration in Europe and Quebec. In the first part, our authors take up the challenge of building an updated overview on the issues of citizenship, nationality, identity, and multiculturalism as they transpire in the speeches of today’s political leaders and critical thinkers. David Koussens’s chapter opens the debate by retracing the evolution of the term secularism in Quebec in the last two decades and showing how Canadian multiculturalism may be perceived as a version of what he calls “nationalist secularism” (laïcité nationaliste). Koussens bases his arguments on the “reasonable accommodations” crisis which has been followed by numerous legal actions, the most recent being the adoption of Bill 21 on June 16, 2019 (La loi sur la laïcité de l’État du Québec). For him, the debate lies in the re-definition of the term “secularism” that now comes almost in opposition to the visibility of any religious symbol in the Canadian public sphere, with the minorities being hurt the most. Patrick Imbert’s chapter approaches multiculturalism and interculturalism in their role as theoretical approaches and social policies aimed at supporting Francophone migrant integration and cultural adaptation, specifically in Canada, Quebec, and Europe. Imbert bases his arguments on Ha’s theory, as well as thorough research and comparison of influential authors on the subject, such as Kymlicka, Bouchard, Joppke, Modood, and Saunders. He shows that cultural and economic integration are the mainstays for a successful model of a multicultural society. Following Imbert’s discussion on migrant integration, Michael Samers’s chapter centers the debate on whether President Emmanuel Macron’s policies could be called populist, like those of Hugo Chavez, or whether they stem from a more neo-liberalist tendency. Samers analyzes the most recent French immigration policies in conjunction with other civic integration policies in order to prove that Macron’s neo-liberalism does not exclude populism, which can be seen in what Samers calls “muted multicultural practices”. The Islamic radicalization and terrorism in France, which comes as an internal threat to the national identity, are the focus of Ramona Mielusel’s chapter. If a few years ago we could talk about these sorts of threats as a product of extremist groups from the Middle East or Pakistan, the hostile nationalist discourse that has developed in France as a reaction to the refugee crisis (and other political misfortunes like Islamophobia) has triggered the resurgence of radicalized youth from within the nation, who start questioning their belonging to such a social and political environment.

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In the second part, the authors borrow Montesquieu’s query on French dualism and ask themselves how one can be a Muslim, an immigrant, and also a French citizen. Rebecca Blanchard’s chapter focuses on literary representations of the banlieues space, seen as a parallel representation of Frenchness from 2005 until the present day, with a special focus on new literature produced by the multi-ethnic authors. Although the banlieues have often been portrayed by the media as violent and crime-ridden cultural wastelands that propagate radical Islam and other values deemed incompatible with French national identity, Blanchard’s view is that the young authors from the banlieues provide a counterpoint to the dominant politico-media discourse that vilified these neglected peripheries of French cities. She portrays the people of the banlieues as French citizens in their own rights, who question the republican idea of belonging in trend with the new multicultural ideas about the Western nations. In the following chapter, Typhaine Leservot joins the debate on citizenship and belonging to a Canadian (Quebecois) identity with regard to the increasing numbers of a visible minority group—those of Maghrebi origin—in Quebec, and exposes the strong political and cultural ties regarding the immigration politics between France and Quebec. While the postcolonial ties may no longer be so obvious in the Quebecois context, Leservot argues that they are implicit in the consciousness and imaginations of Maghrebi immigrants in Quebec. In her chapter, Michaela Ardizzoni offers a feminist view on the banlieues in France, which, in order to challenge a certain view of French nationality, were long considered as a space of masculinity and male violence. By performing a close analysis of a female Franco-­Maghrebi filmmaker’s first feature film from an empowering angle, she insists on the visibility and equal participation of women from the banlieues in creating France’s concept of universal citizenship. Finally, Dervila Cooke’s interview with Anita Aloisio, director of the Les Enfants de la loi 101 documentary highlights the difficulties encountered by allophones in Quebec, who were more or less forced to learn French while also pointing out how that led to perfectly trilingual citizens with a very fluid sense of their linguistic identity. The last part of the book offers clear examples of the gap between how the political narratives frame race, identity, and citizenship, and how they are actually (mis)construed by the media, the general public, and academics. Daniel McNeils take a discursive approach in his suggestively titled chapter which uses the term ‘shy elitism’ in order to unveil how Black popular cultures are being undermined by precisely the so-called institutional recognition in the form of awards and prizes. McNeil grapples with historian Robert

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Winks’s statement that Black Canadians want nothing more than to be accepted as ‘quiet Canadians’ while he analyzes the ways multiculturalism engages with race relations in Canada. McNeil argues that the media puts a spotlight—through awards and grant—on Black thinkers’ cultural production which is the least likely to generate an identity debate or promote cultural engagement. In his chapter on Islamophobia and the French Republic, Abderrahman Beggar analyzes the complexities of the term, depending on its usage by historians, writers, or politicians. While there are some that oppose the existence of such an attitude, those called negationists, and many who advocate for its erasure, historians, or de-colonialists, Beggar shows that both build a certain image of the French Republic in which Muslims are assigned a certain role. In doing so, both conceptions assign Muslim subjects the vulnerable position, that of the uncomplying immigrant or that of the victim, when it would be more useful to engage in a universally anti-racist combat on the republican principles. The construction of a “crisis mentality” (Victoria Esse et al.) is also the focus of Simona Pruteanu’s chapter, which deals with the current issue of the clandestine migrants, wrongly labeled as ‘illegal immigrants’ or ‘bogus refugees’. Taking, for example, a body of Francophone comics’ journalism, Pruteanu shows how authors have combined the graphic novel genre with those of autobiofiction as well as investigative journalism in order to help readers shake off accepted stereotypes seen in everyday media accounts of the ‘refugee crisis’. Our edited volume is therefore a testimonial of the multiple views on the political and public perception of multicultural practices and their national and international applicability in our current geopolitical context. In addition to these official discourses on multiculturalism, the chapters also provide the perceptions of the often-silenced category of the immigrants themselves on the matter. As the contributors of this book attest, basing their arguments on a range of political, sociological, and cultural theories, we cannot talk about a unique multicultural model to be adopted by all the Western countries; instead, each country (nation) in the European and North American context has to negotiate its own multicultural practices at a national scale according to their policies and political realities. The policies with regard to citizenship and integration in Europe and North America involve now, more than ever, a re-politicization of ethnicity, race, and immigration. The examples offered by the present volume stand as proof of the need to reframe the traditional discourse on integration and national identity in the new millennium.

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Notes 1. Robert Bourassa, “Objections to Multiculturalism”, in Immigration and the Rise of Multiculturalism, ed. Howard Palmer (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1975), 151–55. 2. Bourassa, op. cit. p. 152. 3. Louise Beaudouin, member of the Parti Québécois, spoke out against multiculturalism in 2011 when a group of Sikhs protesting Bill 94 (An Act to establish guidelines governing accommodation requests within the Administration and certain institutions [Online]. http://www.assnat. qc.ca/en/travauxparlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-94-39-1.html) were denied entrance to the National Assembly. She was quoted by various publications with: “Religious freedom exists, but there are other v­ alues,” she added. “Multiculturalism may be a Canadian value. But it is not a Quebec one.” “And we haven’t signed the constitution of Canada because it contains this notion of multiculturalism.” “I think we can be different.” http://www.segacs.com/2011/multiculturalism-is-not-a-quebec-value-beaudoin.html 4. According to Gérard Bouchard, interculturalism “arbitrates within a nation the relationship between a cultural majority and cultural minorities (by emphasizing) integration and promoting exchange and interaction.” (What is Interculturalism, 2011). 5. See especially the most recent books of famous Quebec socialist and columnist Mathieu Bock-Côté, such as Le multiculturalisme comme religion politique (2016) in which he likens Canadian multiculturalism to a “State doctrine” (197). Bock-Côté’s thesis alleges that multiculturalism forces the host country to change according to the immigrants’ needs and requests, rather than vice-versa and asks for the founding cultures of Canada, especially the francophone one to be recognized and allowed to preserve their identity. A response to this theory has been posted by Jocelyn Maclure on the Canadian Public Affairs blog site In Due Course: http://induecourse. ca/le-multiculturalisme-un-despotisme-replique-a-mathieu-bock-cote/ 6. In her analysis of the media’s role in covering this phenomenon Maryse Potvin found that “Many journalists contributed to the confusion by grouping reasonable accommodations—which imply an obligation to make changes in a discriminatory situation—with voluntary arrangements or private agreements, which are not born of the violation of a fundamental ­freedom. Over 75% of the “reasonable accommodations” reported in the media between March 2006 and April 2007 were actually private agreements or random anecdotes that journalists blew out of all proportion.” (Social and media discourse in the reasonable accommodations debate. Our Diverse Cities: Quebec, 7, 78–83. 2010).

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7. Allan Smith, “Metaphor and Nationality in North America”, The Canadian Historical Review 51, no. 3 (1970): 3, p. 254, quoted in Shinder Purewal, The Politics of Multiculturalism in Canada 1963–1971, M.A. Thesis, 1988. 8. Pieter Bevelander and Raymond Taras, “The Twilight of Multiculturalism”, in Challenging Multiculturalism, ed. Raymond Taras (Edinburgh University Press, 2013), p. 15. 9. French President Emmanuel Macron himself during his presidential campaign and afterward admitted that France is not looking at developing a multicultural policy copied from the Anglo-Saxon model, but is aiming at accommodating the actual culture to the diverse ethnic communities in the nation. For Macron, contemporary France is not a monolith, a univocal culture that cannot be changed and adapted to the new cultural realities, but a pluralist culture. Public declarations such as the one in Lyon during his campaign stating that “il n’y a pas une culture française, il y a une culture en France et elle est diverse, elle est multiple” provoked heated debates in the press and on television. 10. “State Multiculturalism has Failed, says David Cameron,” BBC News online, last modified February 5, 2011, https://www.bbc.com/news/ uk-politics-12371994 11. Alessandro Silj, ed. European Multiculturalism Revisited (Zed Books, 2010), p. 2. 12. Christophe Bertossi, “Mistaken models of integration?” in European Multiculturalism Revisited, ed. Alessandro Silj (Zed Books, 2010), p. 243. 13. Bertossi, op. cit. p. 249. 14. “Multiculturalism in Europe and in the US, how is it going?”, Nouvelle Europe [online]. 15. France is one of the top countries hosting an immigrant population of Muslim faith in Europe, approximately 6 million people, that is, 8% of the total population.

References Bertossi, Christophe. 2010. Mistaken Models of Integration? A Critical Perspective on the Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe. In European Multiculturalism Revisited, ed. Alessandro Silj, 235–251. London: Zed Books. Bevelander, Pieter, and Raymond Taras. 2013. The Twilight of Multiculturalism?: Findings from Across Europe. In Challenging Multiculturalism: European Models of Diversity, ed. Taras Raymond, 3–24. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Boucheron, Patrick, Nicolas Delalande, Florian Mazel, Yann Potin, and Pierre Singbaravélou, eds. 2017. Histoire mondiale de la France. Paris: Seuil.

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Bourassa, Robert. 1975. Objections to Multiculturalism. In Immigration and the Rise of Multiculturalism, ed. Howard Palmer, 151–155. Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman. Camus, Renaud. 2011. Le Grand Replacement. Paris: David Reinharc. Citrin, Jack, and David O.  Sears. 2014. American Identity and the Politics of Multiculturalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duchesne, Sophie. 1997. Citoyenneté à la Française. Paris: Presse de Sciences Po. Fabre, Chloé. 2012. Multiculturalism in Europe and in the US, How Is It Going? Nouvelle Europe [on-line]. http://www.nouvelle-europe.eu/node/1579. Accessed 29 Jan 2019. Gaspard, Françoise, and Farhad Khosrokhavar. 1995. Le Foulard et la République. Paris: La Découverte. Jennings, Jeremy. 2000. Citizenship, Republicanism and Multiculturalism in Contemporary France. British Journal of Political Science 30 (4): 575–597. Maclure, Jocelyn. 2017. After the Bouchard-Taylor Commission: Religious Accommodation and Human Rights in Quebec. Deusto Journal of Human Rights 8: 27–36. Potvin, Maryse. 2010. Social and Media Discourse in the Reasonable Accommodations Debate. Our Diverse Cities 7: 78–83. Purewal, Shinder. 1988. Politics of Multiculturalism, 1963–1971. Master’s Thesis, Simon Fraser University. Roman, Joël. 1995. Un Multiculturalisme à la Française. Esprit 212: 145–160. Rubin, Derek, and Jaap Verheul, eds. 2010. American Multiculturalism after 9/11: Transatlantic Perspectives. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Schnapper, Dominique. 1991. La France de l’intégration. Paris: Gallimard. Silj, Alessandro. 2010. In Introduction to European Multiculturalism Revisited, ed. Alessandro Silj, 1–10. London: Zed Books. Smith, Allan. 1970. Metaphor and Nationality in North America. The Canadian Historical Review 51 (3): 247–275. Villard, Florent, and Sayegh Pascal-Yan. 2013. Redefining a (Mono)cultural Nation: Political Discourse against Multiculturalism in Contemporary France. In Challenging Multiculturalism: European Models of Diversity, ed. Raymond Taras, 236–254. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Zemmour, Éric. 2014. Le suicide français. Paris: Albin Michel. ———. 2018. Destin français. Paris: Albin Michel.

PART I

Citizenship and Integration: Espousing or Combating Official Political Discourses on Multiculturalism and National Identity

CHAPTER 2

Nationalistic Secularism and the Critique of Canadian Multiculturalism in Quebec David Koussens

Introduction The entrance of the word laïcité (secularism)1 into public discourse in Quebec dates back to the controversy surrounding reasonable accommodations in 2006.2 This word had appeared in government reports and academic works in the 1990s, but it acquired genuine currency in the context of tensions around the visible expressions of religious convictions in the public sphere (Dalpé and Koussens 2016). While it has retained its currency since the mid-2000s, the word reentered the debate with a vengeance in 2013 when the minister responsible for democratic institutions and civic participation announced a draft Charter affirming the values of State secularism and religious neutrality and of equality between women and men, and providing a framework for accommodation (commonly known as the “Charter of Values”).3 The word laïcité became common in the discussions surrounding the passage of the Act to foster adherence to State religious neutrality and, in particular,

D. Koussens (*) Faculty of Law, University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_2

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to provide a framework for requests for accommodations on religious grounds in certain bodies on 18 October 2017,4 followed by that of the Act respecting the Laicity of the State on 16 June 2019.5 In this chapter, I argue that these debates, which all dealt with the visibility of religious symbols in the public sphere, fostered the emergence of a new nationalist secularism that found steadily increasing resonance in Quebec law. The first part of this chapter reviews the slow and steady process of secularization undergone by Canada and Quebec, which has taken the form of a progressive distancing of religious from civil normativities in state governance and a fuller recognition of freedom of conscience and religion for all citizens. This brief historico-legal overview of secularism in Quebec leads me, in the second section, to emphasize that the Quebec debate around secularism over the past decade or so has been driven by a combination of two realities, one juridical and the other sociological. On the one hand, the fact that secularism was never formalized, and hence defined, in a Canadian or Quebec legal provision served to keep afloat a perception that Quebec’s secularism remained an unfinished project, whence the recurring appeals by politicians and civil society actors for the principle to be inscribed in a legislative text, or even a Quebec constitution.6 This position contends that the absence of formal secularism, coupled with Canada’s policy of multiculturalism, favors a continual re-encroachment of religious concerns upon an unwilling, since now secularized, Quebec society. Furthermore, the visibility of expressions of the Islamic faith in the public sphere and public spaces is alleged to be the most blatant avatar of the phenomenon, which is predicted to intensify with the recent acceleration of immigration from majority Francophone and Islamic North African countries into Quebec. In the third section, I show that reactions to Canadian multiculturalism and irrational fears of Islam have brought a new form of nationalist secularism to the fore in both public debate and the judicial sphere. Quiet Secularization Until Quebec’s passage of Bill 21, An Act respecting the Laicity of the State, on 16 June 2019, neither Canada nor any of its provinces had ever enacted a law explicitly separating church from state, nor had they formally proclaimed secularism in a constitutional text. Yet the existence of such a text is not a necessary condition for the secularism of a state, whose political governance may nonetheless be firmly grounded in secularism. It would therefore be hard to argue on this basis that Canada is not a secular state.

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In Canada, freedom of conscience and religion, like equality before the law, rested on solid legal foundations well before its enshrinement in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. Furthermore, the separation of church from state was effected quite early in Canada’s constitutional history. An initial separation between political and religious functions was established in 1791 when the Constitutional Act put limits on the exercise of certain civil rights by Catholic and Anglican clergy members (Milot 2002, 49–50). In the next century, the silence of the Constitution Act, 1867 and the British North America Act, 1871 on religion has at times been interpreted as an initial, if implicit, affirmation of the nonexistence of a state religion. The Supreme Court of Canada has fallen in line with this long constitutional tradition7 in affirming the constitutional basis of freedom of conscience and religion,8 which, to be effective, entails that the state be separate from the country’s various churches9 and exhibit religious neutrality.10 In Quebec, the process of laicization proceeded apace in the latter half of the twentieth century, owing to a notable transformation of social and institutional structures. During this period, known as the Quiet Revolution, the nascent collective identity of French Quebecers was reconfigured around two poles: rejection of a religious past often referred to as the “Great Darkness” and characterized by the predominance of the Ultramontane tendency of the Catholic Church in public life, and a new openness to international influences that went hand in hand with worry over the continued survival of the Francophone identity in North America. This context saw the creation of a ministry of cultural affairs in 1961, a ministry of education in 1964, and a network of two-year colleges in 1968,11 each of these moves signifying the state’s intent to take increasing distance from the religious authorities. This steadily widening church-­ state separation also found expression in the health and social services system (Palard 2018). It was not until the mid-1990s that the issues of secularism received any significant public notice, with an initial debate on the Islamic veil in the schools. In September 1994, after a student was expelled from a public school for wearing a hijab, the Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse du Québec produced a report (Bosset 1995) suggesting that society devote some thinking, guided by the logic of reasonable accommodation laid down by the Supreme Court of Canada in a 1985 judgment,12 as to the place of religious symbols in the schools. While the Commission’s report did not arouse much debate in the mid-1990s, it did lead several public bodies to take a position on the issue of secularism for

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the first time; a number of them recommended that religious symbols be authorized in public institutions, adducing an inclusive conception of intercultural relations in support of their position. Around the same time, the Federal Court ruled that a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer could wear a Sikh turban.13 The court found that the presumption of neutrality inherent in working in the public sector could only be challenged on the basis of how the official does her or his job, not on the basis of a mere visible manifestation of religious faith. In short, the 1990s debates surrounding secularism focused on the conditions under which individuals may exhibit their religious beliefs in certain public institutions. These debates were followed by considerable work aimed at overhauling the confessional organization of education. With the adoption of Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms in 1975, followed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, basic human rights took on significant importance in the country’s legal order. In the new context created by the charters, the confessional organization of education took on blatantly discriminatory overtones. Nevertheless, the new legal framework was itself plagued by apparent ambiguities. While the Canadian charter protects freedom of conscience and religion, the initial incarnation of section 29 of this document reaffirmed the provisions of section 93 of the Constitution Act, 186714; in so doing, it ratified the privileges granted to Catholics and Protestants in the Quebec educational system. It was not until 1997 that these confessional privileges were repealed by a constitutional amendment,15 paving the way for the Quebec National Assembly to pass the Act to amend the Education Act,16 which came into force on 1 July 1998. This statute substituted language-based (French and English) school boards for the old confessional school boards, yet even then, numerous confessional aspects persisted in the educational system. A 1999 report tabled by a task force on religion in the schools (Groupe de travail sur les religions à l’école 1999) led to the deconfessionalization of the public schools when its recommendations were incorporated into the Act to amend various legislative provisions respecting education as regards confessional matters. Still, when this act came into force on 1 July 2000, the government included a set of “notwithstanding clauses” as a compromise measure,17 thus exempting it from applying certain Charter provisions. These clauses were finally repealed in 2008, and it is only since then that the state has achieved full neutrality in its regulation of public education. This neutrality can also be seen in the implementation of a new ethics and reli-

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gious culture program at the initiative of the Ministère de l’Éducation, du Loisir et des Sports du Québec, and also in the abolition of biconfessional Catholic and Protestant teaching in the public schools with the passage of the Act to amend various legislative provisions of a confessional nature in the education field (Bill 95).18 With this new statute, “there was now a definitive separation of church and state as regards the higher structures of the state and the status of the public schools, and in practice, the entire state apparatus was now devoid of any confessional body” (Milot 2002, 146).19 This discussion shows that the second half of the twentieth century witnessed a steady process of state secularization in Quebec. This widening divide between religious and civil normativities, resulting in better guarantees of the principles of justice (freedom of conscience and religion; equality before the law), went hand in hand with another process, that of the secularization of society, for Quebecers shook off the weight of Catholicism during this same period. The mid-2000s controversies surrounding the wearing of religious symbols thus carried the weight of a perception that religion had returned to society due to overly timid progress on the unfinished project of secularism. Invisible Secularism This period, then, witnessed an apparent paradox whereby just as secularism was making its greatest strides, a tenacious perception surfaced in Quebec political debate to the effect that the province was falling short in its efforts to complete the project. This paradox fades, however, when one recalls that the secularization of society, as embodied in the psychosocial and cultural aspects of people’s relationship to religion, tends to mark the collective memory more visibly, and to shape systems of representation more durably, than the actual accomplishment of secularism as measured by the juridical and political dimensions of church-state relations and their regulation. Thus it was that around 2006, a change in the tone of public discussions around secularism became palpable after the Supreme Court of Canada upheld a reasonable accommodation for a Sikh student, who was allowed to wear his kirpan in public school subject to certain conditions. The Multani decision20 falls within a well-established jurisprudential tradition of construing state neutrality on the basis of a liberal interpretation of freedom of conscience and religion. Yet this judgment proved highly unpopular; it sowed serious doubts among the population as to the reality of state neutrality, and consequently the secularism of Quebec.

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The Multani decision became the flashpoint for a controversy whose unflagging intensity led the government of Quebec to hold a commission of inquiry in the winter of 2007. After more than a year of work, during which they showed that the “crisis” of accommodation was first and foremost a crisis of perceptions, commission chairs Gérard Bouchard and Charles Taylor recommended that Quebec retain a liberal conception of secularism at considerable remove from “French-style” laïcité, which they considered overly rigid (Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodements reliées aux differences culturelles 2008, 125). The commission nonetheless recommended that the separation of church and state be symbolically preserved by prohibiting officials with “coercive power,” such as judges, police officers, and prison guards, from wearing religious symbols (Ibid., 150–151). The commission’s report was timidly received by the Quebec political class and the public at large, and few of its recommendations were taken up. That said, the legislative silence following the “Bouchard-Taylor moment” was certainly a serious political miscalculation, for it opened the door to nationalist discourse capitalizing on the public’s identity worries and malaise (Weinstock 2009). This change of perspective was spurred on by a political conjuncture in which the “Canadian multiculturalist” model was being depicted as a factor in the rise of communitarianism, and as such the antithesis of “French-style” republican secularism. These commentators began by invoking the debates that had taken place in 2003–04 in Ontario around a proposal to allow for the creation of Islamic family law arbitration tribunals, and depicting this phenomenon as an illustration of how the excesses of Canadian multiculturalism were letting religion back into the public sphere. Yet a 2004 report tabled in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario had stressed that such courts already existed for Christians and Jews (Boyd 2004) and recommended that they also be tolerated for Muslims, in the name of equality and social integration. This recommendation provoked sharp reactions, stirring up fears tied to the introduction of Islamic (sharia) law in Canada. Although not pursued by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, the recommendation reverberated throughout the neighboring province of Quebec, leading to the unanimous passage, on 26 May 2005, of a motion in the National Assembly against the instatement of religious courts in the province. This was a purely symbolic move, since section 2639 of the Code civil du Québec already prohibits religious family courts.

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The argument put forward by these observers continued by holding up a republican model of secularism (Baril 2013a; Parenteau 2013), often associated with France, as the alternative that Quebec should adopt in the face of this purported return of religion on the wings of Canadian multiculturalism. In particular, Quebec politicians and essayists commonly made reference to the French law of 15 March 2004 prohibiting the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols in public schools and colleges. Such references were facilitated by the cultural and linguistic proximity between Quebec and France, with the French-speaking world acting as an echo chamber for discussions of secularism between these two societies (Koussens and Amiraux 2014). Quebec subsequently witnessed a proliferation of pamphlets and newspaper articles surfing on the fear of Islam and its public manifestations. This media focus helped to deepen the putative divide between secularism and multiculturalism, with reasonable accommodations posited as the flagship of the latter approach (Bock-Côté 2008, 97). The primary purveyors of this line of argument have been journalists (e.g., Christian Rioux, Denise Bombardier, Lise Ravary, Joseph Facal, and Richard Martineau) and essayists (e.g., Djemila Benhabib, Louise Mailloux, and Mathieu Bock-Côté) close to the Parti Québécois (PQ), and later to the Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ). An analysis of Facebook posts by Denise Helly and Frédéric Nadeau even showed how an online proto-far right has coalesced in Quebec out of these strands of nationalist political argument (Helly and Nadeau 2016). In these debates, reasonable accommodations are often wrongly presented as proceeding from a corrosive effect of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodements reliées aux differences culturelles 2008, 67). On this view, such accommodations also constitute a one-way process in which “it is always the immigrants … who win [and therefore] always the French Canadians who knuckle under” (Ibid.). The (assumed but not actual) multiplication of demands for accommodation is said to demonstrate that immigrants refuse to integrate and, in so doing, “break the implicit pact with the host society” (Ibid); that they ultimately become a threat to the survival of the host culture. On this reading, the Quebecois have even become “the equivalent of an endangered species” (Lamontagne 2013, 56).21 Such representations have given rise to a perception that in conflicts over norms, believers have an advantage over nonbelievers (Milot 2006,

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6). People who demand accommodation are said to be acting as nothing more than rights-holders; they are taking advantage of the Supreme Court of Canada’s traditionally liberal interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in an attempt to realize their religious agenda and, in the end, to promote their particular identities for communitarian purposes rather than integration into a larger polity (Antonius 2013; Baril 2013b, 65; Latour 2013, 131). Certain academics have endorsed these representations, arguing that the legislative branch is in the process of ceding its decision-making authority to the judicial branch (Beauchemin 2004, 2005; Chevrier 2013). The result, they say, is that the judicial branch is emboldened in its attempts to monopolize jurisdiction over the treatment of identitarian demands, and the very existence of democracy is imperiled (Bock-Côté 2007). Along these lines, Mathieu Bock-Côté posits that “the judicialization of the political represents the culmination of the dislocation of liberal democracy, with the imperium of human rights ultimately taking the place of popular sovereignty…. The judicialization of the political thus consecrates a new political dynamic of neutralization of classical democracy, with the fundamental issues transferred to a domain in which power is no longer exercised in the name of popular sovereignty, but rather, that of a higher rationality alleged to meet the demands of multicultural coexistence” (Bock-Côté 2016, 212–13).22 Other Quebec commentators, too, have put Canadian multiculturalism on trial, with accommodation as its codefendant. Nationalist authors in particular deplore that the Supreme Court has allegedly tied the hands of the majority French-Canadians; they are said to have no choice but to accept the recognition of certain religious rights, even if those rights conflict with cultural principles they hold dear. In short, the finger has been pointed at judicial procedure itself, with some critics going as far as to argue that judges are so divorced from reality (i.e., the people’s will) that they are willing to run roughshod over majority rights for the sake of a version of multiculturalism that favors communitarian isolation by minorities, to the detriment of a strong, unified citizenry. As Daniel Weinstock notes, while this recognition is based on fundamental constitutional rights that are “unequivocally neutral in cultural terms” (Weinstock 2007, 21),23 opponents of multiculturalism insist that they nonetheless take form in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Yet this document, they claim, is itself a possible but debatable conception of the public good, one that centers largely around individualism and autonomy, and constitutes the bedrock for Canada’s multiculturalism policy.

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The upshot is that Quebec’s critics of multiculturalism cast doubt on the neutrality of Supreme Court decisions and on the reality of secularism in Canada. They argue that reasonable accommodation on religious grounds cannot be neutral insofar as it flows from a debatable and contested conception of societal organization: the predominance of religious freedom over other rights. Moreover, accommodation on religious grounds opens the door to the return of religion to the public sphere, and it thus counteracts the progress toward secularism accomplished since the Quiet Revolution. Those who hold this view believe that secularism, in sharp contradistinction to reasonable accommodation, arises from the adoption of legal definitions that can hold up a republican model of secularism as the necessary alternative to Canadian multiculturalism. This discourse is not only prominent in contemporary political debate but has gradually hived off from politics and acquired widespread currency, most notably as a result of its reappropriation within the media since the controversy over reasonable accommodations in 2006. Nationalist Secularism Since 2010, successive Quebec governments have been pushed by the media to deal with religious “problems” and have responded by using the legislative apparatus to redraw the outlines of secularism in Quebec. These legislative developments have reinforced what may henceforth be termed a nationalist version of secularism.24 Bill 94 was the Liberal Party of Quebec’s initial attempt to set guidelines for accommodation. It provided that any accommodation must conform to the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, “in particular as concerns the right to gender equality and the principle of religious neutrality of the State.” Following in the footsteps of French debate around the wearing of full face coverings and influenced by an initial controversy surrounding the wearing of this garment at a Quebec college, it provided that people who provide and receive public services must, in general, “show their face during the delivery of services.”25 After the general elections of September 2012, this bill was abandoned by the new PQ government. In its place, the government tabled a new bill, Bill 60, often called the “Charter of Values,” in November 2013.26 This document provided for the insertion of a statement on the secularism of the Quebec state into the preamble of the Charter of Human Rights and

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Freedoms. It also laid down guidelines for accommodation, prohibited the wearing of conspicuous religious symbols by public officers of Quebec, and incorporated the provisions from the previous Bill 94 concerning the showing of the face. Finally, the bill specified that “in exercising [the] freedoms and rights [enshrined in the Charter], a person shall also maintain a proper regard for the values of [separation of church and state, neutrality, and secularism] while making allowance for the emblematic and toponymic elements of Quebec’s cultural heritage that testify to its history,” such as the symbols of the province’s Catholic heritage. Following the defeat of the PQ in the general elections of April 2014, this bill was abandoned by the returning Liberal Party. Public debate over secularism continued, spurred on by the opposition parties and certain civil society actors, and in June 2015 the government tabled Bill 62, which was passed into law on 18 October 2017.27 This law does not prohibit the wearing of religious symbols by public servants but does specify the conditions for the fulfillment of their obligation of neutrality, namely, that they must not favor or disfavor a person on the grounds of his belonging to a religious denomination, or based on their own religious convictions or beliefs. The act reiterates the guidelines covering requests for reasonable accommodation on religious grounds, as well as the obligation of deliverers and users of public services to show their faces when a service is provided (Koussens and Lavoie 2018). During the campaign leading up to the general election of October 2018, the issue of secularism gained new prominence when the CAQ included state secularism in its electoral platform. After obtaining a majority in the National Assembly, the government lost no time in tabling a new bill, which was enacted on 16 June 2019.28 While this new law does at least nod toward its title by affirming the principle of state secularism (section 1), its substantive content makes it essentially a specific law about the wearing of religious symbols by public servants, rather than a general law about the establishment of secularism per se. Starting from “the characteristics [of the Quebec nation], one of which is its civil law tradition, distinct social values and a specific history that have led it to develop a particular attachment to State laicity,” the act does little more than to prohibit public officials in positions of authority (judges, police officers, and teachers in particular) from wearing religious symbols at work. The act also includes a double notwithstanding clause, referring to both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (Canadian law’s putative secret weapon for the promotion of multiculturalism) and

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the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, in order to shield it from constitutional challenges. Finally, the act provides that it “must not be interpreted as affecting the emblematic or toponymic elements of Quebec’s cultural heritage, in particular of its religious cultural heritage, that testify to its history.” The content of this act, as well as the justifications given for it by the CAQ government during public debate, indicates that secularism has been redefined as a political principle underpinned by the peculiar historical evolution of Quebec society, one that makes political association conditional upon the prior suspension of particular allegiances. On this reading, the separation of church and state has now been formalized in a legal text, thereby establishing the secularism of the state and its institutions. Nationalist secularism, as I am calling it, is purported to guarantee certain principles of justice while not being limited to them. It is also said to uphold values posited by the proponents of this conception of secularism as fundamental to society, most prominently, the primacy of French, the preservation of Quebec’s cultural and religious heritage, and the assimilation of recent immigrants. This conception of secularism can be considered reactionary because it has been constructed in reaction to the visibility of beliefs—Islam, most prominently—that are not normalized within the cultural system of the nation, and because it strives to relegitimize certain symbols—of Christianity, most notably—that are seen as integral to the Quebec nation. Speaking broadly, the nationalist character of the new secularism can be discerned, in both recent public debate and the new legal provisions, from the following indications: it is presented as a political principle (1) flowing from the specific history of church-state relations in a society; (2) ineluctably rooted in a legal system in which the separation of church and state is formalized; (3) upholding certain principles of justice, yet sidestepping the democratic principles of law because it embodies “fundamental” values that these latter principles ignore; and (4) assuming that effective civic participation is predicated on (visible) adherence to these values. It is worth emphasizing that nationalist secularism can take variable forms in law and public discourse. In one incarnation, it is primarily assimilationist; that is, it is saddled with a mission of emancipation and assimilation and may, to that end, put limits on freedom of conscience and religion by making political association conditional on the prior suspension of ­particular allegiances. Assimilationist discourse is prominent today in both French and Quebec public debate and can, where conditions are right,

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influence the political and juridical forms taken by secularism. It creates a climate in which secularism is increasingly likened to a “supreme republican value” (Lorcerie 2007, 109). The state is then guided in its political governance by the pursuit of values not fully conducive to the recognition of freedom of conscience and religion—yet this freedom is fundamental to secularism itself. In another incarnation, nationalist secularism can be differentialist. It is then charged with a mission of protecting the collective rights of the majority, which are principally associated with values asserted to emanate from the heritage or culture of the society. This might be the case where certain emblematic features, more than others—the symbols of its religious heritage, perhaps—are said to epitomize the historical trajectory of a society and are thus associated with its cultural heritage. In Quebec and France, for example, when the presence of crucifixes or nativity scenes in public institutions comes in for scrutiny, such rhetoric is often found. It also occurs prominently in the preamble to the new secularism bill of 16 June 2019: “State laicity should be affirmed in a manner that ensures a balance between the collective rights of the Quebec nation and human rights and freedoms.”29

Conclusion Although the new Quebec law only addresses the specific case of provincial public servants, it partakes of a general redefinition of secularism by limiting the scope of fundamental rights, and in particular freedom of conscience and religion, for the sake of the putative “collective rights” of the majority. The emergence of nationalist secularism in public discourse, and then in Quebec law, is not an isolated case. On the contrary, it is part of a broader movement that has affected numerous liberal democracies since the turn of the millennium, taking the form of a hardening of discussions of secularism around issues related to the visibility of religion in the public sphere. In most of these debates, secularism takes the stage—or is thrust onto it—in conjunction with controversies relating to the visibility of symbols associated with minority religions that are not normalized in the dominant culture. Members of that culture feel jostled, their traditional points of reference challenged, and they at times respond with calls for a symbolic recolonization by their own religious signs. This worry is exacerbated by local micro-events, for paradoxically, it is proximity—more geographic

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than relational—to this “alien” religious fact that intensifies the perceived threat to “common and shared” values. If such events are such powerful triggers of this secular impulse, it is because they take place at sites central to the lived realities of citizens (school, daycare, public services in general). But be that as it may, what emerges in these debates is an artificial construction of secularism, one in which this concept is circumscribed to policies concerning the visibility of these religious symbols in the public sphere. In the end, this artificial construction has the effect of shrinking the notion of secularism itself: it obscures the plurality and diversity of legal mechanisms whereby it takes form in state governance and, consequently, forges a general standard of secularism (or invisibility) out of a single case of its application, and it will be society’s minorities bearing the resulting burden.

Notes 1. Throughout this paper, the word laïcité is translated as “secularism,” although it should be noted that the neologism “laicity” is becoming much more common in Quebec government documents. For this reason, the word “laicity” appears here in quoted matter. 2. The controversy arose from a Supreme Court of Canada decision upholding the conditions under which a reasonable accommodation was granted to a Sikh youth wearing the ritual kirpan on school premises. See Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys, 2006 SCC 6, [2006] 1 S.C.R. 256. 3. Assemblée nationale, Bill 60: Charter affirming the values of State secularism and religious neutrality and of equality between women and men, and providing a framework for accommodation, online at http://www.assnat. qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-60-40-1.html 4. Bill 62, An Act to foster adherence to State religious neutrality and, in particular, to provide a framework for requests for accommodations on religious grounds in certain bodies (2017). 5. Bill 21, An Act respecting the Laicity of the State (2019). 6. The ideas presented in the first parts of this chapter were first popularized in French in Koussens and Lavoie 2018. 7. Bruker v. Marcovitz, 2007 SCC 54, [2007] 3 S.C.R. 607. 8. Boucher v. the King, [1951] S.C.R. 265; Saumur v. City of Quebec, [1953] 2 S.C.R. 299. 9. Chaput v. Romain, [1955] S.C.R. 834; R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295, 397.

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10. Congrégation des témoins de Jéhovah de St-Jérôme-Lafontaine v. Lafontaine (Village), [2004] 2  S.C.R. 650; Mouvement laïque québécois v. Saguenay (City), [2015] 2 S.C.R. 3. 11. The CEGEPs, as they are known by their French acronym, are two-year colleges, some of which are vocational in nature while others offer a preuniversity curriculum. 12. Ont. Human Rights Comm. v. Simpsons-Sears, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 536. 13. Grant v. Canada (Attorney General), [1995] 1 F.C. 158. 14. Section 93§2 reads: “All the Powers, Privileges, and Duties at the Union by Law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools and School Trustees of the Queen’s Roman Catholic Subjects shall be and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the Queen’s Protestant and Roman Catholic Subjects in Quebec…”. 15. Constitution Amendment, 1997 (Québec), Canada Gazette, Part II, vol. 131, spec. ed., no. 8. 16. An Act to amend the Education Act and various legislative provisions, S.Q., 1997, v. 47. 17. Notwithstanding clauses allow the government to refrain from enforcing the provisions of the Constitution and the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms for political reasons. Such clauses are valid for renewable five-year periods. 18. An Act to amend various legislative provisions of a confessional nature in the education field, (2005) R.S.Q., ch. 20. 19. My translation. 20. Multani v. Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys, [2006] 1  S.C.R. 256. 21. My translation. 22. My translation. 23. My translation. 24. I previously gave an illustration of the emergence of a nationalist version of secularism in the French context. See Koussens 2015. 25. Bill 94, An Act to establish guidelines governing accommodation requests within the Administration and certain institutions (2011). 26. Bill 60, Charter affirming the values of State secularism and religious neutrality and of equality between women and men, and providing a framework for accommodation requests (2013). 27. Bill 62, An Act to foster adherence to State religious neutrality and, in particular, to provide a framework for requests for accommodations on religious grounds in certain bodies (2017). 28. Bill 21, An Act respecting the Laicity of the State (2019). 29. Bill 21, An Act respecting the Laicity of the State (2019).

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References Antonius, Rachad. 2013. L’islam intégriste, l’hostilité à l’immigration, et la droite nationaliste. Quels rapports? In Les nationalismes québécois face à la diversité ethnoculturelle, ed. Micheline Labelle, Rachad Antonius, and Pierre Toussaint, 103–119. Montréal: Éditions IEIM. Baril, Daniel. 2013a. La laïcité comme caractéristique distinctive du Québec. In Les nationalismes québécois face à la diversité ethnoculturelle, ed. Micheline Labelle, Rachad Antonius, and Pierre Toussaint, 141–152. Montréal: Éditions IEIM. ———. 2013b. Multiculturalisme, essentialisme et laïcité. Essai d’anthropologie biologique sur l’intégration et la laïcité. In Pour une reconnaissance de la laïcité au Québec. Enjeux philosophiques, politiques et juridiques, ed. Daniel Baril and Yvan Lamonde, 59–73. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Beauchemin, Jacques. 2004. La société des identités: éthique et politique dans le monde contemporain. Montréal: Athéna Éditions. ———. 2005. Défendre la société comme être-ensemble. Arguments 8 (1): 142–153. Bock-Côté, Mathieu. 2007. Le multiculturalisme comme idéologie. In La cité identitaire, ed. Jacques Beauchemin and Mathieu Bock-Côté, 61–79. Montréal: Athéna Éditions. ———. 2008. Derrière la laïcité, la nation: retour sur la controverse des accommodements raisonnables et sur la crise du multiculturalisme québécois. Globe, Revue internationale d’études québécoises 11 (1): 95–113. ———. 2016. Le multiculturalisme comme religion politique. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. Bosset, Pierre. 1995. Le pluralisme religieux au Québec: un défi d’éthique sociale: document soumis à la réflexion publique. Montréal: Commission des droits de la personne du Québec. Boyd, Marion. 2004. Dispute Resolution in Family Law: Protecting Choice, Promoting Inclusion. Toronto: Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Chevrier, Marc. 2013. L’idéologie canadienne. In Les nationalismes québécois face à la diversité ethnoculturelle, ed. Micheline Labelle, Rachad Antonius, and Pierre Toussaint, 153–173. Montréal: Éditions IEIM. Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodements reliées aux différences culturelles. 2008. Building the Future: A Time for Reconciliation. Montréal: Gouvernement du Québec. Dalpé, Samuel, and David Koussens. 2016. Les discours sur la laïcité pendant le débat sur la ‘Charte des valeurs de la laïcité’: une analyse lexicométrique de la presse francophone québécoise. Recherches sociographiques 57 (2–3): 455–474. Groupe de travail sur les religions à l’école. 1999. Laïcité et religions: perspective nouvelle pour l’école québécoise. Québec: Les Publications du Québec.

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Helly, Denise, and Frédéric Nadeau. 2016. Une extrême droite en émergence? Les pages Facebook pour la charte des valeurs québécoises. Recherches sociographiques. 57 (2–3): 505–521. Koussens, David. 2015. L’épreuve de la neutralité la laïcité française entre droits et discours. Bruxelles: Bruyant. Koussens, David, and Valérie Amiraux. 2014. Du mauvais usage de la laïcité française dans le débat public québécois. In Penser la laïcité québécoise: fondements et défense d’une laïcité ouverte au Québec, ed. Sébastien Lévesque, 56–75. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Koussens, David, and Bertrand Lavoie. 2018. Fondements et effets socio-­ juridiques de la loi du 17 octobre 2018 favorisant le respect de la neutralité religieuse au Québec. Revue du droit des religions 6: 117–137. Lamontagne, Christian. 2013. Nation et laïcité: perspectives sur un monde qui change. Montréal: Liber. Latour, Julie. 2013. Assurer la protection legislative de la laïcité: une demarche essentielle pour la cohésion sociale et la fraternité citoyenne. In Pour une reconnaissance de la laïcité au Québec. Enjeux philosophiques, politiques et juridiques, ed. Daniel Baril and Yvan Lamonde, 111–136. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Lorcerie, Françoise. 2007. La République aime l’école. Cosmopolitiques 16: 107–118. Milot, Micheline. 2002. Laïcité dans le nouveau monde: le cas du Québec. Turnhout: Brepols. ———. 2006. Prise en compte des réalités religieuses par les institutions publiques et respect de la laïcité. Vivre ensemble 13 (47): 2–6. Palard, Jacques. 2018. Les acteurs catholiques et le processus d’émergence des politiques publiques sanitaires et sociales dans le Québec de la Révolution tranquille. In Les catholiques québécois et la laïcité, ed. David Koussens and Catherine Foisy, 139–163. Québec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Parenteau, Danic. 2013. Nationalisme québécois et multiculturalisme canadien: une critique républicaine du libéralisme anglo-saxon. In Les nationalismes québécois face à la diversité ethnoculturelle, ed. Micheline Labelle, Rachad Antonius, and Pierre Toussaint, 71–90. Montréal: Éditions IEIM. Weinstock, Daniel. 2007. La ‘crise’ des accommodements au Québec: hypothèses explicatives. Éthique publique, Revue internationale d’éthique sociétale et gouvernementale 9 (1): 20–26. ———. 2009. Réflexions critiques sur le rapport Bouchard-Taylor. In Le droit, la religion et le “raisonnable”: le fait religieux entre monisme étatique et pluralisme juridique, ed. Jean-François Gaudreault-Desbiens, 94–112. Montréal: Thémis.

CHAPTER 3

Francophones, Multiculturalism and Interculturalism in Canada, Quebec and Europe Patrick Imbert

A strong interest for multiculturalism, which is a public policy establishing the legal recognition of ethno-cultural pluralism, has been manifest for years in Europe and in the Americas. This is due to cultural shifts based on the legitimacy of geographical and symbolic displacements, the dissemination of college and university education (particularly among women), the empowerment of minorities through advances in technology, the World Wide Web and data banks, and the shared dream among the younger generations of a dynamic self-realization connected to new solidarities and encounters with others. However, there are different perspectives on multiculturalism, and this chapter will focus on a multiculturalism found in liberal democracies recognizing the rights of minorities as they are linked to the protection of the rights of individuals in the context of the respect of Human Rights. Even in liberal democracies, there are different perspectives on multiculturalism depending on the situation of the society which aims to protect minorities

P. Imbert (*) French Studies Department, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_3

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and accommodate immigrant.1 Differences in the conception of multiculturalism can also depend on the influence of perspectives on ­ national identity. In the nineteenth century, Mazzini and Victor Hugo2 referring to thinkers such as Augustin Thierry, who wrote De la réorganisation de la société européenne (1814), and Saint-Simon dreamt of a united Europe acting as a single entity. In the Americas, rather than looking for unity, liberal thinkers were prouder of a diversity which could be attained without wars and conflicts. This view continued to be developed in the Americas through works such as Brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade’s 1928 essay Cannibalist Manifesto “Cannibalism. Absorption of the sacred enemy” (43). In this ludic fragment, de Andrade calls for the digestion of indigenous, Afro-Brazilian and European cultures in order to create a new hybrid culture (Imbert 2014). In fact, Western thinking was modified when the United States—with its emphasis on reconfiguration and change due to the fact that the country was populated by immigrants from different parts of Europe and the world—had to reflect on how to invent a new kind of nation composed of new identities made up of these differences. As such, these differences were suddenly brought together: “America is already the world federation in miniature, the continent where for the first time in history, has been achieved that miracle of hope, the peaceful living side by side, with character substantially preserved, of the most heterogeneous peoples under the sun” (Bourne 1916, 93). Along with the development of their wealth, multicultural democratic policies and creativity, Canada and the United States in particular nourish the hopes of millions of individuals on the planet. Pico Iyer’s statement in The Global Soul, “America’s great and lasting significance is its existence in the mind” (2000, 3), can be complemented by his statement about Canada: “Canada … is a receptive ground for other people’s fantasies” (Iyer 2001, 19). This blending of dream and reality has supported many immigrants and their children while enabling them to realize their potential.3 In the present context of a postcolonial world and all of its fractures and failures,4 forcing millions of people to flee wars and genocides, Iyer’s remarks could be applied to Europe, a continent that is also nourishing the dreams of millions of people. These dreams are fueled not only by the fact that people are fleeing war or poverty but also by a public discourse valorizing change as we can see in this statement by a globalized oil company: “There is nothing permanent except change” (Conoco, Business Week, October 23, 1978). This statement is printed under an image showing a gradual

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transformation of a block of coal into a drop of oil. Here, Heraclitus’ quote is recontextualized by communications specialists to contribute to the dissemination of a desire for competitiveness, change and creativity. All these ideas are part of a world based on the legitimation of geographic and symbolic displacements. A multicultural perspective is at the core of such a valorization of change. In this chapter, we will analyze different perspectives on multiculturalism. We will concentrate on liberal multiculturalism as defined by Will Kymlicka in Canada and compare it with Tariq Modood’s religious and group-centered perspective in the United Kingdom. We will show the difference between liberal multiculturalism and European interculturalism and its strong relationship with the majority centered culture. We will also present Quebec interculturalism and its liberalism as it is modified by an emphasis on the protection of French and Francophone Quebec culture with its double status: a majority in Quebec but a minority in Canada. We will emphasize the fact that in the context of the knowledge-based society, multiculturalism has to take into account the multiple aspects of culture, in particular its link with degrees and diplomas. Nowadays, multiculturalism cannot be thought without linking it to economic participation. This is what Doug Saunders develops in his book dealing with migrants settling in the suburbs of populated urban centers.

Will Kymlicka’s Definition of Culture Canada is the first country in the world with a constitution linked to a Multiculturalism Act (1988), itself linked to the recognition of Human Rights.5 Its multiculturalism concerns all citizens. This is possibly why Kymlicka, a Canadian thinker, is one of the most important theoreticians of multiculturalism. Theories of multiculturalism depend on how culture is defined in a particular context. Kymlicka defined this notion in 1995 in Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights: “I am using ‘a culture’ as synonymous with ‘a nation’ or ‘a people’ – that is as an intergenerational community, more or less institutionally complete, occupying a given territory or homeland, sharing a distinct language and history” (18). However, this definition is static and oriented toward the past (complete, homeland, language, history). It presents groups as homogeneous and having a distinct origin. It is not based on relationships pertaining to cultural encounters and hybridity as revealed in Glissant’s essays (1990) or, before him, in Ortiz’ study of 1940 republished in 2002.

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Moreover, this definition does not take into account the possibility of culture as a shared vision of the future and as being linked to economic realization. This example demonstrates how a definition could have had a negative impact on research because it could have limited the researcher’s ability to perceive how it is possible to innovate. However, Kymlicka orients his thinking beyond such limitations as illustrated in his 2007 book, Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity. In his research, which has inspired, among others, politicians, lawyers and anthropologists, such as Moreno Parra in Colombia (2010), Kymlicka avoids dualistic perspectives. His views are oriented toward the present and the future. He comes close to a conception of culture which is disseminated by Wolfgang Welsch: “The concept [of culture] is characterized by three elements: by social homogenization, ethnic consolidation and intercultural delimitation... All three elements of this traditional concept have become untenable today” (1999, 194). Kymlicka rejects dualism and insists on triangulation, for instance, the protection of the minority group from the majority group and the protection of the individual from the minority group in the context of respect for Human Rights. He sees life in a context of “non-­zero-­sum game” (Imbert 2013), open to win-win relationships. Such a scenario is possible because Canadian multiculturalism does not look to preserve a traditional culture, as was the case in the 1930s when Lord Tweedsmuir praised descendants of immigrants from Iceland in Gimli, Manitoba: “You have become in the fullest sense good Canadians and have shared in all the enterprises and struggles of this new nation and at the same time. I rejoice to think that you have never forgotten the traditions of your homeland” (1941, 27). In this example, we are not witnessing multiculturalism but a plural monoculturalism, which means keeping communities separate from each other. This was in conformity with a colonial discourse, which tended to prevent Canadians from uniting in their request for a complete independence from England. Hence, a thinker like Kymlicka even if he uses a traditional definition of culture and considers historic forms of recognizing other cultures goes beyond traditional knowledge. He moves toward redefining a field of new sociopolitical and cultural studies in the context of a liberal perspective. We will see below that he goes beyond dualism in his recognizing both the rights of the individual to exit from the minority group and the necessity to protect the minority group from the majority.

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Kymlicka’s Multiculturalism: Views and Inquiry Kymlicka’s approach to cultural relationships leads us to consider the idea of collective rights and individual rights. In the tradition of post-Romantic thought, individual and collective rights may conflict. However, Kymlicka pivots away from a shift toward the zero-sum game and dualism by affirming that we must define the group’s actions based on whether the group intends to control the ‘internal dissidence’ or to protect its members from ‘external decisions’: “In short, a liberal view requires ‘freedom within’ the minority group, and ‘equality between’ the minority and the majority groups” (1995, 152). For Kymlicka, in the context of contemporary liberalism, individuals must be able to leave the minority group to lead a life that better corresponds to their needs. In his theory, there is no room for relativism or for illiberal traditions because multiculturalism is an extension of Human Rights.6 Kymlicka states that in order to address questions surrounding the relations between equality and difference, we must think in terms of the specific rights of a group. Indeed, for certain groups, it is the linguistic right that matters the most and makes it possible to live with differences. For others, hunting rights or rights of political representation are most important. Nevertheless, the majority of these rights have nothing to do with the supremacy of the group over the individual or vice versa; they affect the individual with regards to their active participation in the group. However, Kymlicka does not always emphasize a shared future sufficiently: “National membership should be open in principle to anyone, regardless of race or colour, who is willing to learn the language and history of the society and participate in its social and political institutions” (1995, 23). We could add: and contribute to economic development in the present and in the future! There is no simple assimilation or integration, only active interactions and thus modifications to the established culture through the contributions of others. As we will see later in this article, this point is well demonstrated by Doug Saunders in Arrival City.

Multiculturalism and Religion Multiculturalism is not simply the expression of tolerance since it recognizes the fact that the State is never neutral, and that procedural liberalism is inadequate. Multiculturalism therefore plays a proactive role in helping minority cultures continue to develop in environments that, in liberal

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democracies, are not directly hostile but often seem to impose ultimatums in which recognition is contingent upon assimilation. However, if this neutrality toward ethno-cultural groups is an illusion, what about religion and more particularly the groups for whom religion is an essential part of public as much as private life? In fact, in the world of liberal democracy, as is the case in the United States or in France, the constitutions often affirm the separation of Church and State. Moreover, ­culturally, religion is seen as belonging to the private sphere and not to the public one. But for some cultures—certain Indigenous groups as mentioned by Daniel Bonilla Maldonado in Colombia (2006) or a monotheistic religion like Islam (Modood 2007)—such is not the case. In Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights (1995), Will Kymlicka contends that the liberal vision poses no problems when it comes to religion. He proposes exemptions in cases like the kirpan for Sikhs. Obviously, up to now, people have had the liberty of speaking several languages, but not that of adhering to several religions at the same time. Even if there are no laws against believing in different creeds simultaneously, this is not what people tend to do, and this is not accepted by representatives of most religions. This religious plurality is portrayed by the Canadian writer Yann Martel in his bestseller, Life of Pi. His main character, Piscine, wishes to be at the same time Buddhist, Muslim and Christian. “Why can’t I be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim?” (81). The standard response to such an unusual aspiration would be that it is impossible to accomplish. Historically, there have indeed been bans on other identity frames as well. There are countries that do not allow dual nationalities, and others like Canada, that do. Why should it not be possible to have two religions in a truly liberal world? As can be seen in many religious practices among Indigenous communities, syncretism is inherent to the dynamics of the Americas. The Popol Vuh, which mixes pre-Colombian and biblical narratives, is a good example of this syncretism. However, syncretism or a multi-religious perspective like that of Piscine in Life of Pi is not very common among people who believe in a specific religion. For instance, there are still rigid perspectives when it comes to religion and alterity as observed in Catholic minority communities like the Francophones in Alberta: La religion catholique […] propose une vision du monde définie par un clergé influent […] et très conservateur qui conçoit l’altérité non (ou autrement) religieuse comme une possible contamination à enrayer ou, à tout le moins, à contrôler […]. L’école française […], doit se définir comme

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homogène; or, cela renchérit sur une orientation fondée sur la logique d’une continuité atavique et fournit par la même l’argumentaire à sa politique d’exclusion.7 (Dubé 2005, 76)

Paul Dubé suggests sharing the plurality of heritages, those of the local minority group, with those of Francophone immigrants from Africa or elsewhere, as is also proposed by a writer like Lise Gaboury Diallo (2005). This opening to alterity has been explored recently in Saint-Boniface, Manitoba, during the public event Catholica 200, celebrating the arrival of l’Abbé Provencher in 1818 in the area of the Rivière Rouge. Instead of emphasizing only the roots of the members of the Francophone community of Manitoba, the Saint-Boniface event was open to people of all religious persuasions: non-Catholics, Jews and Orthodox, as well as Métis and Indigenous groups. The closing show displayed music by Zachary Richard but also by Anglo-Canadians, bands of Afro-Canadians singing gospel, and performances and dances by the Métis, the Filipinos and so on. An interfaith, intergenerational, inter-linguistic series of activities organized for Catholica 200 attracted 2500 persons (La Liberté, Manitoba, July 2018). This example shows that the contemporary Catholic Church seeks to reconnect with a universal vision of spirituality instead of valorizing the local community and reading the Adamic narrative in a nationalist framework. There is also the idea that people are connected to the whole planet and not only to a territory limited by community or national borders. Such an inclusive perspective is also exemplified by a Toronto family as reported in an issue of The Epoch Times (2006), a weekly publication published in many countries and connecting with the Chinese international communities: “Even though most of his family members are Muslim, Boudjenane says that ‘because his sister-in-law and niece are Christians, the whole family celebrates both Christmas and Ramadan. That’s what being Canadian is all about’, he says.”8 However, as we will see next, this is not the perspective which is disseminated by all the theoreticians of multiculturalism.

Tariq Modood and Multiculturalism in the United Kingdom Tariq Modood’s book9 Multiculturalism (2007) deals with the recognition of alterity in the United Kingdom. Modood, himself a Muslim, defines multiculturalism very differently from Will Kymlicka (1995, 2007). For

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Modood, multiculturalism is “the political accommodation of minorities formed by immigration to western countries from outside the prosperous West” (2007, 5). Modood’s examples deal with multicultural citizenship in the context of post-integration and poly-ethnicity in the United Kingdom. Modood agrees with Kymlicka’s emphasis on the duty to protect minority groups from the majority. However, he criticizes Kymlicka contention that the individual has the right to disagree and to be protected from the minority group. Modood’s argument is worth quoting: “This means that the state must guarantee the rights of not just those who dissent from the dominant religion10 but also those who dissent from their own religion, or from a particular, institutionalized interpretation of it. Maybe so […]” (2007, 29). His dismissal of the protection of the individual from the minority groups through the use of the expression “maybe so” demonstrates a refusal to further discuss the matter and shows that his conception of multiculturalism is intended to reinforce the coherence of minority groups at the expense of individual rights. Moreover, Modood completely distorts Kymlicka’s clear argument about collective rights and his distinguishing of internal dissent and external protection. Modood “forgets” individual protection (the idea expressed in the first part of the sentence), while emphasizing the group’s rights only. In fact, he links the idea (criticized by Kymlicka) of restricting individual rights to the idea that “multicultural citizenship should be primarily about giving groups the right to protect themselves from persons or forces external to the group” (2007, 29). This argument is based on the elimination of one option, internal protection, and on the fact that Modood reduces a ternary perspective into a dualistic one. Modood’s argument, which states that “groups have the right to protect themselves from persons” (2007, 29), is very different from what is emphasized in Canada. Here, his objective is to present the person, the individual, as a threat to the group, which is the exact opposite of Kymlicka’s position which underscores the threat of individual oppression by the group.

Christian Joppke’s Is Multiculturalism Dead? Modood’s perspective could lead us to think that multiculturalism is a very narrow category only recognizing the traditional culture of tightly knit groups, which raises serious questions about multiculturalism. This questioning of multiculturalism is embedded in the title of Joppke’s book. Its premise rests on a comparison between two minority groups, gays and

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Muslims, and the way liberal states in Europe and North America accommodate the differences within the so-called mainstream institutions. Joppke considers that liberal law acts as a resource and a constraint. In Europe, freedom of religion as a constitutional right empowers Muslims. However, the liberal perspective on freedom of expression and equality of the sexes simultaneously tends to constrain traditional Muslims groups. “On the constraint side, the religious claims of Muslims often conflict with the individualistic and egalitarian underpinnings of liberal law itself, such as the freedom of expression and the equality of the sexes” (96). These groups abide unequal treatment of women and deny freedom of religion to other religions in the countries they are coming from and this in the name of their access to truth. This illiberal perspective cannot be accommodated in a liberal democratic society in which multiculturalism is linked to the respect of Human Rights. Joppke does not stress that multiculturalism is an extension of Human Rights. He does not stress either that the aim of multiculturalism is not to protect traditional elites controlling a group but to help newcomers and people born in the accommodating country, to change. By this we mean that people born in the accommodating country should recognize difference and connect it with equality, reject racism, accept that historically excluded groups need to be helped by equal opportunity laws and so on. By this we also mean that immigrants should try to actively participate in their new country and that they should learn living and working abiding to democratic and liberal laws. Hence, both groups have to change and have an influence on each other. Orthodox views of religion are very different from what gays, queers or lesbians demand. They want more recognition of difference and not to be caught in orthodox discourses leading to exclusion. In fact, on the subject of gay emancipation, there is no clash with liberalism. Gays do not request special rights or exceptions. They call for the recognition of equal rights for same-sex couples, including the right to marry. As was emphasized by Kymlicka, minority groups also have their culture of exclusion or even of genocide. Recently, an investigation was conducted in an Islamic school in Toronto where teaching material originating from Iran was referring to Jews as ‘treacherous’ and ‘crafty’ and encouraging boys “to keep fit for jihad” (Stewart Bell, National Post, November 10, 2012, A12). Hence, we cannot even ask if multiculturalism is dead. However, we can consider that if one does not understand that multiculturalism is an extension of Human Rights, there is no liberal multiculturalism.

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Interculturalism in Europe The previous example and arguments are one of the reasons why we are critical of the remarks made by Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni in “Vivre ensemble dans l’égale dignité” (May 26, 2011, Symposium international sur l’interculturalisme: dialogue Quebec-Europe) on the topic of ­multiculturalism in Europe: “Le multiculturalisme est une approche politique  – une approche périmée. Après quelques décennies de stratégies ‘multiculturalistes’ dans plusieurs pays européens – pas tous, force est de le constater –, nous sommes arrivés à la conclusion que le multiculturalisme est un concept insuffisant […] quelque chose n’a pas fonctionné et les communautés vivent de manière séparée, parallèle” (6).11 Such a view does not take into account what has contributed to the establishment of parallel lives. For instance, in Germany, immigrants have been seen as temporary workers, not as people hoping to become full citizens. Moreover, very often, immigrants have been obliged to live far from their work place in ghetto-like slums. Consequently, social interaction has been minimal and oftentimes tainted by racism, and economic well-being for such groups has been rare. As an alternative to multiculturalism, Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni offers a perspective based on interculturalism,12 which aims to integrate immigrants in the mainstream through the economic insertion of all citizens and by fighting racism while helping people to interact so as to: “encourager la formation d’une culture commune à partir et au-delà de la diversité ethnoculturelle, mais sans faire obstacle à cette diversité” (5).13 This position lacks details on how to achieve such a goal. In fact, usually, interculturalism refers to non-legally codified prescriptions aiming at establishing ethnic pluralism through norms reaffirming cultural practices and values of the majority or of a privileged group. This position is very different from Kymlicka’s liberal multiculturalism. Moreover, the mention of a common culture needs to be clarified. Let’s remember that there have been wars for centuries in Europe and that this continent has historically produced the most horrific exclusion: the Shoah. Hence, in Europe, an enormous conceptual and practical work still remains to be done in order to go beyond centuries of exclusions and political discourses legitimizing marginalization, fear of the foreigner or of internal minorities.

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Interculturalism in Quebec and Canadian Multiculturalism It is important to distinguish between interculturalism in Quebec and interculturalism in Europe. The system of accommodements raisonnables (‘reasonable accommodations’) (Bouchard and Taylor 2008) in Quebec aims to protect the minority francophone culture in the heart of the majority anglophone North America. It is based on Quebecois interculturalism, which is different from multiculturalism. Multiculturalism gives more freedom to adapt to Canadian society, where we consider that there is no cultural majority but a dominant language: English. Quebec’s interculturalism leads children of immigrants to adopt the basic value of the Quebec society: the French language. Law 101 requires that immigrant families send their children to francophone schools and not to anglophone ones, except when both parents are Anglophones. Interculturalism in Quebec aims to protect a minority (Francophones) from minorities which could identify with the anglophone society and become potential assimilators. This is very different from what European thinkers try to conceptualize in their conferences dealing with interculturalism. Hence, interculturalism like multiculturalism has many different meanings. In 2011, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada published a basic manual entitled Cours pré-départ en efficacité interculturelle for the use of civil servants who were likely to need basic knowledge in order to bridge the cultural divide. This book does not deal with immigration but provides useful information in order to create efficient links when it comes to signing a business contract. Needless to say, this particular example is very different from accommodating people who will become citizens of a new country.

The Bouchard-Taylor Commission (2008) Relations in Quebec in 2019

and Cultural

In 2008, the Bouchard-Taylor Commission enabled the consultation of populations in all regions of Quebec concerning how people wanted to live together in a province increasingly influenced by immigration and globalization. The Commission also received about 800 reports dealing with cultural diversity; thus, a consensus was clear from the start.14 Canadian multiculturalism was rejected seeing as it did not take into account the fact that Quebec is a distinct society and represents a franco-

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phone minority in Canada. The need to protect French language and a specific culture was at the root of this rejection. Hence, interculturalism became the preferred theory for governing the relationship between immigrants and francophones born in Quebec since it is based on a liberal view of the individual; however, it asks immigrants to accept a process of integration among the francophone Quebec majority.15 Franco-Quebec culture is open to difference but shall predominate: “L’interculturalisme s’efforce de concilier la diversité ethnoculturelle avec la continuité du noyau francophone et la préservation du lien social” (2008, 20).16 One can underscore that this differential model is coupled with a relational perspective, considering it is expected that people have a positive influence on one another. Taking into account diverging points of view, the Commission explored diverse tendencies oscillating between preservation and transformation, eventually emphasizing a certain number of core values—like French language and liberal values such as equality between men and women—to which immigrants have to adapt.17 In 2018 a new government was elected in the National Assembly in Quebec. The government of the CAQ (Coalition Avenir Quebec) replaced the liberal party and formed a majority government. Since then, Mr. Legault and his government have decided to implement a series of laws dealing with religious symbols in the public sphere. They have proposed that those working for the government and its affiliates who have positions of power not wear any religious symbols, such as the Christian cross, the hijab for Muslim women and the kirpan. Those unwilling to comply would simply not get the job. For instance, Muslim teachers could not wear the hijab in class so as to comply with the values of a secular society, which separates religion and state. This has caused a lot of reaction from diverse groups. Gérard Bouchard himself criticized the initiative emphasizing that in the Report of the Commission Bouchard-Taylor, there was nothing allowing Mr. Legault to pretend that those in positions of power should not wear any religious symbols. The Commission only stated that those in a position of coercion (police officers, judges) should not wear religious symbols. There was nothing suggesting that teachers could not wear these symbols in a liberal democracy.18 Other groups, such as the one which gathered a few thousand participants in the streets of Montreal, manifested against this law. It was mostly composed of immigrants and largely of Muslims defending their right to wear the hijab. One of the leaders of this group was the Muslim activist Adil Charkaoui, who has often said that wearing the hijab is an

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expression of the Jihad, that is, the expression of a religious war. This person undermined the cause of all those desirous of a rational and peaceful decision, which would protect the interests of individuals eager to work and participate actively in their own development and in the development of the liberal democratic society where they immigrated. To put it succinctly: the case is not sealed. Many groups continue to have diverging interests in this debate. It is clear that Quebec society is strongly oriented toward fostering a secular life in public and the s­ eparation of religion and state, a position less clear among Anglo-Canadians living in Quebec or in other provinces of Canada.

Doug Saunders and Arrival City Doug Saunders represents an original voice among thinkers of multiculturalism who link culture and economy as far as migrants are concerned. In his book Arrival City (2010), Saunders speaks of the poor immigrants in the context of Asia, Europe and Canada. He analyzes the strategies of migrating people who face numerous challenges. Saunders shows that migration from the countryside to the city slums in the same country or to another country makes life better. He demonstrates that there is a strong and constant current of migration from the poor neighborhoods toward more affluent ones, particularly in Toronto. According to Saunders, the poor neighborhoods produce the future wealth of the cities and are where some of its leaders and entrepreneurs are born or where workers can develop together an industry like trucking.19 This is due to the fact that the accommodating society is defined not only by a set of traditions but sometimes by basic social rights, for example, free Medicare, multicultural policies and a constitution linked to the respect of Human Rights, like in Canada. All these elements can be shared by long-standing citizens and new citizens alike and help create a democratic nation able to improve a community while respecting the individual. However, everything is not always consistent with liberal values in a multicultural society. For instance, journalist Alex Neve argues that: “Canada needs to fix its broken visa system. But Canadians from countries such as Iran, Colombia or Congo will face an almost irrefutable presumption that because conditions in their country are dire, the wedding invitation might be a ruse and perhaps the family’s real intention is to stay in Canada” (The Globe and Mail, July 12, 2018, A11). Saunders (2018) underlines that the visa problem is dramatic for Filipina domestic workers

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(often with postsecondary education) who, under ever-changing policies, and after two years of work in Canada, may be granted permanent residency and sponsor their children left in the Philippines. Multiculturalism and bureaucracy do not always work in favor of people who live in countries seen as problematic.

The Desire to Belong? On the other hand, the initiatives of a multicultural society and its emphasis on difference are a problem for many immigrants, whose degrees and knowhow are often not recognized because experience and knowledge in Canada and elsewhere often differ. Moreover, often corporate associations in Canada do not provide specific programs, which would help bridge the knowledge or formation gap. In this case in particular, we can see that multiculturalism does not cover the whole spectrum of cultural dimensions, and in particular the capitalization of contemporary and scientific knowledge and its use in professions. In the daily La Presse, Elkouri points out that their wish for active participation is related to a desire for lack of differentiation (2009). The journalist follows Algerian immigrants in Montréal over a period of six months. Sabrina explains that in her workplace in Alger, only she and one other woman didn’t wear the veil. She asks herself serious questions when she sees veiled women here in Canada: “Je n’ai pas fait 6000  km pour vivre comme là-bas” (“I did not travel 6000 km to live the same way that I did there”) (Elkouri 2009, 3). As for her husband, Hocine: “il parle désormais de l’Algérie comme de son ‘ex-­ pays’” (“he now speaks of Algeria as his former country”) (Elkouri 2009, 3). They want to have a different life in a democratic society. They do not believe they need multicultural policies to “help” them. They speak French and are ready to actively participate in the dynamic of society, that is, working and being producers of wealth. This knowledge of French, an international language, was also important in ex-communist countries where one could hope to leave if able to invent oneself differently thanks to another culture. This view is also well expressed by Flavia Garcia, an immigrant to Montreal from Argentina, who rejected the military dictatorship: “Je veux oublier, tout oublier de ce pays où l’on peut faire disparaître du monde en claquant des doigts. Je m’agrippe encore plus fort à cette langue que j’ai choisie, à la promesse qu’elle représente: le français mon amour, mon refuge, mon salut”.20

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This desire to forget calls into questions multiculturalism. This desire is not really commented upon by thinkers who often cannot imagine that people would wish to forget a country which has not given them the means to realize their potential. Thinkers are often caught in what Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2002) call methodological nationalism, and in an idealization of origins sometimes leading to orthodox political correctness.21 People like Hocine need neither interculturalism nor multiculturalism. He needs a transcultural perspective (Benessaieh 2010) emphasizing relationality instead of a differential one. In a transcultural framework “practices cut across cultures as a fluid transformative process stemming from cultural diversity in which people and communities no longer perceive themselves as one single culture” (9). He needs to blend his perspective and the perspective of the new society in order to hybridize himself. This transcultural perspective could help to foster a mutual and beneficial influence while exploring past and present power relationships.

Conclusion Multiculturalism leads people and institutions to go beyond their limits. This does not mean relativism, for accepting relativism would be to live in a society based on the arbitrariness of traditional elites or controlling regimes that oppress young people, women and minority groups and repress any kind of innovation. The role of liberal multiculturalism is to help newcomers and their descendants participate actively in their own development, as well as in the development of their new country. Hence, links between cultural and economic participation should be explored further. In the knowledge-based society—where importance is given to a population with specialized skills, university degrees, professional diplomas and proficiency in more than one language—linking culture, economic development and well-being is essential. This linkage can be realized by establishing provincial and corporate guidelines for recognition of degrees and diplomas, as well as ways to improve knowledge for immigrants whose skills do not correspond to what employers look for. This would prevent many educated people from having to settle for poorly paid jobs, while hoping that their children will study in a Canadian university. It could have another impact too. In a controversial declaration, Seamus O’Reagan, Minister of Veterans Affairs, stated that immigrants are better at creating companies and jobs than those born in Canada (La Presse.ca 2018). Many people were incensed by this remark and he had to apolo-

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gize. Yet, beyond this reaction, we should reflect on why immigrants are better at creating companies and jobs (5.3% compared to 4.8%). Is it because they have fewer opportunities for entering institutional positions in the Federal or the Provincial Governments, where they are underrepresented compared to their percentage in the overall Canadian population? A success story is not always a success story. It can also point to systemic problems. As we saw, the links between culture and economy are complex. Exploring these links specifically22 would help multiculturalism provide more efficient cultural, economic and social solutions for the future.

Notes 1. From the outset, our discussion is linked to the accommodation of immigrants. It is true that refugees and other migrants whose status is uncertain in the receiving state are also concerned by a politics of diversity. However, they are not provided with the same opportunities as those following regular bureaucratic channels. Furthermore, they often do not choose to leave their country or to settle in another country. They often dream of going back. Hence, multiculturalism might only apply in part to them. This is not always underscored by researchers. See Steven Vertovec, “Toward post-­ multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity”, UNESCO 2010, Oxford, Blackwell, pp. 83–95. 2. Victor Hugo argued in 1849 that “A day will come when we shall see … the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas”. “Ideas of European Unity before 1945”, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_of_European_unity_ before_1945 3. This is linked to the legitimation of geo-symbolic displacements. This is why Yann Martel describes Canada as “the greatest hotel on earth” (Tina Loo, “Hotel Canada”, Canada’s History. (http://www.canadashistory. ca/Magazine/Columnists/August-2011/Hotel-Canada, browsed on January 29, 2017). In Imagining Canada: An Outsider’s Hope for a Global Future, Pico Iyer compares Canada to a hotel : “For her grateful immigrants fleeing Nazi Europe and first arriving in Canada, it seems like a luxury hotel, an oasis of ease and abundance; and a hotel, I think, is not such a terrible way of thinking about society” (24). See Patrick Imbert, Comparer le Canada et les Amériques: des racines aux réseaux transculturels, Quebec, Presses de l’Université Laval, 2014. 4. See Ahmadou Kourouma, Les soleils des indépendances, Montréal, Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1968. In this book, Kourouma develops a gloomy perspective on the numerous failures of independent countries in Africa.

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5. See an excerpt of the Preamble: WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada provides that every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination and that everyone has the freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association and guarantees those rights and freedoms equally to male and female persons; AND WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada recognizes the importance of preserving and enhancing the multicultural heritage of Canadians; AND WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada recognizes rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada; AND WHEREAS the Constitution of Canada and the Official Languages Act provide that English and French are the official languages of Canada and neither abrogates nor derogates from any rights or privileges acquired or enjoyed with respect to any other language; AND WHEREAS the Citizenship Act provides that all Canadians, whether by birth or by choice, enjoy equal status, are entitled to the same rights, powers and privileges and are subject to the same obligations, duties and liabilities; AND WHEREAS the Canadian Human Rights Act provides that every individual should have an equal opportunity with other individuals to make the life that the individual is able and wishes to have, consistent with the duties and obligations of that individual as a member of society, and, in order to secure that opportunity, establishes the Canadian Human Rights Commission to redress any proscribed discrimination, including discrimination on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin or colour. 6. We disagree with Meer and Modood as mentioned by Clara Sarmento: “… where multiculturalism may be illiberal and relativistic, interculturalism is more likely to lead to criticism of illiberal cultural practices….” Clara Sarmento with Sara Brusaca and Silvia Sousa (eds.), In Permanent Transit: Discourses and Maps of the Intercultural Experience, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars, 2012, p. XIV. As we will see in this article, Modood favors a restricted interculturalism. For him, the individual shall not leave the minority group, difference and Islamic values dominate and hybridity is not acceptable. 7. We translate: “Catholicism […] proposes a vision of the world defined by an influential […] and very conservative clergy which perceives religious (or other types of) otherness as a possible contamination that needs to be blocked, or at least controlled […]. French school […] must be homogenous; this, however, encourages an orientation based on an atavistic logic and feeds, through its arguments, the politics of exclusion.” 8. Joan Delaney, “Political correctness gone too far?”, The Epoch Times, December 22–28, 2006.

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9. Many studies deal with multiculturalism in the United Kingdom. See Steven Vertovec, “Super-diversity and its implications”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 30, 6, November 2007, p. 1024–1054. 10. For Modood, it is the Christian religions in the United Kingdom. 11. Our translation: “Multiculturalism is an out-dated political approach. After many years of multicultural strategies in many European countries –not all of them, as we are forced to recognize –, we have to conclude that multiculturalism is an insufficient concept […] something did not work and communities live separate and parallel lives”. 12. Usually, interculturalism refers to non-legally codified prescriptions aiming at establishing ethnic pluralism through norms reaffirming cultural practices and values of the majority or of a privileged group. 13. Our translation: “encourage the formation of a common culture from and beyond cultural diversity but without hindering this diversity.” 14. In 2012 Gérard Bouchard published a book entitled Interculturalisme: un point de vue québécois in which he summarizes his point of view on the Commission. 15. We have to remember that francophones are a majority in Quebec but a minority in Canada, which is a federal state. 16. We translate: “Interculturalism tries to reconcile ethno-cultural diversity with the continuation of the francophone core population and the preservation of social relationships.” 17. For a more detailed discussion, see: “De Bouchard-Taylor à l’Unesco: ambivalences interculturelles et clarifications transculturelles” (with Afef Benessaieh) in Canadian Studies: The State of the Art/Études canadiennes: questions de recherche (Klaus-Dieter Ertler, Stewart Gill, Susan Hodgett, Patrick James eds.), Canadiana 10, Frankfurt, Peter Lang, 2011, p. 393–413. 18. “Laïcité: la CAQ ‘erre gravement’, selon Gérard Bouchard”, La Presse, April 5, 2019. We translate: “CAQ errs gravely.” 19. The Economist, May 5, 2018, p. 30, “Sikhs in semis”: “Sikhs already play an outsize part in Canadian trucking. NAPTA, which is based in California but seeks to represent Sikhs truckers in both America and Canada, was formed this year.” 20. Our translation: “I want to forget, forget everything about this country where one can make people disappear by snapping fingers. I cling even more to this language that I chose, to the promise it represents: French language, my love, my refuge, my salvation” (Flavia Garcia, Partir ou mourir un peu plus loin, Montréal, Mémoire d’encrier, 2016). 21. Consider the fact that the Show SLAV by Robert Lepage and performed in Montreal in July 2018 was canceled because not enough characters were Black. The protest could also be considered as censuring art under the

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disguise of not appropriating a dominated culture. See Margaret Wente, “Should white people sing black slave songs?”, The Globe and Mail, Saturday, July 7, 2018, p. 011. 22. The recent book by Luciara Nardon (Working in a Multicultural World, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2017) hints at these questions and provides answers to employers on how to deal with diversity. However, the author does not explore all the complexities of the links between multiculturalism and economy.

References Battaini-Dragoni, Gabriella. 2011. Vivre ensemble dans l’égale dignité. In L’interculturalisme: dialogue Quebec-Europe: Actes du Symposium international sur l’interculturalisme, Montréal: 25–27 mai, 2–18. G. Bouchard, G. Battaini-­ Dragoni, C.  Saint-Pierre, G.  Nootens et F.  Fournier, dirs. Quebec: Archives nationales du Quebec. Bell, Stewart. 2012. Reflect Canadian Values School Told. National Post, November 10. Benessaieh, Afef, ed. 2010. Transcultural Americas/Amériques transculturelles. Ottawa: Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa. Bonilla Maldonado, Daniel. 2006. La Constitución multicultural. Bogotá: Siglo del hombre editores. Bouchard, Gérard. 2012. Interculturalisme: un point de vue québécois. Montréal: Boréal. ———. 2019. Laïcité: la CAQ ‘erre gravement’, selon Gérard Bouchard. La Presse, avril 5. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/201904/05/015221065-laicite-la-caq-erre-gravement-selon-gerard-bouchard.php Bouchard, Gérard, and Charles Taylor. 2008. Fonder l’avenir, le temps de la conciliation: Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles. Saint-Lazare: Quebec. Bourne, Randolph. 1916. Trans-National America. Atlantic Monthly 118: 86–97. Business Week. Conoco. October 23rd, 1978: 43. Cours pré-départ en efficacité interculturelle. 2011. Centre d’apprentissage interculturel, Institut canadien du service extérieur. Gatineau: Quebec. De Andrade, Oswald. 1991. Cannibalist Manifesto. Trans. Leslie Bary. Latin American Literary Review 19 (38): 38–47. Delaney, Joan. 2006. Political Correctness Gone Too Far? The Epoch Times: 22–28. Dubé, Paul. 2005. Pour une réflexion prospective sur la communauté francophone albertaine (en passant par l’école française). In Alberta, village sans mur(s), ed. E. Dansereau, P. Dubé, E. Lohka, and V.P. Sing, 53–78. Winnipeg: Presses universitaires de Saint-Boniface. Elkouri, Rima. 2009. D’Alger à Anjou. La Presse, février 14: 3.

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Gaboury-Diallo, Lise. 2005. Poste restante: cartes poétiques du Sénégal. Saint-­ Boniface (Manitoba): Éditions du Blé. Garcia, Flavia. 2016. Partir ou mourir un peu plus loin. Montréal: Mémoire d’encrier. Glissant, Édouard. 1990. Poétique de la relation. Paris: Gallimard. Imbert, Patrick. 2013. Les Amériques transculturelles: les stéréotypes du jeu à somme nulle. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval. ———. 2014. Comparer le Canada et les Amériques: des racines aux réseaux transculturel. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval. Iyer, Pico. 2000. The Global Soul. New York: Vintage. ———. 2001. Imagining Canada: An Outsider’s Hope for a Global Future. Toronto: The Hart House Lecture. Joppke, Christian. 2017. Is Multiculturalism Dead? Cambridge/Malden: Polity. Kourouma, Ahmadou. 1968. Les soleils des indépendances. Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Kymlicka, Will. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ———. 2007. Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. La Liberté. 2018. 105, 16, 18 au 24 juillet 2018. Saint-Boniface, Manitoba. “Les immigrants ‘meilleurs’ que les Canadiens de souche: un ministre s’excuse”. 2018. La Presse.ca. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/politique/politiquecanadienne/201808/05/01-5192014-les-immigrants-meilleursque-les-canadiens-de-souche-un-ministre-sexcuse.php. Accessed 5 Aug 2018. Lord Tweedsmuir, (John Buchan). 1941. Canadian Occasions. Toronto: The Musson Book Company: 27. Martel, Yann. 2001. Life of Pi. Toronto: Vintage. ———. 2003. L’histoire de Pi. Trans. Émile Martel et Nicole Martel. Montréal: XYZ. Modood, Tariq. 2007. Multiculturalism. Cambridge: Polity. Nardon, Luciara. 2017. Working in a Multicultural World. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Neve, Alex. 2018. Canada Needs to Fix Its Broken Visa System. The Globe and Mail, July 12: A11. Ortiz, Fernando. 2002. Contrapunteo cubano del tabaco y del azúcar. Madrid: Cátedra. Parra, Moreno, Héctor Alonso, Alejandra Machado Maturana, and Adolfo Léón Rodríguez Sánchez. 2010. El multiculturalismo en la Constitución de 1991: en el marco del bicentenario. Cali: Universidad del Valle. Saint-Simon et Augustin Thierry. 1814. De la réorganisation de la société européenne. Paris: A. Égron. Sarmento, Clara with Sara Brusaca, and Silvia Sousa, eds. 2012. In Permanent Transit: Discourses and Maps of the Intercultural Experience. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.

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Saunders, Doug. 2010. Arrival city. Toronto: Alfred Knopf. ———. 2018. Family Ties. The Globe and Mail, June 16: A1. The Economist. 2018. Sikhs in semis, May 5th: 30. Vertovec, Steven. 2007. Super-Diversity and Its Implications. Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (6): 1024–1054. ———. 2010. Towards post-multiculturalism? Changing communities, conditions and contexts of diversity. In UNESCO 2010, 83–95. Oxford: Blackwell. Welsch, Wolfgang. 1999. Transculturality: The Puzzling Form of Cultures Today. In Space of Culture: City, Nation, World, ed. Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, 194–213. London: Sage. Wente, Margaret. 2018. Should White People Sing Black Slave Songs? The Globe and Mail, July 7: 011. Wikipedia. Ideas of European Unity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_of_ European_unity_before_1945. Accessed 22 July 2018. Wimmer, Andreas, and Nina Glick Schiller. 2002. Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences. Global Networks 2 (4): 301–334.

CHAPTER 4

The Regulation of Migration, Integration, and of Multiculturalism in Twenty-First-­Century France Michael Samers

Introduction The now-dismantled Jungle in Calais,1 which by October 2016, harbored some 7000 migrants, might seem emblematic of an outright closure to migration and citizenship—a ‘Fortress France’ so to speak. While the purpose of this chapter is hardly to deny such exclusion (quite the contrary), it does seek to nuance such a view. Likewise, in intellectual circles, it became somewhat of a cliché during the twentieth century that the French government had maintained a highly exceptional approach to the ‘integration’ of immigrants by rejecting ‘multiculturalism’ in favor of a more long-­ standing Republican, universalist, secularist, and expansive ‘color-blind’ approach that rested on a jus soli form of citizenship. Ironically, this form of citizenship, it has been argued, denied le droit à la différence (the right to be different). While the significance of jus soli for integration policy in France in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is probably now rejected by most scholars as is the presence of an immutable French ‘model’ of M. Samers (*) Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_4

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c­itizenship or ‘integration’ (e.g. Bertossi 2012), the question then becomes what form do migration, citizenship, and integration assume in France, and how should we explain it? This is the question that will preoccupy our analysis in this chapter. I am particularly concerned with the tensions between openness to migration and restrictionism on one hand and between a de jure laïcité (secularism) and a de facto pragmatic pluralism or ‘multiculturalism’ on the other. They are entangled in a cultural political economy that demands their simultaneous analysis. In doing so, I make two broad, essentially conceptual arguments. The first is that migration policies and practices do not reflect a monolithic and historically transcendent ‘French model’. Rather migration policies are historically dynamic, shaped inter alia by nativism and especially the influence of right-wing political parties, concerns about ‘terrorism’, but also left-wing political parties; to that we can add pro-migrant NGOs, European laws and policies, French juridical concerns about family life, social and economic rights, the legality of deportation, the economic costs of enforcing deportation, and government decisions concerning the ‘needs’ of labor markets, whether at the highly skilled or at the low end of the spectrum. While these processes can be separated analytically as the enormous literature on the politics of migration proves, they are related in practice. They cannot also be treated comprehensively in a short chapter. Nonetheless, I touch on all of these to one extent or another while focusing particularly on the influence of political parties, on decisions about labor market demands, and on security concerns. Second, with respect to ‘integration’, I argue that while laïcité and Republicanism as ‘public philosophies’ (Adrian Favell 1998[2001]) may continue to frame public discourse and policies, the strength of laicité is exaggerated (Weil 2008) and the literature suffers from a ‘methodological nationalism’ (e.g. Wimmer and Glick-Schiller 2002). By this, I mean that scholars use the lens of France as a whole, rather than examining integration practices through, for example, ‘actually existing’ urban policies and practices. Such policies and practices, I maintain, intervene in the process of integration through area (or zonal)-based policies which have the consequence of addressing conventional matters of integration for immigrants and ‘ethnic minorities’, such as housing, education, and employment. At the same time, ‘policy entrepreneurs’ in particularly cities and la banlieue skirt the constraints of the 1905 law concerning the separation of church and state2 by framing and addressing religious demands in such a way that they can be treated as ‘culturally acceptable’ issues—a de facto multiculturalism.

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In demonstrating these arguments, I begin with some theoretical considerations concerning the politics, policies, and practices of migration, ‘integration’ and multiculturalism. This is followed by an empirical section that critically explores these themes through the administrations of Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande, and Emmanuel Macron.

Theoretical Considerations: The Politics of Migration Our main concern here is to understand why the French government has pursued a more open or a more closed stance toward migration. A place to begin is the mid-twentieth-century ‘national identity’ approach in which migration policy can be understood through national idioms, understandings of citizenship by governments and civil society, and nationally specific political and legal cultures. One could also locate a more critical ‘national identity’ approach. For example, Balibar and Wallerstein (1991) seek to connect ‘race’, ‘nation’, and class by theorizing a class-­ inflected ‘ethno’ and ‘xeno-racism’ as a legacy of colonial relations. Thus, Islamophobia (or at least the fear of Islamism) and anti-Arab sentiment would stem from the relationship between the French government, French civil society, and its former colonies. A second approach involves (neo-)Marxist analyses, in which scholars perceive migration to have a specific function for European states. That is, the presence of racialized immigrant workers divides and weakens the working class, depresses wages, reduces inflation and boosts productivity for the capitalist class(es), and hence capitalist states. Alternatively, some scholars focused on immigrants as an emergent political force stemming in part from the difficulties of industry itself, social exclusion, and unemployment in the 1970s and early 1980s. The prominence of this perspective faded for a number of reasons, not least the decline of labor migration. During the 1980s, family reunification migration prevailed, and the French government and civil society realized that migrants were not just temporary workers in France, but ‘here to stay’. In the wake of the decline in the interest in Marxism as a critical diagnostic on immigration, a second, more ‘liberal’ or ‘pluralist’ set of approaches gained prominence. While anti-immigrant restrictionism seemed to re-affirm itself in France in the early 1990s, Christian Joppke (1998) counterintuitively underscored the role of courts in impeding gov-

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ernments from deporting ‘unwanted’ migrants, what he called ‘self-­limited sovereignty’. At the same time, scholars began to focus on European institutions (and again, especially the role of courts) in regulating migration supra-nationally. ‘Supranationalization’ (or ‘communatarization’) also works on national-policy making through judicial constraints, such as the right to respect for ‘family life’ as dictated by Article 8 of the European Court of Human Rights and the EU Family Reunification Directive (2003) (e.g. Block and Bonjour 2013), the Single Permit Directive (also known as the European blue card for highly skilled migrants) or mobility rights given to seasonal workers as dictated by the 2014 Directive on Seasonal Workers.3 Contra neo-Marxist or other political economy arguments, political sociology approaches favored the analysis of examining specific actors and institutions, court cases, political parties and elections, their agency and the power relations between them, whether nationally or in the realm of EU decision-making (Guiraudon 2003; Sciortino 2000). In this instance, one could interrogate the battle over migration policy between ‘left-­ leaning’ parties (e.g. France Insoumise), those leaning more ‘right’ (e.g. les Republicains), or those on the ‘far right’ (Rassemblement National).4 Yet, theorizations of the politics of migration could also be charged with a certain state-centrism, and NGOs such as CIMADE, GISTI, and various trade unions have sought to persuade policy-makers to enact more migrant-friendly legislation, while other groups on the right, such as Identitaires, have pursued the opposite. Foucauldian analyses of migration (including both feminist and non-­ feminist variants) emerged in the 2000s with an emphasis on (neoliberal) ‘governmentality’, biopolitics, and disciplinary power. This included a literature on the penal dimensions of migration (‘carceral geographies’), which focused on centers of detention as sites of migration control (e.g. Moran et al. 2016). The principal purpose of this wide-ranging Foucauldian literature is to understand how governments and other institutions and actors create ‘populations’, categorize and discipline migrants through a range of ‘technologies of power’ (e.g. Fassin 2011). A cognate and large body of work has focused on the increasing ‘securitization’ of migration since 9/11. Yet securitization is not to be understood simply as greater restriction and the enhancement of the material aspects of security (walls, cameras, etc.), but that for example, migration is increasingly framed as a threat to security. In this sense, securitization is understood primarily as a discourse (Boswell 2007).

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Alongside the preoccupation with securitization, migration scholars echoed other social scientists in turning to ‘neoliberalization’ as a conceptual umbrella for understanding migration policies. Indeed, that governments began to prioritize highly skilled migrants at the expense of others (e.g. asylum-seekers, refugees, the ‘less-skilled’ establishes how states were closing borders in order to protect welfare entitlements, while seeking to accelerate capital accumulation. In the same vein, the concept of ‘neo-­ Schumpeterianism’ (Jessop 1995), which describes the function of the state in supporting technological innovation for capital accumulation, might be extended to the study of migration). In other words, one might see the prioritization of highly skilled immigrants as a means for enhancing technological innovation.

Theoretical Considerations: The Politics of ‘Integration’ and Multiculturalism In France, the term ‘integration’ gained prominence in the 1980s among both the religious and secular left and the religious and secular right. Indeed, the meaning of ‘integration’ is contested by different groups and political parties. Let us begin with the relationship between integration and citizenship as concepts. Citizenship may be conceived as having three dimensions, namely as comprising certain legal statuses, as a set of formal rights, and as a form of ‘belonging’. While legal status may seem more a question of citizenship than integration, debates in the French government during the 1990s considered the naturalization of especially young people as an issue of ‘integration’. At the same time, the connections between ‘integration’ as a national discourse and actual rights are equally murky, since most integration debates do not take into account ‘denizenship’ (i.e. the gradations of formal citizenship, including undocumented status) for the attribution of rights (Favell 1998[2001]). Rather, integration seems to coincide more with the meaning of ‘belonging’ to French society, both in terms of agreeing to the ostensibly Republican/secular character of public and political life and second, to being employed, ‘adequately’ housed, and formally educated. Yet, integration policies work beyond such necessities to include other quotidian cultural, recreational, and religious practices. The second matter is that one could imagine a spectrum on which the meaning of ‘integration’ ranges from assimilation at one end, to multiculturalism on the other. In the former, immigrants are expected to adapt the

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linguistic, religious, and other socio-cultural or political practices of citizens. In the latter, migrants’ practices are tolerated and even celebrated—a form of multiculturalism. ‘Multiculturalism’ then is a combination of discourses, ideologies, political philosophies, formalized and informalized practices, and forms of governance (including policies that attempt to ‘manage’ human diversity) which to some extent ‘fix culture’. After all, ‘cultures’ are produced, fluid and not internally coherent. In any case, it is also a set of political movements tied to people’s sense of belonging associated with a named ‘culture’ or ‘cultures’, in other words an identity politics or communitarianism that are perceived to be in opposition to Republicanism and laïcité (Akan 2009). With this conceptual compass in mind, let me turn to how integration is conceived by the French government. I have already spoken of ‘national models’ of integration, and how national identity as expressed in racist, xenophobic, and other exclusionary ways might explain migration policy, but it has been used to explain integration policies as well. In the last decade, writers turned public figures such as Éric Zemmour have offered damning and racist assessments of immigration in his now both celebrated and vilified book Le Suicide français (2014). Likewise, another equally contentious writer, Renaud Camus, argues in the Grand Remplacement (2012) that a conspiratorial global elite is seeking to replace the ‘White race’ with Arabs, Berbers, and ‘Blacks’ from Africa. These have been influential texts for the far right in France, but I would argue that these should be viewed as an extension of widespread post-colonial Islamophobia (the class-inflected ethno-racism and xeno-racism discussed by Balibar and Wallerstein) that has plagued France since at least the 1980s.5 From a different tradition, Rogers Brubaker (1992) distinguishes between different conceptions of citizenship based on jus soli (territorial-­ based citizenship) in France or jus sanguinis (ethnic-based citizenship) in Germany. He claims (as have countless others) that France has incorporated a ‘universalizing’, Republican (‘color-blind’) citizenship which embraces any foreigners willing to accept French political culture. From this perspective, the origins of French policies lay apparently in the government’s emphasis on jus soli (law of soil, or citizenship based on territory), in which the ‘only foreigner’ would be one who rejected the political culture of France. However, as I suggested before, a number of authors have argued that such models were never pure, that they have converged; that the historical association between jus soli and civic conceptions of nationhood is misleading, or that such models should be discredited entirely (e.g. Freeman 2004).

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In a more nuanced understanding of national differences, Favell (1998 [2001]) argues that policies of ‘integration’ are dependent upon different ‘public philosophies’ refracted through institutional configurations that frame matters of integration, although he too recognizes that such public philosophies and frames are not immutable. In contrast, Feldblum (1999) argues that citizenship and nationality are as much shaped by political processes and political conflict in France (what she calls a ‘political process framework’) as they are by French institutions. Earlier in the 1990s, scholars recognized Soysal’s The Limits to Citizenship (1994) in terms of its argument for the weight of ‘postnational membership or ‘postnational citizenship’ in determining the rights of immigrants. In other words, national forms of citizenship were fading in favor of a rising ‘universal personhood’. Certainly, one of the challenges for the French government is to design policies and practices that remain aligned with, or at least do not violate, EU laws and policies. Beyond the European and national dimensions of integration, the integration literature may be accused of ‘methodological nationalism’. Without denying the multiple territories through which integration is governed (‘networked governance’), some scholars have emphasized the significance of a city or urban dimension to integration, and especially as a lens on the management of cultural or religious diversity in France. Indeed, in France, ‘integration’ policies through education, employment, housing, and other initiatives involve largely area or ‘culture’ based, rather than ethnic, communitarian, or explicitly religious policies. Yet such policies can be more explicitly religious within limits that are circumscribed by the 1905 law on the separation of Church and State (e.g. Martínez-Ariño 2018). In order to understand migration and integration policies and practices of the French government in the twenty-first century, I begin with a noteworthy turn in migration policies and in ideas about laïcité and multiculturalism during Nicolas Sarkozy’s position as Interior Minister and later during his presidency. I then turn to François Hollande, and finally to the leadership of Emmanuel Macron.

Migration Policy and Integration Under Sarkozy and Hollande Sarkozy’s Regulation of Migration During Sarkozy’s position as Interior Minister from 2002 to 2007, he drew on the conventionally understood divide between ‘less-skilled’ and ‘highly skilled’ migrants and insisted on the negative consequences of

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immigration subie (‘immigration under duress’) and the necessity of immigration choisie (‘selective immigration’). In terms of what Sarkozy perceived to be immigration subie (i.e. the immigration of the ‘less-skilled’, family reunification migrants, undocumented immigrants, and asylum-­ seekers and refugees), he implemented quite restrictive measures, including pre-entry citizenship training for family migrants, Contrats d’Accueil et d’Intégration (Welcome and Integration Contracts), and increasing the number of deportations of undocumented immigrants from 11,000  in 2003 to 25,000 in 2006 (Marthaler 2006; Murphy 2006). For Sarkozy, such ‘unwanted’ immigrants were a burden on a strained welfare state, and allegedly difficult to integrate because of their religious origins or practices—code words for Muslims and Islam. Conversely, the idea of immigration choisie seems simple enough: given the decline of manual labor demand in ‘post-industrial’ France, and the rise of ‘knowledge-­ intensive’ employment, the French government chose to prioritize highly skilled individuals over the other categories of migrants mentioned above. Yet, to be more precise, immigration choisie would not be solely directed at stereotypically highly skilled workers such as computer engineers, but to those across the skill spectrum in any sector that required workers, including less-skilled workers (what Menz 2010 calls a ‘sectoral turn’). In any case, immigration choisie would function by offering the ‘Carte Competence et talents’ (skill and talents visa) to especially highly skilled engineers, entrepreneurs, and scientists. Recipients would be exempt from French ‘civic integration tests’ (discussed briefly below) that came into force in 2008, and from the Contrat d’accueil et d’intégration (albeit with differences for EU and non-EU citizens). This would also be accompanied by European-wide labor market ‘tests’ to ensure that no citizens or ‘local residents’ were available for employment (Menz 2010). Such policies represented a break from the ‘zero immigration’ rhetoric of former Interior Minister Charles Pasqua during the 1990s. Sarkozy viewed this change in immigration policy as not only economically rational, but ‘morally just’, and it also connected migration to matters of integration in at least three ways. First, he estimated that quantitatively driven immigration choisie would provide a more positive view of immigration for the French public and facilitate the integration of immigrants. Second, he framed immigration subie as both a threat to the French welfare state, and to the ‘identity’ (read Christian) of the French ‘nation’. Third, by focusing on immigration subie, he also drew anxious attention away from a somewhat diminished welfare state (Marthaler 2006; Ocak 2016).

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One might interpret these various immigration measures as evidence of ‘neoliberalization’ or ‘neo-Schumpeterianism’ as elaborated on earlier, but Sarkozy did not intend to substantially increase the number of highly skilled individuals either. Indeed, quite restrictive quotas existed for especially West and sub-Saharan African countries, and by 2008, only 44 Carte Competence et talents were accorded out of a supposed target number of 2000! This suggests that Sarkozy remained more concerned about immigration subie than with promoting immigration choisie (Ocak 2016). When Sarkozy established the Ministère de l’Immigration, de l’Intégration, de l’Identité nationale et du Codéveloppement in May 2007 (later dissolved in 2009) it internalized at least three processes. First, it firmly established the links between migration and integration. For example, starting with 2008 the French government required ‘civic integration tests’ abroad for family reunification migrants by testing their knowledge of the French language and of Republican values before being admitted to France (Bonjour 2010). Second, it displayed Sarkozy’s response to protest from left-wing groups and parties (such as the Parti Socialiste) concerning both the civic integration tests, and the deleterious consequences of ‘brain drain’ on the societies of origin—hence the ‘co-development’ dimension of the new Ministry. Third, it would signal Sarkozy and his administration’s concern for not only the control of migration but for intervening heavily in debates about laïcité and multiculturalism. The Politics of Integration Under Sarkozy Concerning this last point above, did Sarkozy’s administration practice a de facto ‘multiculturalism’ in the twenty-first century beyond the republican, laïc, and anti-communitarian rhetoric and practices of the last two decades, and how are these practices related to migration? Consider for example that the French government funded and supported Catholic schools and institutions during the twentieth century, and that the French government has intervened significantly in negotiating the role of Islam in French society dating back to at least the 1920s, whether it be in terms of mosques, religious councils, schools, or other institutions. More recently, Islamic private primary and secondary schools opened in the early 2000s (Akan 2009; Bowen 2010; Kepel 1987; Laurence and Vaisse 2006). In 2003, the Rapport Stasi6 offered a set of recommendations to the French government, and in response, the latter passed the law of March 3,

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2004, against visible religious symbols in the public sphere. The reasons for this decision, according to Weil (2008), lay not in anti-religious sentiment (c.f. Brayson 2019; Selby 2012), but in response to Muslim boys bullying Muslim girls into wearing the headscarf in public schools. Paradoxically, in the same year and at the behest of Sarkozy, the first state-­contracted but private Muslim high school opened in France in Lille, and Sarkozy oversaw the establishment of the French Muslim Council (CFCM). He defended the CFCM on the grounds that le culte Musulman (the Muslim faith) was not only a religion but a cultural identity that provided ‘societal cohesion’. In this instance, the state had decidedly brought the question of ‘cultural identity’ into French political debate, even if it remained exclusionary toward young Muslims in the public education system. As Akan (2009, 239) put it, this proved to be an exclusionary form of laïcité, a ‘state-led multiculturalization of the public sphere’ or ‘state-­led identity politics’. Politicized discussions of Republicanism and laïcité saw little abatement. In 2008, the Conseil d’Etat refused citizenship to a Moroccan born woman on the grounds of her wearing a niqab or full veil (or face cover). This decision lay at the origins of two debates, one with citizens, and the other in Parliament. Concerning the former, Eric Bresson, the then French Minister of Immigration and Integration launched a roughly year-long national identity debate in 2009. The Ministry of Immigration hosted the debate on-line on its website, and it also involved community gatherings, town hall meetings and individual contributions. Nonetheless, Bresson reaffirmed the centrality of French Republicanism and pride in ‘being French’. This could be understood as a response to the rise of ‘communatarianisms’ and the so-called ‘burka affair’ (Bertossi 2012; Ocak 2016), which I argue is a manifestation of both ethno-racism and xeno-racism (as mentioned earlier) within the French administration and certain sections of French society. The Council of State argued that the wearing of a niqab was a default of ‘assimilation’ and that she adhered to ‘a radical religious practice that conflicted with the values of the Republic’, notably the equality of the sexes (Bertossi 2012, 438; Lettinga and Saharso 2012). Sarkozy supported such a justification, arguing that ‘The burqa [sic] is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience. It will not be welcomed on the territory of the French republic’ (Sarkozy 2009, cited in Lettinga and Saharso 2012, 327). It is important to recognize however that very few Muslim women wear a burqa or a niqab in France, estimated to be somewhere between 350 and 2000 women (Bertossi 2012). Nonetheless, Sarkozy

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established a parliamentary inquiry to consider the possibility of a law banning the wearing of a ‘burqa’ (meaning a niqab)7 in public, and even couched it in securitarian terms (Mavelli 2013). By January 2010, the Commission had suggested a ban on all face coverings in certain public institutions and on public transportation, while a complete ban appeared to be an impossibility under French Law. Regardless, the government sought to outlaw face-covering in all public spaces, including in the street, framing the bill in terms of a lack of assimilation or immigrant integration, gender/sex equality, a problem of human dignity, liberty, laïcité, a violation of the republican pact of ‘living together’, public order, security, and social cohesion. Ultimately, the Conseil Constitutionnel passed the prohibition of wearing either a burqa or a niqab in a public place, and it came into force in April 2011 (Bertossi 2012; Lettinga and Saharso 2012). In the presidential elections of 2012, it appeared that Sarkozy sought to attract support from Front National (FN) voters by reducing legal immigration by half, providing further obstacles for immigrants to receiving benefits, increasing restrictions on family reunification, withdrawing from the Schengen Agreement,8 drawing connections between immigration and a lack of law and order, and linking immigration with poverty. However, with the election of François Hollande in May 2012 to the presidency, a very slim majority of voters rejected Sarkozy, with voters seemingly moving toward the ‘left’. Hollande pledged a more tolerant line on migration, if not integration, although at the same time, Marine Le Pen’s FN recorded the most electoral gains in its history (Carvalho 2018; Mondon 2014). Migration and Integration Under François Hollande At the opening of the Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration in December 2014, Hollande offered an adulatory speech on the benefits of immigration and the necessity of ‘free movement’ in the EU while ­emphasizing that immigrants constituted a relatively small proportion of France’s population. Yet, he also added that ‘the success of integration will determine our national destiny’ (cited in Carvalho 2018, n.p.). In his policies, Hollande continued a modified version of immigration choisie (through Passeports Talents), expanded the length of foreign residency from one to two years, and liberalized naturalization procedures. However, he also insisted that there was an ‘integration crisis’ and continued the policies of civic training on republican values while replacing the ‘Welcome

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and Integration Contracts’ with ‘Republican Integration Contracts’ signaling an integration crisis reminiscent of the claims of the FN’s rhetoric. Importantly, Hollande linked immigration control to immigrant integration, by tying, for instance, an entry visa or residence permit to successful ‘integration’ (Carvalho 2018). If one looks at sub-state integration processes during Hollande’s administration, then Martínez-Ariño (2018) has examined the regulation of religion in three cities: Bordeaux, Rennes, and Toulouse. In Rennes and Toulouse, various forms of ‘Consultative Secular Councils’ have been established during the 2010s that bring together a range of municipal and non-state actors (especially religious authorities). The aim of such councils is to produce guidelines for local actors to determine which types of religious activities might be acceptable in the public sphere. In Rennes for example, city officials are invited to religious and interreligious events, and city officials invite religious leaders to civic events. These exchanges are designed to recognize and valorize the diversity within such cities, though they also involve a certain amount of municipal control by delimiting which religious groups are trustworthy and acceptable. Nonetheless, confessional plots in public cemeteries are provided for Jews and Muslims in Rennes, and in Bordeaux, the municipal government has created annual interreligious conferences (Bordeaux Partage). Public space is provided free of charge (a form of indirect funding) to religious groups to engage in inter-faith dialogue in Bordeaux, while the city of Toulouse charges rent to religious groups for such space. The point of this discussion is to highlight how religious diversity is governed (a de facto multiculturalism) through sub-state or municipal territories, despite, or because of national politics and policies. Following the attacks in Paris on November 15, 2015, Holland’s rhetoric and policies seemed to harden, and while linking migration to security could hardly be considered a new phenomenon in France, migration and ‘integration’ seemed to be increasingly associated with domestic and ­international security in political discourse under Hollande—again what I have referred to earlier as ‘securitization’. While he declared a state of emergency for three months, and gave authorities the power to carry out some 2200 raids, re-establish internal border controls within the European Union (especially at the Belgian border) and shut down mosques suspected of radicalizing environments (Wall Street Journal, December 5–6, 2015), he also declared that ‘terrorism wouldn’t destroy the Republic, but rather that the Republic would destroy it’.9 The attacks in Nice in July

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2016 led to this heightened securitization and restriction, including the immediate extension of the state of emergency (voted on by the French Parliament) and his support for European quotas on migration. The state of emergency would last until the election of Macron. Widespread anxiety over Islam and laïcité in the wake of these various attacks also led to the banning of ‘burkinis’ on French beaches in 25 cities which demonstrated the participation of cities in regulating ‘integration’, although these decisions were overturned by the Conseil d’Etat in the same month (Martínez-­ Ariño 2018). The FN shaped Hollande’s rhetoric and certain policies, including his less emollient discourse on integration and its securitization (Carvalho 2018), but the actual numbers concerning different types of migration seem to contradict a rightward shift of Hollande’s migration policies, and thus an unquestioned process of restrictionism. In fact, if one examines the data for asylum-seekers and refugees, the number of those accepted increased from a low point in 2006 (if we take into account the last two decades) of about 10,000 to approximately 42,000 in 2017 although the figures vary by country (e.g. very few Albanians have been accepted, in contrast with the majority of Syrians) (Le Monde 2018, based on OFPRA data). The acceptance rate of asylum-seekers also appears to have increased rather than decreased since 2000 (20% in 2000 compared to about 38% in 2016, which is nearly the same percentage as in 1986) (OFPRA 2017). Likewise, the number of family reunification migrants has remained rather steady from at least the period 2014 to 2017 (Ministere de l’Interieur 2019). Though any amount of ‘deportation orders’ (OQTN or l’Obligation de Quitter le Territoire National) is grim (e.g. consider the ‘Leonarda Affair’ in 2013), their number too has remained ‘steady’ between 75,000 and 90,000 per year over the last 10  years, and were much lower in 2016 than in 2009, for example. More to the point, only a small proportion of OQTN are carried out (from about 7 to 22%) for a variety of legal reasons (Mathiot 2017).

Macronisme, Migration, and Integration In May 2017, Emmanuel Macron defeated Marine Le Pen and the former Front National in the second round of voting to become the President of the Republic (Le Monde 2017). Le Pen, who had claimed some 34% of the vote, sought to eliminate jus soli (the right to citizenship based on place of birth), to pull out of ‘Shengenland’, to implement a national preference

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system and to develop a more systematic approach to ‘illegal immigrants’ [sic] (en situation irregulière). Francois Fillon, the leader of the Republicains who lost in the first round of presidential elections, also shared many of Le Pen’s ideas (Le Monde Diplomatique, April 2017). In contrast, while Macron sought to clearly distinguish himself from Le Pen (Dravigny 2018), the question remains as the extent to which the political extremes, especially the right and the far right, may have shaped Macron’s own rhetoric and policies on migration and ‘integration’ during his stay at the Elysée Palace.10 In any case, his rhetoric and policies after a year seemed little different, grosso modo, from his nominally Socialist predecessor Hollande. To begin with, Macron has described ‘integration’ as an ‘absolute priority’ while proposing a range of vague commitments (such as improving education and employment) in poorer neighborhoods. At the same time, he has rejected both multiculturalism and assimilation; he has insisted on ‘living together’ (vivre ensemble), and the ‘transmission of our fundamental knowledge, of our culture, and of our values’.11 Similarly, he has preferred to speak of a ‘French culture’ ‘sustained by numerous tributaries’12 rather than a ‘French identity’ and an ‘open and voluntary patriotism’. During a speech in July 2016 as Minister of the Economy, and about a year before his election to the presidency, he insisted on a ‘French identity’ under construction: Whether their names are Jean or Malika, that is French identity…That is not something that will divide us; it’s not something that we want to remove, because French identity is a project, which progresses us further; it’s something that we are in the process of inventing. French identity is never narrow.13

Likewise, a week before he won the second round of voting, he proclaimed: Contrary to what some people say, we are not faced with an immigration wave….The subject of immigration should not worry the French people. Immigration is part of the world in which we live. Furthermore, immigration proves to be an opportunity from an economic, cultural, and social perspective (cited in Cassadeus 2017).14

Macron did in fact come across as pro-migration during his campaign. He argued that France needed to support the other EU member states and the ‘international community’ in welcoming refugees, while praising

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Angela Merkel for welcoming more than a million asylum-seekers during the ‘Syrian refugee crisis’ in 2015. Nonetheless, behind his pan-European support for refugees, probably lays a desire to have Brussels and southern European countries control migration, rather than embrace it. Indeed, his actual policies and practices after his election seemed to obscure any emollient rhetoric before it. Both Macron and his Interior Minister Gérard Columb were concerned about the reappearances of encampments in Calais after the government destroyed the ‘Jungle’ and its surrounding camps in Calais in October 2016. Columb sent approximately 200 police officers to Calais in June 2017, to ensure that migrant camps would not reappear in Calais and the Hauts-de-France region. The Ministry of Interior also threatened NGOs or citizens against providing housing, food, water, or other necessities to those who might re-establish themselves in camps. While many but not all migrants were bussed to Centres d’accueil et d’examen des situations (migrant reception centers) to have their cases examined, Columb argued that if the French government continues to create accommodation centers, this would only encourage more asylum-seeking. For Columb then, the most logical response consisted of trying to reduce the number of asylum-seekers in the first place (Dravigny 2017, 5; Maurice 2018). While Macron himself did not adopt any direct measures to reduce the number of places in the Centres d’accueil, he did offer two measures to stem the number of ‘new arrivals’. In April 2018, Macron proposed a new bill which would reduce the number of cases in the asylum system (the number had almost doubled between 2013 and 2016) (Ministere de l’Interieur 2016). First, he would curtail the length of time an asylum-­ seeker would have to file an application (from 120 to 90 days). Rejected asylum-seekers could be held for 90 days before deportation (up from 45). The bill sought to increase and intensify the criminalization of undocumented immigrants, rendering unauthorized entry into a France a ­punishable offense with a prison sentence of up to one year. These revisions to immigration policies (and especially the push for more deportations) have been argued to be an effect of the unprecedented public support for Marine Le Pen’s FN. Macron defended his proposals on the grounds that it was better for a moderate party to pass these rules than to give more political space to the far right. Nevertheless, these deportations required enormous resources from the Ministry of Interior (itself already under pressure financially) and were mostly ineffective (Dravigny 2018).

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Conclusions This chapter aimed to understand the relationship between migration policies and ‘integration’ (and concerning the latter, especially laïcité and multiculturalism) over roughly the last two decades. Ethno-racism and xeno-racism (especially in the form of Islamophobia) as discussed by Balibar and Wallerstein (1991) more than 25 years ago continue to manifest themselves in France. This shapes party politics, and it has contributed to restrictive measures across these three administrations, such as barriers to asylum-seeking through detentions and asylum refusals, barriers for entering France as less-skilled workers, deportations, or tighter rules on accessing social entitlements. While scholarly proclamations about restrictionism expose the oppressions and repressions of state policies and practices, greater restriction is not borne out by at least some of the data on migration over the last decade or so (e.g. in the increasing acceptance rate of asylum-seekers or the decreasing number of deportations). At the same time, highly skilled migration has been prioritized in rhetoric if not always in practice, which suggests a continuation of neoliberal or even neo-­Schumpeterian impulses. The contradictions of such migration policies are well rehearsed in the migration studies literature but are not easily theorized. Broadly-speaking, I have identified empirically a set of nativist, judicial, political sociological, securitarian, and neoliberal/neo-Schumpeterian explanations (or critical diagnoses) of migration policy. However, the securitarian dimension seems to have gained traction during Hollande and Macron’s administration. In terms of ‘integration’, I maintain that all three administrations used laïcité to heavily shape the rhetorics and actual policies of integration (witness e.g. the so-called ‘burqa affair’). In so doing, multiculturalisme as official government discourse or policy has been either dismissed or largely avoided. This may not be surprising at all to casual observers of such issues in France. Yet, it has also not precluded the use of a de facto multiculturalism that is expressed in other ways: through the acknowledgment of a culturally diverse France (such as in the growing anti-discrimination legislation with respect to say, employment); in the various discursive contortions of what constitutes ‘French identity’, through the more-than-tacit acceptance of religious schools and other institutions since at least the early 2000s, and most recently, through a whole range of urban institutions, policies and practices geared toward regulating especially religious diversity. Ultimately, there is a need to understand these contradictions of migration and integration, to critically theorize them, and to name them.

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Notes 1. The ‘Jungle’ (as it was unofficially called) refers to an encampment of migrants and asylum-seekers, mainly from Africa and the Middle East near the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Calais from 2015 to 2017. However, it is the continuation to one degree or another of an earlier series of encampments dating back to 2002. The location of this camp reflected the desire of most migrants and asylum-seekers to reach the UK. 2. The 1905 law on ‘the separation of State and Churches’ sought to curb the power of the Catholic Church in public affairs. However, it also dictated ‘the freedom of conscience’ (meaning the right to practice one’s religion with protection from the state), and the equal respect of all faiths and beliefs, although it also forbade the public funding of religious positions in the public sphere, and not the individual practice of religion (e.g. wearing religious symbols) in the public sphere (see Weil 2008). 3. On the family reunification directive, see Samers and Collyer (2017, 194– 196). For the Blue card, see https://ec.europa.eu/immigration/bluecard/essential-information_en, and for the Seasonal worker directive: https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/legal-migration/work_en 4. In June 2018, the Front National became the Rassemblement National. 5. See also Brayson (2019) for a similar argument. 6. The Stasi Commission was established by Chirac in 2003 in order to debate the place of the veil in public education in France. It consisted of 20 members and interviewed dozens of leaders from the government and civil society. 7. The burka is a garment that completely covers the body, including the face, while the niqab is a veil which covers the face entirely, but leaves an opening for the eyes. 8. Signed originally in 1985, and later revised in 1990, the Schengen Agreement abolished border controls between many (but not all) EU member states. 9. ‘Le terrorisme ne détruira pas la République. Car c’est la République qui le détruira. Vive la République et vive la France’ (16/11/2015, Congrès à Versailles, cited in Sandré 2018, p. 16, my translation). 10. This is unfortunately, an understudied question (but see Carvalho 2018). 11. ‘nourrie de plusieurs affluents’, cited in Dravigny, 2018, 9, my translation. 12. This is the name of the official residence of the President of France. 13. ‘Qu’ils s’appellent Jean ou Malika, c’est ça l’identité française. […] Ce n’est pas quelque chose qui nous diviserait, ce n’est pas quelque chose qu’on veut nous enlever, parce que l’identité française, c’est un projet, c’est ce qui nous fait avancer, c’est ce que nous sommes en train d”inventer’, cited in Bretton 2018, n.p., my translation.

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14. ‘Contrairement à ce que certains disent, nous ne sommes pas aujourd’hui confrontés à une vague d’immigration’. ‘Le sujet de l’immigration ne devrait donc pas inquiéter la population française’... ‘l’immigration n’est pas quelque chose dont nous pourrions nous départir. De surcroît, l’immigration se révèle une chance d’un point économique, culturel, social’, cited in Cassadeus 2017, n.p., my translation.

References Akan, Murat. 2009. Laïcité and multiculturalism: The Stasi Report in Context. British Journal of Sociology 60 (2): 237–256. Balibar, Etienne, and Immanuel Wallerstein. 1991. Race, Nation, Class. London/ New York: Verso. Bertossi, Christophe. 2012. The Performativity of Colour Blindness: Race Politics and Immigrant Integration in France. Patterns of Prejudice 46 (5): 427–444. Block, Laura, and Saskia Bonjour. 2013. Fortress Europe or Europe of Rights? The Europeanisation of Family Migration Policies in France, Germany and the Netherlands. European Journal of Migration and Law 15: 203–224. Bonjour, Saskia. 2010. Between Integration Provision and Selection Mechanism: Party Politics, Judicial Constraints, and the Making of French and Dutch Policies of Civic Integration Abroad. European Journal of Migration and Law 12: 299–318. Boswell, Christina. 2007. Migration Control in Europe After 9/11: Explaining the Absence of Securitization. Journal of Common Market Studies 45 (3): 589–610. Bowen, John R. 2010. Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press. Brayson, K. 2019. Of Bodies and Burkinis: Institutional Islamophobia, Islamic Dress, and the Colonial Condition. Journal of Law and Society 46 (1): 55–82. Bretton, Laure. 2018. Identité et immigration: à quoi joue Emmanuel Macron? Liberation, December 11. https://www.liberation.fr/france/2018/12/11/ identite-et-immigration-a-quoi-joue-emmanuel-macron_1697271. Accessed 17 May 2019. Brubaker, Rogers. 1992. Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Carvalho, Joao. 2018. The Front National’s Influence on Immigration During President Francois Hollande’s term. In Do they Make a Difference? The Policy Influence of Radical Right Populist Parties in Western Europe, ed. Benjamin Biard, Laurent Bernhard, and H. Betz. ECPR Press, Draft Copy. Casadesus, Frédérick. 2017. Migrants, politique migratoire et intégration: le constat d’Emmanuel Macron. Réforme, 1er Mai. https://www.reforme. net/2017/05/01/migrants-politiques-migratoires-et-integration-le-constatdemmanuel-macron/. Accessed 17 May 2019.

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Dravigny, Josselin. 2017. Présidence Macron et immigration: La continuité en marche? Centre d’information et d’études sur les migrations internationals. Migrations Société 168: 3–11. ———. 2018. Projet de loi asile-immigration: la fermeté, en attendant l’humanité? The Conversation, February 21. Fassin, Didier. 2011. Policing Borders, Producing Boundaries: The Governmentality of Immigration in Dark Times. Annual Review of Anthropology 40 (1): 213–226. Favell, Adrian. 1998[2001]. Philosophies of Integration. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Feldblum, Miriam. 1999. Reconstructing Citizenship: The Politics of Nationality Reform and Immigration in Contemporary France. Albany: State University of New York Press. Freeman, Gary. 2004. Incorporation in Western Democracies. International Migration Review 38 (3): 945–969. Guiraudon, Virginie. 2003. The Constitution of European Immigration Policy Domain: A Political Sociology Approach. Journal of European Public Policy 10 (2): 263–282. Jessop, Bob. 1995. Towards a Schumpeterian Workfare Regime in Britain-­ Reflections on Regulation, Governance, and Welfare State. Environment and Planning, A 27 (10): 1613–1626. Joppke, Christian. 1998. Immigration Challenges the Nation State. In Challenge to the Nation-State, ed. Christian Joppke. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kepel, Gilles. 1987. Banlieue d’Islam. Paris: Seuil. Laurence, Jonathan, and Justin Vaisse. 2006. Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Challenges in Contemporary France. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Le Monde. 2017. Election présidentielle, available at https://www.lemonde.fr/ election-presidentielle-2017/live/2017/05/07/suivez-la-soiree-electoraleen-direct_5123713_4854003.html. Accessed 17 May 2019. ———. 2018. La hausse des demandes d’asile en quatre graphiques: Le chiffre symbolique des 100 000 demandes d’asile a été franchi en 2017, selon l’Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides. January 8. https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/article/2018/01/08/comprendre-la-hausse-desdemandes-d-asile-en-quatre-graphiques_5238934_4355770.html. Accessed 17 May 2019. Le Monde Diplomatique. 2017. Embarras de la gauche sur l’immigration. April 14–15. Lettinga, Doutje, and Sawitri Saharso. 2012. The political debates on the veil in France and the Netherlands: Reflecting national integration models? Comparative European Politics 10 (3): 319–336.

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Marthaler, Sally. 2006. Nicholas Sarkozy and the Politics of French Immigration Policy. Journal of European Public Policy 15 (3): 382–397. Martínez-Ariño, Julia. 2018. Conceptualising the Role of Cities in the Governance of Religious Diversity in Europe. Current Sociology 66 (5): 810–827. Mathiot, Cédric. 2017. Pourquoi les étrangers en situation irrégulière ne sont pas tous expulses. La Liberation, October 18. Maurice, Stéphanie. 2018. A Calais, Macron s’oppose à toute ‘nouvelle jungle. La Libération, January 16. Mavelli, Luca. 2013. Between Normalisation and Exception: The Securitisation of Islam and the Construction of the Secular Subject. Millennium-Journal of International Studies 41 (2): 159–181. Menz, Georg. 2010. “Employers, Trade Unions, Varieties of Capitalism, and Labour Migration Policies” in Labour Migration in Europe, eds. Georg Menz, and Alexander Caviedes, 25–53. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ministere de l’Interieur. 2016. Immigration, asile, accueil et accompagnement des étrangers en France, available at https://www.immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/ Info-ressources/Etudes-et-statistiques/Statistiques/Essentiel-de-limmigration/Chiffres-cles. Accessed 17 May 2019. ———. 2019. Immigration, asile, accueil and accompagnement des étrangers en France, L’admission au séjour – Les titres de séjour (statistiques), La delivrance des premier titres de sejour par famille de motifs, available at https://www. immigration.interieur.gouv.fr/Immigration/L-admission-au-sejour-Les-titresde-sejour-statistiques. Accessed 17 May 2019. Mondon, Aurelien. 2014. The Front National in the Twenty-First Century: From Pariah to Republican Democratic Contender? Modern & Contemporary France 22 (3): 301–320. Moran, Dominique, Nick Gill, and Deirdre Conlon, eds. 2016. Carceral Spaces: Mobility and Agency in Imprisonment and Migrant Detention. Farnham: Ashgate. Murphy, Kara. 2006. France’s New Law: Control Immigration Flows, Court the Highly-Skilled. Migration Information Source 1: 1. Öcak, Özden. 2016. Immigration and French National Identity Under Neoliberalism: Sarkozy’s Selective Immigration Politics as a Performance of Sovereignty. Patterns of Prejudice 50 (1): 82–95. OFPRA. 2017. Evolution du taux d’admission global depuis 1981 et du taux d’accord Ofpra depuis 2001, https://www.ofpra.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/ atoms/files/evolution_taux_dadmission_-_1981-2016.pdf. Accessed 17 May 2019. Samers, Michael, and Michael Collyer. 2017. Migration. Oxford/New York: Routledge. Sandré, Marion. 2018. De présidentiable à président: évolution de l’image de François Hollande. SHS Web of Conferences 46, Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Française – CMLF 2018.

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Sciortino, Guiseppe. 2000. The Political Sociology of Entry Policies. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 26 (2): 213–238. Selby, J.A. 2012. Questioning French Secularism: Gender Politics and Islam in a Parisian Suburb. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Soysal, Yasemin. 1994. Limits to Citizenship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weil, Patrick. 2008. Why the French Laïcité is liberal. Cardozo Law Review 30 (6): 2699–2714. Wimmer, Andreas, and Nina G. Glick-Schiller. 2002. Methodological Nationalism and the Study of Migration. Archives Européene de Sociologie 43 (2): 217–240.

CHAPTER 5

Representing French Citizenship and Belonging in La Desintégration (2011) by Philippe Faucon Ramona Mielusel

The French national discourse on integration and universal citizenship has been for decades a subject highly discussed in public and private spheres. For centuries, France has been promoting secularism and universalism as the norm to be followed by all citizens aspiring to be integrated into the French national identity. However, this universalizing discourse is far from being unquestionable. On one hand, France is struggling to encompass the idea of diversity as a sign of multicultural social practices, while, on the other, Frenchness is associated with the Jacobin principles of the French Revolution.1 Despite reclaiming the Republican principles in the public discourse, in its daily applicability there is still confusion about and rejection of the ethnic communities that are perceived as non-integrated, as the others. Some French citizens with an ethnic background are seen, even at present, as foreigners (étrangers). This reality creates an opposition between two driving public discourses: ‘us’ (the French Christian citizens)

R. Mielusel (*) Modern Languages Department, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_5

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and ‘them’ (the French nationals of Muslim faith). The disconnection between the two groups has led to a “crisis in the integration models” (Christophe Bertossi 2010) in the French society. As the consequences of this identity crisis resurfaced in the 2000s, the issues of terrorism and religious radicalization have become a serious concern in France. In the present chapter, I focus on the worrisome Islamic radicalization and terrorist actions in France, seen from an artistic angle as an internal threat to the national identity principles instated in the Republican model. If in the past these threats on the West were perceived as products of extremist groups from the Middle East or Pakistan, the hostile nationalist discourse that has developed in France as a reaction to the growing number of citizens of Muslim faith on French soil and the spread of Islam as the second religion after Catholicism in France has triggered the raise of radicalized youth from within the nation, who start questioning their belonging to such a social and political environment. Following the concerns of journalists and politicians, filmmakers also became interested in this issue, as seen in the case of Philippe Faucon.2 His feature film, La Desintégration (Disintegration) (2011), although it came out long before the recent terrorist attacks in France in 2015–2016, can nonetheless be read as a very impactful perspective on a psychological shift in religious views of a certain category of Franco-Maghrebi young people from the French banlieues. In La Desintégration, the filmmaker gradually and masterfully deconstructs the political and public discourse on integration, the discourse promoted and performed by the French state and the media. Drawing on the insights of Michel Foucault, the chapter focuses on Faucon’s analysis of the power relations involved in deconstructing contemporary French public and political discourses on integration. His movie examines and draws attention to the way a nation can be disciplined and punished from within, thereby destabilizing the hegemonic discourse of the state. Before moving to the detailed analysis of the phenomenon in Faucon’s feature length film, I will offer a contextualization that will help clarify the political and the social environments that determined the shift in the minds of many young people from the banlieues.

Contextualization of the Malaise in France and the Rise of Youth Radicalization Since the 1970s and into the 1980s, France has shown a preoccupation with immigration policies and reforms concerning the assimilation of ethnic communities within the nation such as the Family Reunification Law

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in 1974.3 The reforms continued in the 1990s with passing several legal measures like the First Pasqua Law (1993), the Debré Law (1997),4 and the Guigou Law in 1998.5 At the same time, the government has also expressed the will to exercise greater state control over immigrant communities according to the state’s needs and regulations. Discussion of immigration laws and integration continued into the years following 2000, while Nicolas Sarkozy was Minister of the Interior and later when he became President of the republic. France’s immigration and integration law, adopted on July 25, 2006, aimed to overhaul the country’s immigration system by giving the government new powers to encourage high-­ skilled migration, fight illegal immigration more effectively and regulate family immigration. Sarkozy used his political clout to ensure passage of a law that, according to officials, allowed the government to better control immigration. The law stated that access to both citizenship and legal residence was dependent on the newly defined requirements of integration. It marked a critical point in French history when a law explicitly stated the integration responsibilities of immigrants. More specifically, immigrants had to sign a ‘welcome and integration’ contract and take French language and civic courses. Before applying for permanent residence, immigrants had to prove that they were ‘well integrated’ into French society. The government viewed integration in this regard to mean that the immigrant was to respect and comply with the principles of the French Republic and to have a working knowledge of the French language. Even after the long history of immigration in France, and despite all the social programs focusing on the integration of immigrant communities, the 2006 law still created a binary opposition between assimilation on the one hand, and integration of immigrant communities on the other.6 We should understand the government’s intention in speaking of social ‘integration’ in France as meaning, essentially, assimilation, implying the need for immigrant groups to renounce their original identities in order to ‘fit in’ to the adoptive community. The combination of the two semantic fields of ‘the French Republic’ and ‘integration’ has a strong ideological impact. It signifies that everything that is republican is integrative and also that integration can only be republican in nature. This ‘republican model of integration’ emphasizes that several generations of immigrants in France, despite the fact that they may be French citizens, have not been accepted as fully French, and places the onus on them to ‘blend in’ on republican terms based on the French revolutionary principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.

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In this context, the inhabitants of the banlieues, mainly the ones of foreign descents, feel a certain malaise in the French republic, a nation that creates clear distinctions between different citizens. If adherence to French citizenship, cultural and social norms is not a proof of their commitment to the Republic, they also start doubting their belonging to a nation that treats them as second-class citizens. Choosing to disregard the national principles and focus on the solidarity and respect within their community, the ethnic communities in the neighborhoods start creating their own organizational structures. In an effort to preserve their cultures and their traditions, some groups and individuals acquire a taste for their specificity, in most cases their religious beliefs and practices. In search of an identity landmark and a certain dignity that has been lost in the failed process of integration, some groups within the young generation fall into a nihilist rejection of the society whose products they are (Olivier Roy 2016). According to Gilles Kepel in his article “Une polémique qui cache la question sociale” written for the newspaper Le Monde on February 7, 2012, this malaise has several causes: unemployment, poverty, humiliation, social and ethnic discrimination and Islamophobia, in addition to the political crisis that led to the increase in the generalized feeling of social exclusion. In his subsequent books, the French political scientist and Arabist, whose research focuses on the contemporary Middle East and Muslims in the West, adds to the equation the rise of the nationalist and protectionist feelings in French society as exemplified in the increase of popular support for the French National Front in the 2012 and 2017 elections. The minority groups felt underrepresented by the political fractions that competed for power during these elections. Beyond France’s borders, Kepel sees a growth in more radical forms of Islam in the Middle and Far East (the majority supported by political Islamic organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, to name a few) and the imposition of a political Islam in certain countries. The different waves of radical views of Islam in the East have echoes in the West through the spread of Gulf-sponsored Salafist mosques in France, Web 2.0 propaganda that increases the numbers of young converts to (radical) Islam and the radicalization of banlieues youth during their times in prison. It is clear that we need to see the phenomenon of youth radicalization and terrorism in France in a complex scheme of both internal and external politics. These forces have been modifying personal and communitarian views of citizenship and belonging to a nation and to a clear set of ­principles

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and beliefs such as the French republican model. An in-depth analysis of this phenomenon in Faucon’s film La Désintégration can help us to unpack the correlation of forces and discourses that contribute to the transformation of young people in France from French citizens to jihadists.

Disintegration of the French Republican Model in Faucon’s La Désintégration Philippe Faucon,7 a French filmmaker born in Morocco, places his cinematic productions at the crossroads of two opposing national identity discourses in France: the first on encouraging cultural diversity and multi-ethnic perspectives and the second on integrating newcomers and members of the ethnic communities into French republicanism. Educated ‘à la française’, first in Morocco and then in Algeria during the War of Independence (1954–1962), and married to an Algerian woman living in France, the filmmaker builds his fictional world around the topics of France, its former colonies and its diversity. La Désintégration is part of a trilogy together with La Trahison (The Betrayal, 2006) on the topic of the Algerian War and Dans la vie (In life, 2007) based on a friendship between a Jewish woman and a Muslim woman of Maghrebi origin.8 In La Désintégration (2011), Faucon underlines the failures in the process of social and cultural integration in France. Ali (the main character), Nasser (his friend) and Hamza (a French-born citizen converted to Islam)9 meet Djamel during the festival of Aïd el Kebir and are offered shelter and moral support in exchange for their friendship and for turning into good Muslims who listen to sermons from the Koran. Djamel is able to gradually turn them toward a radical Islam. He does this by convincing them of the differences between them and French-born citizens. Their conversion takes place in the span of a few months, during which the three young people cut all ties with their families and friends and renounce the project of integration. The film culminates with them carrying out a bomb attack on the NATO offices in Brussels as a sign of extreme attachment to the Muslim community to which they now belong. Faucon explores with great care this tension within the main character, Ali, who initially appears well integrated into French society and yet ends the film as an outsider, one who radically cuts all ties with his family and friends. What causes this transformation? How can one travel from a position of acceptance in society and its citizens to extremism in the course of a few months? Faucon’s

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film is depicting an example of individual transformation while also trying to understand and explain the power relations involved in deconstructing contemporary French public and political discourses on integration. The central themes of La Désintégration are the growing feelings of non-belonging among youths in the French immigrant-dominated banlieues (suburbs), and the social alienation that results, leading some toward radicalism including the perpetration of terrorist acts. Faucon supports the points of views of sociologists and political scientists such as Didier Lapeyronnie  (2005), Sandrine Lemaire et al.  (2005), Pascal Blanchard (2005), Bruno Levasseur (2008, 2016) and Gilles Kepel (2012a, b, 2015), among others, who argue that young people from underprivileged social classes10 come to lack points of reference in their lives and are denied social recognition. This is due in part to economic crises (the latest one being the 2008 world crisis) that affected the middle and lower social classes. Often victims of racial discrimination on the job market and in their daily lives during tough economic times, youth from visible minority groups discover that it is particularly hard for them to integrate into the work force and become citizens in their full rights. With few or no future prospects, these adolescents are at risk of falling into the grip of radical Islamist movements and are in danger of carrying out anti-social acts.11 The impact of the film on the audience is considerable if we take into account the fact that it is based on real events and social realities of the late 1990s and the 2000s that influenced Faucon’s screenplay writing process. There have been several high-profile incidents that have shaken French society in the past few years. Taken together, they represent a sort of violent reaction against republican laws. Prominent examples can be found in the famous ‘Affaire Khaled Kelkal’ in 1995 (a young man aged 24 who participated in terrorist attacks on the Paris-Lyon RER (high-speed train)), the assassination of the Imam Cheikh Abdelbaki Sahraoui in Paris. Kelkal was also involved in the killings in Villeurbanne at the Jewish high school the same year. The story of Zacharias Moussaoui (a French citizen of Moroccan descent, who claimed to be the 20th hijacker in the World Trade Center attack) is also relevant. Both Kelkal and Moussaoui were French citizens who had been educated in France. They were witnesses to unemployment and poverty in the family, saw no future for themselves in French society and were frequently surrounded by criminality in various forms.12 Yet, setting aside the context from contemporary France, the film is a fictional and visionary product, one that does a brilliant job of exploring

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truth through fiction. By making use of very simple close-up shots of people, their gestures and expressions, in combination with shots of the environment as well as short snippets of dialogue consisting of little more than the words essential to basic communication between the characters, Faucon deconstructs the discourse of centralized state power in France and its media’s discourse on integration. Foucault’s theory of power can help to unpack the power relationships involved in public discourses in France on immigration and integration in combination with the rise of the Islamist movements. According to Foucault, power imposition becomes a relationship of different forces that contribute to disciplining individuals in a society, sometimes without them being aware of it. It is another way of seeing integration in the Republican model for the Franco-Maghrebi youth. In order to ‘belong’ to the society, one needs to become the product of such a system. Foucault suggests talking about forces in plural as one force always exists in relationship to another. Normally, these rapports de forces are led by obscure forces arising from the interior of the state apparatus that regulate the place that the individuals occupy in the social space, like the educational system or the legal system, among others. For instance, a combination of forces is involved in order to instill power and control over a certain individual or group including family pressure, social pressure and peer pressure, which playing together on the psychology of young people (as in the case of Franco-Maghrebi youth of the banlieues) coerces these individuals into a certain social scheme.13 Any deviation from this scheme is seen as unacceptable and ‘punished’ directly or indirectly. The punishment can be a visible ‘corporal punishment’ (deprivation of one’s liberty) or invisible (social and geographical exclusion from the society in the form of discrimination). These are not the only ways of social and political control in Foucault’s opinion. There is also a distinction to be made between power in a generic sense (the Law represented by the State) and so-called micro-powers (the micro-powers influenced directly or indirectly by the main power). If the power of the legal system has a normative character and has penal implications if not respected (e.g. prison for delinquent acts and murderous acts), the micro-powers in turn discipline individuals in order to minimize or eliminate behavior judged to be socially deviant or unacceptable. The micro-powers represent more subtle forms of coercion. While still controlled by state laws, they are more concealed than the political and social power. They constitute the social norm, a non-written set of rules that guides social behaviors. Micro-powers are perpetuated by parents, professors, social assistants and other role models and/or people in

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positions of authority. All these are forms of the division of the main power or what Foucault calls ‘micropenalties’ that impose the social norm or the corporal behavior on the individuals and minority groups. The impossibility to comply entirely with these norms and behaviors and therefore integrate into the system for the young people in low-class neighborhoods develops into a social separation between the centralized power and the ethnic communities. By being constantly punished by the system and unable to ‘belong’ to the state apparatus, the banlieue youth turn away from state norms and seeks a communitarian acceptance. This behavior results into a repli sur soi (withdrawal from the social norms) and the creation of a parallel set of norms and behaviors followed by the ethnic communities living in the outskirts of big cities. These norms and behaviors are gradually instilled in the individuals like the young people from the banlieues through the cultural and religious discourse of certain self-­ designated religious leaders as seen in the case of the character Djamel, the indoctrinator who slowly convinces his followers to break ties with the state norms and follow a newly set of norms—radical Islam. Djamel is able to instate a new set of micro-power relations in the community by replacing the official state discourse and norms with a counter-system of power forces and religious discourse. When applying Foucault’s perspective to Faucon’s movie, one can understand the power that Islamist indoctrination has, basing its arguments on the national French discourse and later distorting it by using its opposite meaning with an ideological purpose. It is the common tactic of reversal of power, wherein radical Islamism emerges at the polar opposite of republican discourse. Rachid, the main protagonist’s older brother, reads Djamel’s intentions and understands perfectly the logic of this reversal of power when he tells Ali: “They [The indoctrinators n.a.] mix the true and the false in order to promote the false”.14 The key character in conveying the anti-republican discourse in the film is Djamel, the indoctrinator of Ali, Nasser and Hamza. A Muslim radical from a particularly explosive neighborhood in the northern French city of Lille, he is the perfect example of a ‘substandard product’ (Foucault 2001) of republican integration law. It is obvious that he is aware of the national discourse that promotes freedom of speech, encourages cultural diversity and equality of opportunity for all citizens; yet, at the same time, he also faced discrimination and inequality of chances as he grew up among ‘second-­class citizens’ as the young people from the housing projects are defined. Djamel acknowledges the discrimination existing in France and

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the fact that while in theory there is equality of opportunity, in reality there are many opportunities “for the Whites and zero for the Muslims”.15 By uttering this sentence, Djamel makes a clear reference to the principles established by the French revolution, the benefits of which are denied to Muslim youth. Muslims in France, especially after the events of 9/11, are considered to be a menace to national security both by authorities and within public opinion. At the same time, they are too often negatively represented in the media and by unsympathetic politicians. Djamel is a carefully crafted character in the movie: with his deep gaze and his whispering voice, nothing he projects outwardly is random. He knows exactly when to intervene and what words to use. He understands in the smallest detail the psychology of young people from the underprivileged neighborhoods. He knows exactly what to insist on when making his argument and he senses when he needs to listen and when to ask questions. At every moment he has the power to remind his fellow banlieue residents of their fate and he leaves a profound impression in their minds. He makes them consider their social condition, their parents’ humiliating position in France, and their physical, religious and cultural differences from mainstream French society. By getting the youth focused on seemingly intractable social problems and by encapsulating their worries in a few words, he manages to gain their trust and they come to see him as their savior. A first tactic that he uses is underlining the disparity that exists between the two social groups in question: the French-born young people and the young Muslims from the banlieues. He announces this difference in status as a prophecy: “Here it is going to blow up. I can feel it”.16 By separating his listeners gradually from the reference group (social norm, state power), he establishes a devaluation of these young people. He points their attention to the French people’s gaze that seemingly projects a particular and negative image of them: they appear as and begin to feel like outcasts from a society they will never be able to adjust to. Djamel reinforces the stereotypical characteristics the banlieues youth from underprivileged neighborhoods supposedly embody in the media and in the speeches of politicians: the young men and adolescents are deemed lazy, delinquent and unskilled. In the eyes of the authorities they are out of ‘sync’ with mainstream citizens; they are the proverbial other. In addition, Faucon insists on the gap between first-generation immigrants (the parents) and young people. He portrays the parents as very honest, hard-working, religious people who are hopeful for a better future

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for their families in France. The filmmaker does not offer this depiction with the intention of transforming them into heroes in the eyes of the French people; on the contrary, he wants to attest to the identity and familial struggle that the first generation of immigrants had (and has) to face in France. The first generation lives with the guilt of having left their countries of origin for France aspiring to a better life for their descendants, only to fail to achieve that goal. Their children, the second generation, perceive themselves as being a generation of sacrifice, a generation which finds itself falling through the cracks of the republican system. They are not only victims of a social and territorial situation that they have not chosen but also scapegoats within the media, political and popular discourses on integration. As for Djamel, he builds his appeal to the youth on the difficulties that the parents of his potential recruits had to overcome when moving to France. He states that the sacrifice of the first generation did not result in any concrete change in the social status of their children: “You can’t hate them for what you have become. [...] The bad example didn’t come from them”.17 The indoctrinator’s discourse exonerates the first generation for their children’s degradation as they had good intentions. By exonerating the parents, Djamel transfers the culpability for this situation to the representatives of the majority group: the leaders of the French public and political administration, or, broadly speaking, to the French nation itself. Djamel turns the protagonists’ attention to the representatives of the whites that are in power, identified here as the non-Muslims who promote an intolerant discourse toward minorities in France: “You did what the others [the politicians, the French administration] expected from you, it’s exactly what they do so that you don’t believe anymore, so that you become nobody”.18 By establishing the oppositions Christian vs. Muslim, majority vs. minority, victim vs. perpetrator, Djamel underlines the importance for youths of withdrawing into their own community and later on of turning to those who share their experience of isolation and alienation. Most importantly, he insists on their return to Islam, which he asserts provides them with the only affirmation in their lives: faith, he says, is the only thing that gives their lives value. Although his discourse is very extreme in the eyes of a non-believer, he persuades Ali, Hamza and Nasser that religion exists deep inside all Muslims. He convinces them that the practice of Islam is a legacy that is never forgotten but exists within them. According to Djamel, French secularism tried to erase the religious faith from the

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conscience of true Muslims on its territory in order to humiliate and control them: “They made you forget it [your religion] to be more exact. But God, he never forgot you. You turned away from him in a moment of weakness”.19 In order for the young people to be persuaded to detach themselves from the hypocritical majority group, Djamel flips the mainstream discriminatory discourse on its head and portrays ethnically French citizens as the problem for their prejudiced attitude toward the people from the banlieues. Islam thus emerges as a means of enduring hardship, a verification of the young men’s ability to persevere in the face of great obstacles. The French people become thereby the ‘others’ for the young converts as now any ‘Gaul’ (Gaulois) represents a danger for true believers in the Muslim faith.20 In consequence, one has to remove all danger and has to stay away from the French who represent existential threats to the youths’ social, political and religious identities.21 There is however a key word that permeates Djamel’s discourse: difference. He never misses an opportunity to remind the three young men of the distinctive traits between themselves and ethnically French-born citizens: emphasizing their names, their religion and their social status, for example. He equally reminds them of all the situations where the social and political system creates a disconnect between what republican ideals and discourses claim they can achieve and are entitled to and what they actually experience in their own lives. France, the message is, will always treat them as ‘second-class citizens’, denying them opportunities available to an ethnically French citizen who is able to exercise his or her rights unrestrained by anti-Muslim prejudice: You are French, so to say, you are educated, you studied, but you have no right. They need you to pick up the garbage or to handle the jackhammer, but starting from the moment when you, you aspire to do something else, then, they don’t want to know about you anymore. Why? Because they think that you are worth less than them.22

Djamel is sensitive to the numerous frustrations second-generation youths have accumulated such as the fact that even if they work hard and study, it is very difficult, if not impossible, for them to get an internship or get hired, let alone have a professional career in the country where they grew up. These young people understand that in order to ‘succeed’ they have to quit the neighborhoods where they have all their memories and where all

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their friends and family live and move to the other side of the Périphérique (the freeway that circles Paris, separating it from the outskirts and the poor neighborhoods). They thought that their path to success was a proper French education that would later open the door for a better future, but they discover that this last door is locked for them; Djamel recognizes and exploits this fact. The charismatic religious leader actually wipes the slate clean of the discourse promoted by French authorities who claim that they are offering equal opportunities to all the citizens and encouraging the immigrant communities to ‘melt’ into the national community. Djamel develops a counter-discourse based on the same ideas of integration that the government promotes, but reveals to his followers the hidden racial and social discrimination coming out of the government’s integration policy: “[...] before it was more direct. Now they are putting more shades into it, it is darker, you see? They always know what to do to indicate your spot. It will always be the same one anyways”.23 The only way to escape all this, according to people like Djamel, is a racial counter-discourse: that is, the opposite of the integrative discourse promoted by the state, a counter-discourse of inter-communitarian and religious help. The solution that the radical Muslim proposes is for them to detach themselves from their ethnic group (to give up one form of certain social belonging) and join instead a religious group, the huma islamia, the family of true believers, the Mujaheiddin brotherhood. Convinced by Djamel’s arguments and increasingly internalizing his extremist discourse, the three young men in Faucon’s movie are persuaded of their non-belonging within French society and of their belonging to the community of Muslim Brothers. The moderate Islamic discourse preached by their Imam encouraging people to be tolerant and not to be blinded by the western reaction to the conflicts in the Middle East is thereafter perceived as a tool of their French oppressors. By slowly distancing Ali, Hamza and Nasser from the values that they once believed in and by showing them the disappointment of all their hopes, Djamel is able to focus their negative energy on a ‘big cause’ and not on daily directionless violent acts such as the incidents that broke out in the banlieues in 2005, which included burnt cars, riots, violence and confrontations with the police.24 Djamel encourages his disciples to concentrate on a more impactful goal, a higher cause: the Jihad that will garner global attention and that will make them heroes. By giving their lives to Allah, they have to deny all family and community ties. The action of

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the Jihad becomes therefore a supreme sacrifice to help the weak who are in danger and who cannot defend themselves. This makes the young people cut ties with their parents and retreat from the community so that there is no outside interference that could take them from the ‘right path’. The absurdity of the message transmitted in the story by Djamel and his fellow travelers is marked by Faucon in the illogical speech that Djamel gives right before sending the three young men with their car bombs into NATO buildings in Brussels. He convinces them to fight a force much bigger than themselves from within the system, to take the West by surprise in order to accomplish an act of faith. Yet, this absurd war that Djamel creates embraces no real cause and lacks a clear goal or purpose. Who are the victims in this case and who are the perpetrators? The terrorist act has no justification; it achieves nothing positive for the young people. On the contrary, it instigates fear and intolerance, and worse, hatred, thus complicating even more the situation of people in marginal social communities in France. The justification that Djamel gives for the terrorist acts is that they will make Westerners fear violent reprisals and that this fear will thus both discipline and punish them just as they were trying to discipline the minority groups within their own societies and Muslims abroad: They attack our brothers back there [In the Middle East], we are going to hit them here. The war in other territories, we are going to bring it here. We are going to show them what mourning, tears and innocent victims means. We are going to do exactly like them.25

In the end, Djamel’s discourse forges an ideological act that starts from a false premise: that there is a war between peoples due to religious differences. The brainwashing of Ali, Nasser and Hamza, and others like them, not only succeeds by making them believe in the supremacy of Islam in the world, but also by confronting them with the realization that there is a lack of opportunities or of a path forward for young people ‘à la derive’ (adrift) in France. There is nothing hopeful in this message. They are constrained by a great number of forces imposed upon them by their families and by society. Beyond these social pressures and the expectations that society and the community has of them, they are incapable of finding a position in French society at this point in time. They understand, as Ali affirms in the movie, that their destiny is “screwed ahead of time” (pipé d’avance). In his opinion, they can make all the efforts they want, but they will always be in an inferior position to ethnically French-born citizens

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with a long family tradition in France. Hamza justifies the jihadi act to himself with the conviction that he has found a meaning to his life after his conversion by finding a ‘family’, a group to belong to unlike the French nation to whom he belonged by birth but which had nothing to offer him. Were it not for his embrace of Jihad, his fate would have been to live in poverty or to become a delinquent or end up in prison like a great number of young people from underprivileged neighborhoods.26

Conclusion The end of Faucon’s movie brings a clear message of a generation of young people at war with the very nation whose products they are. The movie signals that these young people live in France with a feeling of unfair treatment coming from the dominant group, the representative majority in power. By separating themselves from their families and social circles, these young people rebel against a political system that has led them to have mixed feelings about their parents. On one hand, they are sympathetic with their destiny and their struggle in France, but on the other the teenagers hold the first generation responsible for not having rebelled, for having accepted social and cultural humiliation from a nation whose interests they served for almost their entire adult lives. After all, they prefer death to life because they feel that this is their liberation. Doubting the French nation’s principles and integrity, they turn their search for justice beyond the nation’s borders. After choosing the path of Islam and belonging to the Muslim ‘Brotherhood’, they identify with a transnational Jihad, which provides an alternate communitarian nation. Their relationship to the French nation becomes problematic as they are, at the same time, outsiders and insiders. They are the product of immigration and integration laws adopted in the last 20–30  years in France. But, similarly, they are a byproduct of Islamic transnational forces that has access to them and that twists their minds to the point of making them reject the society that produced them. Faucon’s message is that such discourses concern, affect and involve all citizens regardless of their backgrounds. Accepting change in a nation with such a diverse cultural background as France is essential. The so-­ called immigrant communities in France are living proof of the country’s growing ethnic and cultural diversity. Their presence inside the borders of France testifies to the changes that the French nation has to make in order to adapt to this new socio-cultural reality. The existence of these cultural

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dissonances in France and the social activism of visible minorities put into question the idea of a stable and uniform French national identity. The public discourse should be about a nation that embraces cultural and religious diversity without making distinctions between ‘French-born citizens’, ‘integrated’, ‘integratables’, ‘non-integratables’ and so on. Faucon’s film demonstrates in an artistic form how a nation can be contested and punished from within unless it changes its discourse.

Notes 1. Over time, in the political and social discourse, the idea of Frenchness has frequently been seen as an attribute of the White Christian majority that constitutes the leading class in France. This idea is strongly contested by the representatives of the minority populations on French soil who seek recognition of their citizen rights in the Republic. 2. Other French movies focusing on the topics of radicalization and terrorism are Hadewijch (Bruno Dumond 2009), Le Ciel attendra (Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar 2015), Made in France (Nicolas Boukhrief 2015) and Ne m’abandonne pas (Xavier Durringer 2016). 3. Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s government enacted a Family Reunification Law (Le Regroupement familial) (1974) that allowed the families of already existing immigrants in France to join them on French territory and become regularized. 4. The First Pasqua Law facilitated expulsion procedures for non-naturalized residents, restricted access to ten year resident permit owners to re-enter, gave freedom to mayors and local administrators to cancel ‘souspicious’ marriages or welfare benefits to the cases suspected as being of ‘convenience’, tried to prevent the naturalization and integration of African immigrants and increased the waiting period from one to two years for the foreign husbands and wives of French citizens before they could apply for naturalization. The Debré Law addressed the same issues as the Pasqua Law as concerns the regularization of French-born children of illegal immigrants and the foreign spouses of French citizens. Moreover, it increased the power of the police against people suspected of remaining illegally in France, increased residency requirements for naturalization of wives and children of immigrants, and made it more difficult to arrange visits of family members of resident immigrants. 5. The Guigou Law passed in 1998 allowed for all people born on French territory to apply for naturalization. This included the eight-year-old children of foreign parents, children who would become citizens if they resided in France at least five years after the age of eight.

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6. We understand by assimilation the loss of the original distinctive identity which is merged into the identity of a dominant group. Integration, on the other hand, is when the element retains its identity but functions harmoniously as part of the whole. 7. Faucon has been active on the cinema scene since the 1990s when he made his debut with the production L’Amour (1990). Starting with his first movies, he has been interested in the depiction of the French banlieues, the emotions they arouse and the difficult power relations involved in the cohabitation of youth from the ethnic communities and the authorities. L’Amour immediately gained him public attention and he won a prize in Cannes in the category ‘Perspectives du cinéma français’. Other important movies in the same vein followed such as Sabine (1993), in which he talks about the tragic life of an HIV positive woman, Samia (2000), which explores the struggles of a young Maghrebi girl living in Marseille against her family and the constraints of her suburban environment and Fatima (2015), a film exploring again the complicated social status of first and second generation of Maghrebi women in today’s French society. 8. The three movies of the trilogy had a great impact on the French artistic scene as he presented them in different festivals and was interviewed by several journals and magazines. With more than ten full length productions to date, Faucon has made it a tradition to participate in prominent cinema festivals such as the Venice Film Festival, Cannes and Cinémed (Festival Méditerranéen), to name a few. His interviews have appeared in journals such as Télérama and Cahiers du Cinéma. Despite his reputation in French cinema, his choice of subjects unsettles the cultural forums that are reluctant to give him their financial support. For example, for a project like La Désintégration, only Canal + and CinéCinéma (two art TV and media channels) agreed to contribute a share of the costs based on a presale of the finished movie. The budget for the movie was in the end only 1.6 million euros, an amount that allowed no more than 36 days of shooting, although the minimum needed for the script was 40 days. This gives one an even greater appreciation of the film and a renewed recognition of its merits. 9. Hamza’s conversion to radical Islam is unfortunately not an isolated case in France. Many young people of non-Muslim origin, even those living on French territory, chose to join extremist groups that were forming around the world. Terrorist groups were recruiting actively through the Internet and other social media as well as in person in the mosques and in the suburbs. As the Envoyé special show on January 23, 2014, “Des Européens partis sur la route du Jihad” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtWFzjyfqyo, accessed on July 14th 2016) demonstrates, an alarming number of young people were officially known to be in Syria fighting for Jihad.

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10. When we refer to young people from underprivileged social classes we often make the mistake of assuming that they are all of immigrant descent. Media shows that the French suburbs facing ‘social problems’ are not entirely composed of young people of West African and North African origin. We can also encounter Caucasian adolescents who face many of the same challenges as their non-Caucasian peers. They are believed to constitute 10% of the population in the suburbs. 11. This is not an exclusively French problem. The same phenomenon can be encountered in the young people who live their lives in conflict zones such as Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria but also in other countries in Western Europe like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. For a better understanding of radicalization among Muslim youth in a European context see Tahir Abbas’ edited volume Islamic Political Radicalism: A European Perspective. Edinburgh. University of Edinburgh Press, 2007; Olivier Roy. 2003. ‘EuroIslam: The Jihad Within?’ The National Interest. 71: 63–73; A.Y. Samad, and K. Sen. Islam in the European Union: Transnationalism, Youth and the War on Terror. Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2007; Akil N. Awan. 2008. Antecedents of Islamic Political Radicalism Among Muslim Communities in Europe. PS: Political Science & Politics, 13–17. Nevertheless, for the purpose of this article, we are going to concentrate our analysis on the French economic and politic context. 12. The concerns raised by Faucon proved to be a real problem in France, which has been dealing with an increase in such radical acts since the release of Faucon’s movie. One of note is the massacres in Toulouse and Montanban in March 2012. The targets of these crimes were Muslim soldiers who had been part of the French forces sent to keep the peace in Afghanistan, as well as Jewish civilians including schoolchildren. The purpose of killing French Jews was purportedly to echo the situation of the Arabs killed in Palestine. As in the case of Khaled Kelkal, the perpetrator in this instance was a young man, only 23  years old, of Franco-Maghrebi background, Mohammed Merah. Some people were worried that Faucon’s movie, instead of improving the situation had worsened it by showing young men from the neighborhoods pursue a violent means of self-expression. And their worries turned out to be true concerns. Several events happened since then. On January 7, 2015, there was an attack at the French satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris that ended with 12 dead and 11 wounded. The two attackers were Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, two brothers born and raised in the 10th arrondissement in Paris. In the week after the shooting, the authorities reported 54 anti-Muslim incidents in France. These included 21 reports of shootings and grenade throwing at mosques and other Islamic centers and 33 cases of threats and insults. Journalists and theoreticians together try to understand and explain the act

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in books like those of Patricia Crouch. Je Suis Charlie: The Charlie Hebdo Newspaper Massacre. Createspace Independent Pub, 2015; Edited by Edward M. Iacobucci, Stephen J. Toope. After the Paris Attacks: Responses in Canada, Europe and around the Globe. Toronto University Press 2015; Caroline Fourest. Éloge du blasphème. Paris: Grasset, 2015. More recent events are the ones that took place at Bataclan, Stade de France and the Cambodian restaurant on November 2015 and the attack on Bastille Day in Nice in July 2016 that are still fresh in people’s memory. 13. By a social scheme we mean sets of values and principles imposed by the social norms on individuals of a nation so that they are considered as part of the society and of their community. These norms imply integration into social structures such as following a schooling system, getting a degree and a qualification, forming a family, buying property, paying taxes and being a good citizen who respects the laws of the nation. 14. My transcription from the movie La Désintégration (2011) by Philippe Faucon. [“Ils mélangent le vrai et le faux pour faire passer le faux”.] 15. [“[…] entre les Blancs et zéro Musulmans”.] 16. [“Ici ça va péter. Je le sens”.] 17. [“Tu ne peux pas leur en vouloir pour ce que tu es devenu […] le mauvais exemple n’est pas venu d’eux”.] 18. [“Tu as fait ce que les autres [les politiciens, l’administration française] ont attendu de toi, c’est exactement ce qu’ils font pour que tu ne croies plus, pour que tu deviennes rien”.] 19. [“On te la fait oublier [la religion] pour être plus exacte. Mais Dieu, lui, il ne t’a jamais oublié. Tu t’es détourné de lui dans un moment de faiblesse”.] 20. We are aware of the generalization Djamel establishes between the two social groups in question. According to him, there are only two opposing forces in the contemporary French nation: the French people (and by that he means French-born people, so-called Gauls) and the immigrants or the young people from the suburbs. Although we very well know that the French nation is more diverse than that, we keep this distinction here for the purpose of this chapter. 21. Islam is presently the second religion in France after Catholicism. According to INSEE (the National Institute of Statistics and Economics Studies) (unofficial data, as it is forbidden in France to ask questions about the citizens’ religious faith in official documents), there are about 5 to 6 million Muslims in France. Out of this group, a quarter of them declare themselves believers in and practitioners of the faith. In the official statistics, there are about 2100 denominated mosques in France at this time. For more information on the matter, read Alexandre Pouchard and Samuel Laurent’s article, “Quel est le poids de l’islam en France?” published in the issue on January 25, 2015 in Le Monde. (https://www.lemonde.fr/les-decodeurs/

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article/2015/01/21/que-pese-l-islam-en-france_4559859_4355770. html, last accessed January 2, 2019) 22. [“Vous êtes des Français, soi-disant, vous êtes instruits, vous avez fait des études, mais vous avez droit à rien. Ils ont besoin de vous pour ramasser les poubelles ou pour tenir les marteaux-piqueurs, mais à partir du moment où vous, vous aspirez à faire autre chose, là, ils ne veulent plus de vous. Pourquoi? Parce qu’ils pensent que vous valez moins qu’eux”.] 23. [“[…] avant c’était plus direct. Maintenant ils en mettent plus de formes, c’est plus sombre, tu vois? Ils savent toujours comment faire pour t’indiquer ta place. Ça sera toujours la même de toute façon”.] 24. For a clearer view of the violence rising up in the French banlieues and the causes of this social unrest within the youth groups at the outskirts of big cities in France, see Cathy Lisa Schneider. Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New  York. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. 25. [“Ils frappent nos frères là-bas, nous allons frapper ici. La guerre chez les autres, on va l’apporter chez eux. On va leur montrer ce que c’est le deuil, les larmes et les victimes innocentes. On va faire pareil qu’eux”.] 26. This inner discourse is very familiar to specialists in the field as it can be found in other situations, for example, the movie Paradise Now (2005) by Hany Abu-Hassad. For the two protagonists, Saïd and Khaled, living in an occupied region such as the West Bank is the equivalent of being imprisoned and humiliated for the rest of their lives, or even worse, they feel that they are already dead. So, the two friends decide to resort to terrorism, an action that would make them heroes amongst the Palestinians.

References Bertossi, Christophe. 2010. Mistaken Models of Integration? A Critical Perspective on the Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe. In European Multiculturalism Revisited, ed. Alessandro Silj, 235–251. London: Zed Books. Faucon, Philippe. 2011. La Desintégration. Paris: Screen Runner and Istiqlal Films. Foucault, Michel. 2001. Dits et écrits, Vol. 1 (1954–1975), Vol. 2 (1976–1988), Paris: Gallimard (Collection Quarto). (English Selection: Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972–1977, ed. C. Gordon. New York: Pantheon Books). Gaspard, Françoise. 1992. Assimilation, insertion, intégration: les mots pour ʽdevenir françaisʼ. Hommes et migrations 1154: 14–23. https://www.persee. fr/doc/homig_1142-852x_1992_num_1154_1_1826. Accessed 10 Dec 2018. Gomes, Clarissa. 2004. Commentary. In Mechanism of Immigration Control. A comparative Analysis of European Regulation Policies, ed. Grete Brochmann and Tomas Hammar, 215–218. Oxford/New York: Berg.

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Kepel, Gilles. 2012a. Banlieue de la République. Paris: Gallimard. ———. 2012b. Une polémique qui cache la question sociale. Le Monde, February 7. https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/article/2012/02/07/une-polemique-quicache-la-question-sociale_1639965_3232.html. Accessed 20 Jan 2019. ———. 2015. In collaboration with Antoine Jardin. In Terreur dans l’Hexagone. Genèse du djihad français. Paris: Gallimard. Kherfi, Yazid. 2003 [2000]. In collaboration with Le Goaziou, Véronique. In Repris de justesse. Paris: Éditions La Découverte & Syros. Kofman, Eléonore; Rogoz, Madalina and Lévy, Florence. 2010. Family Migration Policies in France. http://ec.europa.eu/ewsi/UDRW/images/ items/docl_14977_276188113.pdf. Accessed 7 Aug 2017. Lapeyronnie, Didier. 2005. “La banlieue comme théâtre colonial, ou la fracture coloniale dans les quartiers” [“The banlieue as Colonial Theatre, or the Colonial Fracture in the Housing Projects”]. In La Fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial. [Colonial Fracture: French Society Seen Through the Colonial Heritage], 209–218. Paris: La Découverte. Lemaire, Sandrine, Nicolas Bancel, and Pascal Blanchard. 2005. La Fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial. [Colonial Fracture: French Society Seen Through the Colonial Heritage]. Paris: La Découverte. Levasseur, Bruno. 2008. De-essentializing the Banlieues, Reframing the Nation: Documentary Cinema in France in the Late 1990s. New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film 6 (2): 97–109. ———. 2016. Telling Stories: Narrating Violence in the Contemporary French Banlieues (1992–2006). Modern and Contemporary France 24 (4): 395–410. Lochak, Danièle. 2006. Intégration comme injonction. Enjeux idéologiques et politiques liés à l’immigration. In Identifier et surveiller. Les technologies de sécurité, ed. Ayse Ceyhan, Laurent Laniel, Pierre Piazza, Sylvia Preuss-Laussinotte, Thomas Hegghammer, Danièle Lochak, Christophe Wasinki, and Armand Mattelart, vol. 64, 129–149. Paris: L’Harmattan (Cultures & Conflits, Sociologie Politique de l’International). M’Baye, Mamadou. 2009. Le défi de l’intégration. In Qu’est-ce qu’être français? 79–85. Paris: L’Institut Montaigne, Collection Hermann. Murphy, Kara. 2006. France’s New Law: Control Immigration Flows, Court the Highly Skilled. http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frances-new-lawcontrol-immigration-flows-court-highly-skilled. Accessed 7 Jan 2019. van Reekum, Rogier, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Christophe Bertossi. 2012. National Models of Integration and the Crisis of Multiculturalism: A Critical Comparative Perspective. Patterns of Prejudice 46 (5): 417–426. Roy, Olivier. 2016. Le djihad et la mort. Paris: Seuil.

PART II

How Can One Be Muslim, Immigrant and French? Literary and Cinematic Expressions of Belonging in France and Québec

CHAPTER 6

Redefining Frenchness: Thomté Ryam’s Banlieue Noire and En attendant que le bus explose Rebecca Blanchard

In recent decades, the French banlieues have been the stage for urban violence, which in 2005, 2007 and 2010, reached unprecedented levels. Following this unrest, negative stereotypes about these neighbourhoods focused on immigration, criminality, violence, radical Islam, assimilation and identity have been increasingly propagated by the dominant politico-­ media discourse.1 The other, often reduced to the cliché of the lower-class, second- or third-generation immigrant Muslim youth has become emblematic of a fear of the banlieues that has permeated the French imaginary. Since residents of these marginalized peripheries are often depicted as a threat to French national identity and republican values, it is unsurprising that for members of this younger generation, France has become a territory associated with alienation and disillusionment. In addition to a number of sociological and political studies, there has been a proliferation of innovative literary texts that attempt to capture a different side of these urban zones of relegation. A number of first-person narratives

R. Blanchard (*) Department of French, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_6

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that draw on autobiographical writing, autofiction and the Bildungsroman, such as Faïza Guène’s Kiffe kiffe demain (2004), Abd al Malik’s Qu’Allah bénisse la France! (2004), Insa Sané’s Sarcelles Dakar (2006), Mohamed Razane’s Dit violent (2006) and Thomté Ryam’s Banlieue noire (2006), deconstruct the dominant discourse which systematically denigrates these neighbourhoods. These alternative portraits of the banlieues vacillate between the brutality of everyday existence and the comfort of family life and friendship. While the derelict concrete tower blocks associated with these areas remain prominent, themes of violence, stigmatization, unemployment, poverty and social isolation are juxtaposed with images of cultural pluralism, solidarity, creativity, social mobility and collective memory. These narratives thus challenge the entrenched idea of the banlieue as a cultural wasteland, focusing instead on its heterogeneity, potentiality and dynamism. The novels mentioned above, amongst others, form what could be considered a first wave of literature emerging from the banlieues. However, in more recent novels (often the subsequent publications of the authors cited above), representations focused on the collective community have become more common. This second iteration of banlieue fictions brings together a multitude of different characters and unique voices within a single narrative, whose concerns often extend past the space of the banlieue. The narratives implicitly present an opposition between conventional definitions of Frenchness and the increasingly multi-ethnic communities featured in these novels. For example, Faïza Guène’s first novels, Kiffe kiffe demain and Du Rêve pour les oufs (2006), delve into the subjective experiences of Dounia and Ahlème, while in Les gens du Balto (2008), each character suspected of participating in a murder takes on the role of narrator. Similarly, in Mabrouk Rachedi’s Le petit Malik (2008) and La petite Malika (2010), the narrative resembles a timeline charting the development of a singular character over a number of years, while in Le poids d’une âme, the novel offers a brief glimpses into the lives of a cast of characters through which the plot is gradually revealed. In Insa Sané’s first novel, Sarcelles Dakar, the main character, Djiraël, largely dominates the narrative, though the subsequent novels in his “Comédie urbaine” series feature a balance of multiple narrative perspectives. Even Abd al Malik’s autobiographical text Qu’Allah bénisse la France! is followed by less traditional narratives, including La guerre des banlieues n’aura pas lieu (2010), which features a wider cast of characters and less individual introspection. This chapter examines two novels by Thomté Ryam, Banlieue noire and En attendant que le bus explose (2009), which epitomize this propensity to

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first favour writing the self before turning to writing the community. Ryam’s first novel, Banlieue noire, tells the story of Sébastien, a young adult whose life revolves around football. The novel focuses on a series of events that take place before a game that national recruiters will attend. On the eve of this important match, Sébastien’s friends convince him to go out for the evening and a tragic turn of events leads to the death of a close friend.2 In his second novel, En attendant que le bus explose, Ryam shifts his focus to a number of residents in the 20th arrondissement. The narrative follows a former convict turned author, a misunderstood subway musician, a young couple with dreams of becoming reality television stars, an elderly couple who watch the world go by from their window and Johann, a young man working in a supermarket. The destinies of these characters intertwine in a series of episodes that precede the fatal outcome of the story: the explosion of a bus upon which most of the characters find themselves. The first section of this chapter will examine Ryam’s Banlieue noire in relation to the concept of fictional testimony, an approach which reconciles the complex aesthetic specificities of these narratives alongside their often-implicit political dimensions. Through an analysis of En attendant que le bus explose in the second part of this chapter, the use of narrative polyphony will be examined in more detail. The multiplicity of perspectives that characterize this second group of novels about the banlieue offers insight into new fictional texts that challenge traditional notions of Frenchness by incorporating diverse postcolonial and diasporic identities within a single narrative, thereby questioning the idea that multiculturalism is incompatible with French republican values. While this chapter focuses on Ryam’s literary production, the concepts developed throughout offer insights into new methods of reading contemporary banlieue narratives. In many ways, these novels are rival cultural goods that highlight the competing needs of their protagonists: the importance of bearing witness as well as the need for a collective voice and consciousness reinforce the idea that the space of the banlieue cannot be neatly summarized by one mode of representation.

Fictional Testimonies, Testimonial Fictions By exploring the recent representations of the banlieue through the lens of fictional literary testimony, the aesthetic strategies employed by these authors and the political significance of these works are not mutually

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exclusive. While the authors of these novels categorically reject the label of “écrivain engagé”,3 discussions in the media surrounding this recent literary production is unfortunately often limited to the author’s personal experience with racism, debates on their Frenchness and solutions to the “immigration question”.4 As such, scholarship on these novels remains crucial, since these texts are further marginalized by literary institutions and prizes even though they use sophisticated strategies and techniques that are as subversive and complex as their more canonical postcolonial counterparts like Alain Mabanckou and Calixthe Beyala.5 Rather than viewing testimony purely as a literary genre, Marie Bornard defines it as a performative act that transforms the “reader into witness” (Bornard 2004, 225). While this artistic practice possesses as undeniable ethical dimension, it remains an aesthetic undertaking. Of course, since testimony is most closely associated with legal and historical domains, the question arises as to the legitimacy of fictional testimony. Since the word of the witness must be truthful or least perceived as such, the fictional testimony shares the “contractual” characteristics associated with Philippe Lejeune’s conception of the autobiography (Lejeune 1975, 45). The implicit pact that he identifies as occurring between the writer and the reader through the mediation of the text requires that the reader can believe in the authenticity of the story and that its representation is faithful to actual events. And yet, even though authenticity remains an inherent element of testimony, the production of the latter is still fundamentally a creative act, since for Bornard, it engages in a discourse linked to the reader’s imagination (Bornard 2004, 87). Furthermore, memories are fleeting, fallible and palimpsestic. Even testimonies in the traditional sense are thereby susceptible to the distortion of memory as well as additions and omissions made as the witness becomes narrator. As such, testimony by its very nature may include fictional elements, with the authors able to therefore reproduce the testimony both as performance and aesthetic act in their literary texts. In novels such as Banlieue noire and Dit violent, a number of characteristics associated with testimonial writing can be found, including a sincere and candid writing style combined with paratextual and peritextual elements that further help to authenticate the novels’ content. For example, soccer player Lilian Thuram’s preface to Banlieue noire, which is prominently highlighted on the cover, touches on issues of colonial memory and the endemic problem of discrimination within national institutions, including the education system. In addition, this preface reinforces Ryam’s

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belonging to a specific neighbourhood, thereby emphasizing his ability to represent the banlieues perhaps more faithfully than others. Prefaces and afterwords are used in other novels such as Rachid Djaidani’s Boumkœur (1999) to allow others to take on the role of “character witness” in an effort further legitimize these fictitious testimonies.6 Banlieue noire’s narrative structure also closely resembles a personal diary and the inclusion of tangible details, including specific dates, allows the reader to situate the narrative at a precise historical moment. Furthermore, the detailed introduction and description of the narrator (including references to his height, weight and country of origin) amplifies the supposed authenticity of the testimony (Ryam 2006, 13). The diary format also allows the author to draw on rhetorical strategies that arouse the reader’s empathy, including addressing his readers directly, producing a sort of captatio benevolentiae in the opening pages of the novel. The narrator also quickly delves into his adoption as well as the Manichaeism of banlieue existence, which allow Sébastien to remain a sympathetic character and gradually increase his credibility throughout the narrative, even though the reader is aware from early on that he plays a role in quite tragic events. In Anthologie du journal intime, Maurice Chapelan notes that the author of a diary seeks to know himself, while the author of an autobiography seeks to make himself known (Chapelan 1947, 12). In the fictional diary, Valérie Raoul argues that these two objectives are combined, but according to differing perspectives (Raoul 1999, 74). At the intradiegetic level, the narrator constructs an image of himself, upon which he reflects. That is to say, through the effort of introspection and reflection, the author seeks to know himself. At the extradiegetic level, however, the author of the fictional diary seeks to reveal himself to his reader. This results in the production of two ambiguous character representations within the same text. In the case of the fictional journal, the narrative is no longer limited to conveying plot details, but also incorporates the “hermeneutical process” into the narrative, thus engaging the reader more actively in the interpretation of the events being recounted. A similar effect is produced in Banlieue noire as well as Dit violent, Boumkœur, Little Big Bougnoule and La guerre des banlieues n’aura pas lieu, narratives that do not always possess all of the stylistic and structural elements associated with diaries, but which place a strong emphasis on the production of fictional autobiographical writing produced by the characters, which is often included in the narrative or of which the entire narrative is comprised.

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The duality of the narrator identified by Raoul allows for a better understanding of the stylistic variations present in the narration of these novels as well. For example, in novels like Banlieue noire and Dit violent, amongst others, the narrators quickly move beyond autobiographical writing to include a startling juxtaposition of brutal street language peppered with verlan and other slang terms alongside lyric passages that reveal a disconcerting psychological fragility throughout the narrative. Based on the title Dit violent, Mehdi’s violent behaviour is presented from the outset as a fatality, a characterization that is further reinforced by the patricide and violent sexual relationships described in the novel. And yet, these moments are contrasted with fragments of poetry. Literature remains purifying for many of these narrators and cultural production allows characters like Sébastien and Mehdi to channel their anger even as they grieve for their deceased friends. These novels ultimately deploy a very particular use of language that subverts the stereotypical character of the young banlieue resident who is often reduced to aggressive and dangerous behaviour. As Mehdi explains, “Il est temps que la banlieue se raconte par ceux qui la vivent, sans attendre que d’autres la fantasment” (Razane 2006, 17). Furthermore, the fictional testimony becomes a way for these narrators to guarantee the transmission of their story and the story of their loved ones, through a work that will outlive them. As these narrators become the spokespeople for their neighbourhoods, often in spite of themselves, they reflect on issues of alterity and belonging. Their writing projects become intertwined with the possibility of inscribing their own “reference group” (Landowski 1997, 25–26) in the narrative, though this desire expands in the second wave of banlieue fiction as characters become far more concerned with the overlapping of identity and the collective memory of their neighbourhoods than with the defence of a particular individual or political concept. For example, Sébastien explains that he wants to clarify what took place in the days leading up to his friend’s death. He positions his story as a tribute to his deceased friend, thus imbuing the novel with a specific social function: the transmission of forgotten, obscure history and the preservation of a marginal memory. The practice of writing then immortalizes the victim’s experience so that the general public can learn what really took place. In En attendant que le bus explose, Johann criticizes the media for not presenting the true circumstances surrounding his friend Ahmed’s death. Insa Sané devotes an entire novel, Daddy est mort (2010), to unravelling the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a recurring character in his series of novels. The written word provides a

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counterpoint to the omnipresence of death and the instability of daily life that often seems to define the narrator’s experiences in this urban landscape. The notion of immortality remains inextricably linked to the need to bear witness, a desire that is represented in many ways in these novels. In Banlieue noire, Sébastien explicitly emphasizes the importance of sharing the stories of one’s life, contrasting consumerism (more specifically, luxury cars, homes and jewellery) with storytelling (Ryam 2006, 18). For the narrator, the act of sharing one’s story is equal to some of life’s greatest pleasures (Ryam 2006, 18). In Ryam’s novels, storytelling is also often linked to dreaming. In other novels, the act of testimony becomes akin to survival. In Dit violent, Mehdi explains that he must contribute to the act of writing history (Razane 2006, 11) and furthermore, he has “une envie foudroyante de laisser une trace de [s]on histoire” (Razane 2006, 18). He repeats that he has an “envie urgente” (Razane 2006, 11, 12), just like the narrator of Cités à comparaitre (2006), who, “crève d’envie de raconter” (Amellal 2006, 13). These feelings resemble those expressed by Yaz, the main character in Boumkœur, who feels strongly compelled to write. Karnal, the main character in Dans la peau d’un youv (2007), describes his daily morning writing routine even though “[ses mots] nourrissent que [s]es tiroirs” (Jemaï 2007, 15). The need associated with writing is further made explicit in the epigraph to Abd al Malik’s Qu’Allah bénisse la France as well as in the preface to La guerre des banlieues n’aura pas lieu. As Tzvetan Todorov remarks in Les abus de la mémoire, both witnessing and the act of remembering are becoming a duty (Todorov 1995, 16). In his analysis of the 2005 riots, Didier Lapeyronnie explains: Rioters seek to escape the emptiness of the ghetto that is destroying their individual lives and from the political vacuum to which they are confined, one that keeps them from acting in a coherent, integrated way. They therefore oscillate between the moral affirmation of their right to exist, their right to live, and the use of a destructive but rational violence from which they hope to gain entry to or acknowledgement from the system (Lapeyronnie 2009, 43).

Within this context, these novels can then be considered also as a literature of resistance, particularly as the act of bearing witness for these narrators becomes a defining element in their participation as citizens within the

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French nation. This brutal and raw introspection is often marked by a refrain repeated by narrators across these different narratives, of repetitions like: “Je suis Mehdi.” The narrator constantly reminds the reader of his name, a narrative strategy that seeks to counteract the erasure of identity of which the narrator is victim and which becomes a crucial form of self-affirmation within the current political context. As Leigh Gilmore reminds us, an autobiographical text can be viewed “as a site of identity production; as texts that both resist and produce cultural identities” (Gilmore 1994, 4). As these characters bear witness, this reconstitution of the past allows them to produce a personal story that is wholly their own, while nevertheless developing complex reflections on otherness and the construction of identity. The narration thus becomes a process of identity renegotiation that alternates between the individual and the collective as well as the national and transnational. In many ways, the act of testimony becomes a crucial therapeutic process for the characters and the redefinition of staid forms of identity becomes akin to oxygen that allows these characters to be humanized without sinking further into isolation through the creation of intercultural and intergenerational links that go beyond the act of witnessing and the materiality of the text.

Narrative Polyphony and Multi-Ethnic Urban Peripheries The prevalence of polyphonic narratives in recent literary representations of the banlieue merits particular attention, since the interdiscursive nature of these narratives is amplified by the oppositions and contrasts presented in the divergent ideological conceptions of the community. This narrative structure not only allows for multiple viewpoints about a particular event or character to be expressed. The multiplicity of voices and the cultural plurality that remains ever-present directly challenge traditional definitions of Frenchness linked to republicanism and conventional social structures. The subversive dimension of these novels is intrinsically connected to the ways in which they demonstrate that ethnic diversity and multicultural practices are present within the Hexagon, regardless of what may be portrayed by the dominant ideology. Furthermore, these novels feature individualized voices and reflections of numerous characters that extend past the standard themes associated with the earlier banlieue literature. For example, in En attendant que le bus

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explose, the characters reflect on the relationship between the artistic production and success, far more than on themes of immigration or ­discrimination itself. A similar technique is used by many different authors, including Mabrouk Rachedi, who, in Le poids d’une âme, uses multiple perspectives to tell the story of Lounès, a young adult accused of crimes that he did not commit. A second story runs in parallel with that of Lounès, focused on the production and journey of the rope with which Lounès will eventually attempt suicide. The rope passes from generation to generation and through several countries, reinforcing the ways in which the overarching structure of the novel itself resembles the weaving process, as confrontations and reconciliations occur within the narrative as the various chapters each focus on different characters. In both Ryam and Rachedi’s novels, no single perspective is favoured, and the reader is almost obligated to intervene and draw their own conclusions in the face of contradicting stories and opinions expressed by the wide cast of characters. One might say that polyphony and heteroglossia define these novels through the carnivalesque. As Booker notes, Bakhtin’s study of the carnival in Rabelais’ work demonstrates the way in which the representatives of different political and social strata unite in the same space in such a way that normal hierarchies are destabilized (Booker 1995, 50). Therefore, the polyphonic dialogue in these novels highlights the distinction between social groups and questions the generally accepted norms that underpin the established hierarchy. As such, textual polyphony can be interpreted as the integration of the carnival in literature. These interdependent concepts of Bakhtinian poetics are also echoed in the postcolonial novel, where markets, train stations and other public spaces encourage the disruption of conventional social structures through the creation of a carnival atmosphere (Booker 1995, 50). Polyphony is also one of the pillars of the postcolonial novel since the authors often use an episodic narrative strategy, characterized by stylistic and linguistic variety alongside various representations of the self (sometimes imposed, sometimes artificial) as a means of inscribing the problematization of the constructedness of identity in the novel itself.7 In addition to the vast cast of characters in En attendant que le bus explose and in Le poids d’une âme, there is also a focus placed on the reversal of accepted values. In Ryam’s first novel, many characters are included: “bosseurs, artistes, idéalistes, rêveurs, braqueurs, poètes, alcooliques, camés, femmes enceintes, enfants terribles, bacheliers, des gens bizarres oubliés par la psychiatrie” (Ryam 2006, 34). Sébastien takes on the role of

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historian or anthropologist and the informal census he presents demonstrates the plurality of the banlieue. He often presents the backstories of the different people he encounters, but his anecdotes are notable for their objectivity. In contrast, the characters in En attendant que le bus explose tell their own stories and much more detailed psychological portraits are presented. This is a natural extension of the initial (though often superficial) focus on the community presented in Banlieue noire, and the shift in the construction of the narrative allows for the banlieue to fully become a discursive space. This confrontation between characters, gender, generations, social class and ethnicities challenges the normative universe in which banlieue youth seem to embody a threatening class of people defined by the space in which they reside, which in turn ingrains them with an indisputable dangerousness. The cultural plurality that characterizes this second group of stories further highlights the multiple marginalities of many residents, a marginality represented by fragmentation in the narrative structure of these novels. In many ways, these texts can be perceived as a literary staging of the ethnoscape, defined by Arjun Appadurai as “the landscape of persons who constitute the shifting world in which we live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, guestworkers, and other moving groups and persons”. Novels like En attendant que le bus explose and Le poids d’une âme redefine the fear associated with the banlieues, without relying on individual characters but through representations of the community. This allows for a disruption of “whiteness” as a defining element of Frenchness, focusing instead on the multi-ethnic nature of the Republic. It is perhaps for this reason that polyphonic novels feel more artificial and constructed when compared with novels that more closely resemble testimonials or the Bildungsroman because they are not governed by individual subjectivities. In En attendant que le bus explose, the common model of the protagonist who attempts to escape from the banlieue is also challenged. One of the main characters, Johann, suffers from anxiety and distress connected to his social and economic position. He plans an attack on the bus where most of the other characters find themselves at the end of the novel. Since Johann did not grow up in the banlieues or experience the discrimination associated with being a visible minority directly, Johann demonstrates that the banlieue as a spatial representation or community of resistance cannot truly be limited to a fixed, geographical space. In other words, the novel presents the banlieue as an abstraction that encompasses different margin-

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alities. This dismantling of borders culminates in the unravelling of the narrative, as the victims of the attack are presented as symbols of the ­inherent diversity of contemporary French society, in many ways also providing a direct contrast to the discourse of colour blindness that continues to influence debates on national identity in France. While there are often divergent opinions presented by the different characters featured in these novels, this is often used to reinforce the universality of human experience within the narrative. The characters are no longer satisfied with merely combating the everyday experience of dehumanization associated with precarious life, as in testimonial novels like Banlieue noire. In this second group of novels, the characters are obsessed with the polysemic nature of existence in its various manifestations, including social, political and artistic life.8 In both Ryam and Rachedi’s novels, there is a very equitable treatment of the narrators that cannot be found in their other novels. It becomes impossible to judge which of the characters, if any, are the most important. El Magnifico, Anthony Duval and Johann all share the same disillusioned view of their city and of the nation. In his analysis of En attendant que le bus explose, Etienne-Marie Lassi highlights the “experimental” nature of this novel which, with two parallel stories, leads one character from the periphery towards to the urban centre and another towards the periphery, producing a “symbolic reversal in the fates of these characters” (Lassi 2013, 55). The same analysis holds true for similar novels, especially Le poids d’une âme, since the narrative is also based on a similar symmetrical inversion of fates. These novels establish a new model by which contemporary postcolonial and diasporic identities can be better expressed because the reader is forced to confront an incessant polyphony of voices, experiences and stories. This allows characters to contradict one another within the same narrative, and as a result, the novel becomes a literary form that challenges the reliability, stability and accuracy of historical narratives. Moreover, the reading experience demonstrates that complex historical links (what Edward Said refers to as the interconnection and interdependence of the disparate experiences of Empire) can only be understood by engaging with this symphony of narrative voices. It must also be noted that the reader maintains a privileged position since the different stories take place alongside one another and the reader can often discover links between events to which the characters remain ignorant. The ultimate example of this would be the role that Johann plays in the attack on the bus. The failure of communication and the absence of dialogue position

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the characters as external to the interconnectedness of their experiences, as mere cogs in the machine, which only renders these linkages more striking for the reader. In relation to novels such as En attendant que le bus explose et Le poids d’une âme, issues surrounding fractured urban communities are addressed by a consideration of figures such as vagrants, nomads and other iterations of a displaced male body. Through internal monologues, characters reflect upon the status quo as well as the future of society. Indeed, these narrators insert history in the present while simultaneously commenting on it, performing it and interpreting it. In other words, in these novels, the characters express their own perspectives, but also their interpretations and explanations for different events.9 We read stories, rather than a story, or perhaps more importantly, histories rather than History. The characters participate in the narrative not only as actors produced by the author’s consciousness, but in many ways as free people, with the power to agree or disagree with the author, but also to rebel against one another within the narrative. This participation is also subtly manifested by the importance given to artistic creation in these stories. In En attendant que le bus explose, all of the main characters are seeking to share some form of art or creative practice with the wider public. El Magnifico struggles with his feelings of illegitimacy as a writer, which trouble him to the point of leading to the breakdown of his romantic relationship, while Anthony, who sings in the subway, is not really recognized for his talent. In both cases, a concern with the legitimacy of artistic production underpins many of their scenes. Even Anastasia and Maxou, those who most resemble caricatures in the novel, attempt to develop a true talent in their quest for fame. Johann, nicknamed “Bonheur”, a failed rapper and anti-hero, ends up on a different path. He channels his creative energy into planning the attack on the bus, a destructive act foreshadowed by the character’s ironic nickname. When considering the different paths taken by these characters, this novel reveals itself to also be a meditation not only on the healing potential of artistic creation but also on the despair and danger of surrendering to fatality. Before turning to violence, Bonheur seems to pass through a number of different creative cycles in the novel. The reader discovers that Johann first received his nickname when he was a young rapper in the early stages of success in Paris. The death of his best friend eventually led to Johann’s failure in the world of rap and he then began to work in a supermarket as a clown who greets shoppers at the store entrance. During the novel, Johann reappropriates the role of clown by running for office as his clown

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alter-ego, thus allowing him to critique the current state of politics and politicians who for him are simply clowns “déguisés en sauveurs de la nation” (Ryam 2009, 49–50). This process leads the character to be completely stripped of his identity as Johann as he comes to embody a new version of “Bonheur”, a metamorphosis marked in the novel by the gradual erasure of any reference to his original identity. This transformation amplifies the young man’s capacity for social criticism, as clowns are marginal figures, whose outsider status allows them to mock social and cultural norms. Indeed, this feature provides an additional link to the presence of the carnivalesque in this text. It is worth noting that Johann’s act of putting up posters in his neighbourhood (which resembles the graffiti that remains associated with the topos of the banlieue) elicits a number of reactions presented in the narrative through direct speech from unidentified members of the public. This becomes one of the few moments in the narrative when Bonheur experiences any kind of social approval. This evolution of the performative act is particularly useful for our analysis of the complexity of Bonheur’s character. In his semiotic study of make-up, costumes and objects, Paul Bouissac emphasizes that clowns generate “micronarratives” through their acts, dialogues and gestures (Bouissac 2015, 161). Bonheur participates in many performances in the narrative, particularly when he decides to stand for office in the municipal elections taking place in his neighbourhood. The narrative is also punctuated by several soliloquies in which Bonheur critiques the injustices of French society, particularly class inequality and the insecurity of contemporary life. These passages often include a number of anaphoras, rhyming phrases and verse that resemble rap lyrics, acting perhaps as a substitute for his failed artistic endeavours. Bonheur’s performance culminates in lengthy monologues directed towards Billet, a five-euro bill that becomes his confidante. These scenes closely resemble a circus act in which the hero defeats an opponent with the help of an assistant, or in this case, an accessory, emphasized by the fact that Bonheur releases Billet once he has completed his part in the act. Clowns have a tendency to reappropriate everyday items (i.e. boxes, tables, chairs, etc.) in their performances, though these objects are transformed and used in new and surprising ways. The friendship Bonheur feels towards Billet allows the inanimate object to transcend from its role as a simple five-euro bill: Billet becomes not only the doubling of the narrator, emphasized by the nickname Bonheur bestows upon him of “twin” (Ryam 2009, 74) but also by the way in which his role of confidante becomes representative of the reader. These conversations with

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Billet are particularly subversive, because the act of clowning in the novel not only allows Bonheur to break with traditional expectations of objects, but also allow him to disrupt cultural and social norms. As such, Bonheur systematically violates the social norms in actions that can be compared to Bouissac’s “negative performances”, in which the many conventions associated with traditional performances are violated. While this chapter allows for a better understanding of how themes such as agency, citizenship, hybridity and belonging reveal themselves in two novels by Thomté Ryam, the approach used can undoubtedly be applied to other contemporary banlieue narratives. Ultimately, these novels demonstrate a transgressiveness operating on three levels. Firstly, the categorization and compartmentalization of banlieue literature, as something distinct from French national literature, is implicitly called into question. Secondly, the conventions associated with banlieue literature are challenged as the authors are increasingly producing texts that move past first-person narratives in favour of other modes of representation, both in terms of narrative structure and by drawing on genres such as the roman policier and the dystopian novel, amongst others. Finally, these texts redefine traditional conceptions of citizenship and national identity, featuring characters that reconcile different components of their hybrid identities as they engage with the larger community and the nation as full citizens. These novels move beyond representations of banlieue residents as mere allegories and defy expectations of these complex peripheral spaces through unapologetic and detailed psychological portraits that grant visibility to those who have been invisible for too long. The narrative space provided in these novels thus becomes a testing ground for new definitions of national identity and perhaps even a multiculturalism à la française.

Notes 1. See La république mise à nu par son immigration by Nacira Guénif-­ Souilamas, Les ghettos de la nation by Jérémy Robine, and La fracture coloniale: la société française au prisme de l’héritage by Pascal Blanchard, Nicholas Bancel and Sandrine Lemaire, amongst others, for insights into the rampant stigmatization of the French banlieues. Furthermore, the rise of “neo-­ republican” or “neo-reactionary” discourse as examined by Jim Wolfreys in Republic of Islamophobia, highlights the way in which French republicanism has increasingly been co-opted by right-wing politicians as well as figures such as Alain Finkielkraut, Élisabeth Badinter and Eric Zemmour.

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2. Admittedly, the argument could be made that Banlieue noire is not narrated by a single character, since three other characters briefly take on the narrator’s role. Yet, these brief episodes are essential to plot development and do not diminish the central role of Sébastien who quickly returns to narrate the remainder of the novel following these brief interludes. 3. See the manifesto produced that serves as a preface to Chroniques d’une société annoncée as well as Laura Reeck’s article “Mohamed Razane: The Re-Generation of Beur Literature.” 4. Numerous examples of this phenomenon exist. Faïza Guène remains one of the most visible examples due to the media attention that she received upon the publication of Kiffe kiffe demain. See, for instance, Jacques Braunstein’s article “Faiza Guène: ne l’appelez plus la ‘Sagan des banlieues.” 5. For instance, Abd al Malik’s La guerre des banlieues n’aura pas lieu was awarded the Prix Edgar-Faure, though this prize is associated with political writing. Broadly speaking, banlieue narratives have garnered little recognition from literary prizes and institutions. 6. Such prefaces can also serve a commercial purpose and their potential effect on the reception of these works must be kept in mind as well. 7. Consider the authors such as Patrick Chamoiseau, Calixthe Beyala, Assia Djebar, Ben Okri, Salman Rushdie and Vikram Chandra, among others. 8. There are connections between En attendant que le bus explose and En attendant Godot, as both explore the absurdity of the human condition in great detail. 9. The content of many of these dialogues focus on deconstructing Eurocentric or dominant narratives.

References Amellal, Karim. 2006. Cités à comparaître. Paris: Stock. Blanchard, Pascal, Nicholas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire, eds. 2005. La fracture coloniale: la société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial. Vol. 65, 182. Paris: La Découverte. Booker, M.  Keith. 1995. Joyce, Bakhtin, and the Literary Tradition: Toward a Comparative Cultural Poetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Bornard, Marie. 2004. Témoignage et fiction: les récits de rescapés dans la littérature de langue française (1945–2000). Geneva: Droz. Bouissac, Paul. 2015. The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning: Rituals of Transgression and the Theory of Laughter. London: Bloomsbury. Braunstein, Jacques. 2018. Faiza Guène: ne l’appelez plus la ‘Sagan des banlieues.’ Vice. https://www.vice.com/fr/article/wjpa7n/faiza-guene-le-retour-de-lasagan-des-banlieues Chapelan, Maurice. 1947. Anthologie du journal intime. Paris: Robert Laffont. Collectif Qui fait la France ? 2007. Chroniques d’une société annoncée. Paris: Stock.

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Gilmore, Leigh. 1994. The Mark of Autobiography, Postmodernism, Autobiography and Genre. In Autobiography and Postmodernism, ed. Kathleen Ashley, Leigh Gilmore, and Gerald Peters, 3–18. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. Guénif-Souilamas, Nacira, ed. 2006. La république mise à nu par son immigration. Paris: Fabrique. Jemaï, Hamid. 2007. Dans la peau d’un youv. Paris: Sarbacane. Landowski, Eric. 1997. Présences de l’autre: Essais de socio-sémiotique II. Paris: PUF. Lapeyronnie, Didier. 2009. Primitive Rebellion in the French Banlieues. In Frenchness and the Diaspora: Identity and Uprising in Contemporary France, ed. Charles Tshimanga, Didier Gondola, and Peter J. Bloom, 21–46. Bloomington: Indiana UP. Lassi, Étienne-Marie. 2013. Banlieues, perspective spatiale: déterritorialisation et subjectivité radicale dans Banlieue noire et En attendant que le bus explose de Thomté Ryam. Présence francophone 80: 42–59. Lejeune, Philippe. 1975. Le pacte autobiographique. Paris: Seuil. Malik, Abd al. 2004. Qu’Allah bénisse la France ! Paris: Albin Michel. Raoul, Valérie. 1999. Le journal fictif dans le roman français. Paris: PUF. Razane, Mohamed. 2006. Dit violent. Paris: Gallimard. Reeck, Laura. 2008. Mohamed Razane: “The Re-Generation of Beur Literature”. Expressions maghrébines 7 (1): 67–83. Robine, Jérémy. 2011. Les ghettos de la nation: ségrégation, délinquance, identités, Islam. Paris: Vendémiaire. Ryam, Thomté. 2006. Banlieue noire. Paris: Présence africaine. ———. 2009. En attendant que le bus explose. Paris: Éditions du Rocher. Todorov, Tzvetan. 1995. Les Abus de la mémoire. Paris: Arléa. Wolfreys, Jim. 2018. Republic of Islamophobia: The Rise of Respectable Racism in France. London: C. Hurst & Co.

CHAPTER 7

The Integration of Muslim Maghrebis into Quebec: France as the Model Not to Follow Typhaine Leservot

Introduction Between 1990 and 2016, Northern Africans constituted the largest group of immigrants arriving yearly in Quebec, representing 20% of new immigrants until 2010, and 15% since then.1 Most Northern African immigrants to Quebec come from the Maghreb, a region comprising Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.2 As a result of this significant migration, the number of Maghrebis in Quebec (including recent immigrants, new citizens, and Canadian-born citizens that can claim origins from the region) increased from around 7000 before 1976 to about 70,000  in 2006 (Ferhi 2013, 31–32) before reaching almost 170,000 in 2016. The vast majority of this new Maghrebi community arrived between 1991 and 2010. Although Maghrebi newcomers were more likely from Algeria during that period, the overall make up of this community today counts more Moroccans (51%) than Algerians (36%) or Tunisians (13%). The vast majority (80%) lives in Montreal. Religiously, roughly 80% identify as Muslim, 10% as

T. Leservot (*) Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and Department of the College of Letters, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_7

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non-religious, 7% as Christian, and 3% as Jewish.3 Ethnically, while most identify as Arab, a sizable proportion (20%) identifies as Berber, these two identities overlapping for many. When Maghrebis settle in Quebec, they consciously choose a country with which they have no colonial ties, a situation quite unlike that of Maghrebis going to France, where both France and its largely Muslim Maghrebi minority struggle to exist outside of the postcolonial paradigm. This tense postcolonial relationship is the direct result of France’s long colonial history in the Maghreb, which started almost two centuries earlier in the nineteenth century, and which still pits (non-Maghrebi) French and Maghrebis (whether French citizens or not) in an endless relationship of domination. This colonial relationship led to a tense postcolonial relationship visible within both France and the Maghreb.4 As a result, more than 50  years after the independence of Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, one cannot talk today about being Maghrebi without talking about one’s relationship to France, and one cannot talk about contemporary France without talking about the Maghreb. What happens to this heavy postcolonial relationship if one moves across the Atlantic to Quebec where a second, larger, and mostly Muslim Maghrebi community settled beginning in the early 1990s? Does this 25-year-young community of Muslim Maghrebis in Quebec exhibit signs of emancipation from the almost two century-long colonial and postcolonial relationship between France and the Maghreb? Are Maghrebis able to construct a different identity in their new host country, one free from the burden of the past and present relationship with France? What this chapter will reveal is that this tense connection between France and Maghrebis is unfortunately still an issue for Muslim Maghrebis in Quebec as they attempt to craft a new North-American identity. From province-wide political debates on the Muslim veil, to high unemployment rates and Maghrebi-specific urban management policies in Montreal, the ghost-like presence of France’s own problematic approach with Muslim Maghrebis is plain to see. This French “ghost” is so much a part of the socio-economic and political reality of Maghrebis in Quebec that it is becoming a topos in the emerging literature written by Maghrebis in the province. After offering a thorough presentation of this French specter in the political, economic, and social realms in Quebec, this chapter will further analyze the complexity of this phenomenon in the 2004 play Montréal la Blanche written by Bachir Bensaddek. By giving voice to both Algerian immigrants in

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Montreal and Quebec immigration officers, the play highlights the ­difficulties for both communities in escaping the France-Maghreb postcolonial paradigm.

From France’s Rejection to Quebec’s Seduction The official narrative for why many Moroccans, Algerians, and Tunisians chose la belle province over France since the early 1990s paints Quebec as a new Eldorado for Muslim Maghrebis, an American dream in French. The reality, however, is a bit more complex. Maghrebis began to go to Quebec in large numbers in the early 1990s because, on the one hand, France rejected them, and on the other, Maghrebis rejected France. What Muslim Maghrebis see in France since the early 1990s is what everyone else sees: endless and acrimonious political debates about the place of Islam in the French Republic. These debates began decades earlier, first as debates about immigration during the economic crisis of the 1970s, then as debates about Islam starting in 1989, the year that France celebrated the bi-centennial of its Republic. In September of that year, a controversy emerged around the Muslim headscarf in public schools when three young girls wore it in school. For 15 long years, this controversy remained unsettled until a March 2004 law against the display of ostentatious religious signs in public schools was passed by Parliament under President Jacques Chirac. The law effectively banned the Muslim headscarf in public schools, along with large Christian crosses and the Jewish yarmulke. The law nonetheless did not resolve French anxieties about Islam: beginning in 2008, the debates around the place of Islam in the French Republic resurfaced, this time around the wearing of the full-face veil in French streets. This controversy led to a ban voted by Parliament in October 2010, under then-President Nicolas Sarkozy. To this day, the law remains controversial both in and outside of France.5 In August 2016, French anxiety against Islam resurfaced in the middle of the summer, with the controversy around the burkini on the beach (a full-length swimsuit with a hood that some Muslim women use to bathe in). Some 30 municipalities around the country issued ordinances banning it, until the State Council’s decree in late August rendered these ordinances illegal under then-President François Hollande. The controversy around Muslim women’s attire in France continues to this day; most recently, in February 2019 another furor erupted around a sports hijab on sale at Decathlon, a French sports goods store. Less than a month after the controversy began, Decathlon removed the item from the sale.

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Behind these debates about the place of Islam in a secular Republic is, for France, a debate about what it means to be French. For many in and outside of France, however, these debates highlight not the need for a redefinition of Frenchness, but the limits of French Republicanism in dealing with its largest minority: Muslim Maghrebis. In particular, it highlights the inability of French secularism in managing a growing pluralism as well as the country’s unwillingness to move away from its integration-­ as-­assimilation model of managing cultural differences.6 Adding to the difficulties of being Maghrebi in contemporary France, when Algerians were fleeing the rise of terrorism at home in the 1990s, was France’s (and the rest of the European Union’s) growing opposition to new immigrants. By contrast, while the European Union was becoming more fortress-like in the 1990s, Quebec was eager to welcome more French-speaking immigrants to boost its Francophone population and ensure the future of the French language in the province. Canada had a brand-new Immigration and Refugee Board as of 1989, and in 1991, Quebec acquired “sole responsibility for the selection of independent immigrants and the administration of all settlement services” (Dench 1999). This Quebec-Canada agreement resulted in the province being allowed to select about 60% of its immigrants, and allowed to give priority to Francophone immigrants. While Europe felt overwhelmed by refugees from central Europe and Africa, Quebec thus had a new bureaucratic capacity, and the wherewithal and political desire, to welcome more Francophone immigrants. The province was particularly interested in welcoming immigrants from the Maghreb, more than 90% of whom already spoke French. According to sociologist Bochra Manaï, Quebec’s eagerness to welcome Maghrebis was such that it led to a sustained “campaign of seduction” by Quebec representatives in the Maghreb (Manaï 2018, 27). As a result, Maghrebis started coming in large numbers, seeing in Quebec the fulfillment of their American dream in French. Quebec’s policy of interculturalism is another factor in attracting Maghrebi immigrants. This policy contrasts sharply with France’s integration-­as-assimilation policy. In his 2012 study on Quebec’s interculturalism, Gérard Bouchard explains how Quebec worked for decades to find a third way of managing cultural differences that avoids the pitfalls of multiculturalism on the one hand, and of French Republicanism on the other. While multiculturalism, the official policy of Canada since 1971, is criticized for encouraging communitarianism, or the fragmentation of the nation into cultural groups that do not intersect, French Republicanism is

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criticized for being too assimilationist in its refusal to recognize minorities and their differences. By contrast, Quebec’s interculturalism aims to recognize both the existence of a majority culture (the Francophone culture of Quebec) and minority cultures. In addition to recognizing a duality at the core of Quebec’s pluralism, it requires constant cultural mediation (at the state and community levels) to resolve cultural differences, and mitigate the imbalance of power between the majority and minority cultures. Although it took decades for Quebec to define its policy, Quebec, and in particular the cosmopolitan city of Montreal where most Maghrebi immigrants settle, quickly came to represent a place of tolerance in the eyes of Maghrebis tired of France’s condescension toward them.

French and Quebec Politics: Similar Debates, Different Answers If a tense French-Maghrebi relationship influenced partly the decision of Maghrebis to immigrate to Quebec, once in the province, Maghrebis were not allowed to forget entirely about this France that rejected them. In fact, it became clear to many Maghrebis in Quebec reading the Francophone press that France was omnipresent in the province’s own public debates about secularism. France’s own issues with Maghrebis and Islam were appearing, ghost-like, in Quebec’s political debates around secularism, in Quebec’s unexplainable high unemployment rate among Maghrebis, and even in Quebec’s urban policies. Even though France frequently appeared as the model not to follow when it came to managing cultural differences in a secular society, the omnipresence of the French contemporary debates in Quebec’s media made it hard to forget the France from which Maghrebis were eager to distance themselves—so much so that according to Taïeb Hafsi, professor at HEC in Montreal, himself an immigrant from Algeria, being Maghrebi in Quebec is shaped daily by this complex triangular relationship between Quebec, France, and the Maghreb (Belkaïd 2017, 8–9). Politically, as Maghrebis went about their daily lives in Quebec trying to settle in their new society, Quebec was quite preoccupied with France’s ongoing debates about the Muslim veil. Since France’s first Muslim veil affair in 1989 and until the French laws of 2004 and 2010 progressively rendered the Muslim veil un-French, France’s own postcolonial tensions with its Muslim Maghrebi community was there for everyone to see on

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the international stage. In Canada, it was particularly followed by the Francophone press in Quebec.7 In other words, for Muslim Maghrebis, living in Quebec meant being reminded daily of France’s ongoing postcolonial tensions with its own Maghrebi community. Quebec did more than just report on France’s postcolonial issues however; it actually experienced similar debates. In 1994, only three years after Muslim Maghrebis had begun arriving in Quebec in high numbers, Quebec experienced its first Muslim veil affair at the same time as France experienced its second veil affair. Quebec’s veil affair seemed to replicate the one unfolding in France so thoroughly that several Quebec journalists saw it as an import from France (Bisonnette 1994). Like in France, the Quebec government and its people saw the Muslim veil as challenging secularism and gender equality. This set Quebec apart from its Anglophone neighbors (both Canadian and American), who saw the Muslim veil issue in terms of religious freedom. Although the French and Quebec governments were eventually opposed on the issue of the Muslim veil in public schools (France voted against in 2004, while Quebec voted against restrictions on the veil a couple of years later), their respective societies remained profoundly divided over the issue. In both France and Quebec, governmental positions were challenged by lawsuits and public demonstrations.8 Quebec’s debates did have their own particularities, however, which allowed the province to present France as the model not to follow when it came to managing cultural differences. Around 2006, Quebec’s debates around the Muslim veil were swept up in the crisis around reasonable accommodations. The concept originates from the US and Canadian workplace and requires employers to accept reasonable accommodations (often low-cost adjustments) to help employees in need of them perform their work. Most requests for reasonable accommodations are non-­ religious, seeking adjustment for mental, emotional, or physical difficulties. Yet, starting in 2006, the Francophone media in Quebec focused almost exclusively on religious requests for accommodation made by Muslims, Hassidic Jews, and Sikhs, creating a crisis around the practice. The tension was such that in January 2007, the small Quebec town of Herouxville, with 1300 (mostly white) residents, became famous for issuing a rule of conduct which forbade the stoning of women and the wearing of the burqa (the full face-veil). To calm the public, Quebec’s Premier Jean Charest quickly ordered the creation of a commission to study the practice of reasonable accommodations and make recommendations to the government.

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The Bouchard-Taylor commission, named after its co-chairs Charles Taylor, a philosopher, and Gérard Bouchard, a sociologist, gave its report a year later in May 2008. The report began by underlining the crisis of perception surrounding accommodations, with the media over-­ emphasizing religious demands, when in reality, the vast majority of accommodations are non-religious and resolved amiably between employers and employees. Among its recommendations, it urged Quebec to develop its own brand of (open) secularism (“laïcité ouverte”) and education about its own policy of interculturalism (Bouchard and Taylor 2008, 277–78). Furthermore, the report insisted on the need for Quebec not to import the French Republican model of (closed) secularism (“laïcité fermée”) and its related policy of integration-as-assimilation. As if to highlight Quebec’s responsibility to be a beacon of hope for those rejected by France, they quoted Maghrebi representatives who said “they had chosen Quebec over France precisely because they felt more accepted here and free from the weight of the memory of a long relationship of domination” (Bouchard and Taylor 2008, 191).9 The report was thus able to reinforce Quebec’s image as more tolerant than France toward religious difference and more ready to work to integrate Muslims. The hope for a better future for Maghrebis in Quebec, however, was short-lived. Five years after the crisis around reasonable accommodations, Muslim Maghrebis in Quebec felt scapegoated again when discussions surrounding “The Charter of Values” (proposed bill 60 under Premier Pauline Maurois) brought back the issue of the Muslim headscarf. As in 2007–2008, the 2013–2014 debates surrounding secularism in Quebec were tense, but yet again, unlike in France, the bill, which proposed to ban most public workers from wearing conspicuous religious signs, was defeated. Similarly, the 2018 proposed bill 62 on state neutrality (under Premier Jacques Couillard) ended when section 10 banning the face-veil was found unconstitutional by a Quebec court. Notwithstanding this legal decision, debates about secularism in Quebec continued in March 2019 when the new government of François Legault proposed bill 21. Presented as the long-awaited bill that would end the 12-year-long controversy about the state secularism that had begun with reasonable accommodations, the bill did not respect the Bouchard-Taylor recommendations in its proposed ban on any religious sign (conspicuous or not) for all public workers in positions of authority, teachers included. The bill was heavily debated before becoming law in June 2019. To date, then, Quebec shares with France similarly divisive debates and laws dis-

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proportionately affecting its Muslim Maghrebi population, and slowly diminishing the idea of the greater openness of Quebec compared with France.

Maghrebis of France and Quebec: A Shared Socio-­ Economic Reality, a Shared Future? The ghost-like presence of France in Quebec’s political debates may have led to France serving as a foil for Quebec’s pluralism; yet this presence ironically reasserts itself when Quebec replicates France’s socio-economic discrimination against Maghrebis. Indeed, Maghrebis in Quebec share with Maghrebis in France an unemployment rate that is much higher than that of the overall population. In France, the Maghrebis’ unemployment rate averages 25% versus 10% for the general population (Boutchenik and Lê 2017, 24). In Quebec, it averages 17% versus 7% for the general population (Quebec Government 2014). While these statistics certainly show that the unemployment rate of Maghrebis in Quebec is better than the one in France, it still reveals an abnormally high unemployment rate for Maghrebis in Quebec vis-à-vis the general population. These numbers are surprising for Quebec given that the Maghrebi community is highly educated, in fact better educated than the average population. Several reasons are given for this oddity. Some attribute the disproportionate rate of employment to Maghrebis’ poor command of English, which is important for finding work in Quebec, while others highlight their over-qualification for the jobs available and/or their lack of a Quebec degree. Others hypothesize that the rise of Islamophobia after 9/11 affects all Muslims in non-majority Muslim countries, and especially in North America and Western Europe. But this does not explain the high unemployment rate of Maghrebis in Quebec before 9/11 added fuel to Islamophobia (Ferhi 2013, 42–43), nor their high unemployment rate compared with other minorities. In 2008, Christel Le Petit, of Statistic Canada, admitted that “[n]o other group has such an unenviable situation in Canada” (Bourque 2008)10 when it came to job discrimination. Clearly, something other, both older than 9/11 and specific to the Maghrebi community, must be at play: France’s longstanding postcolonial anxieties. Given the hyper-awareness in Quebec of France’s own discrimination toward its Maghrebi community, a transfer of France’s postcolonial anxi-

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eties is not only influencing political debates in Quebec but also affecting the integration of Maghrebis in the economic realm. Maghrebis in Quebec themselves are shocked by the statistics about their high unemployment rate and draw parallels to the comparable unemployment of Maghrebis in France—so much so that in 2008, a group of Maghrebi opinion leaders from the civil rights center “Centre de Recherche-Action sur les Relations Raciales” (CRARR) gave a press conference accusing the Quebec government of not working hard enough to fix a situation they saw as a disgrace and a scandal. Abdelghani Dades, member of “Le conseil des communautés marocaines résidant à l’étranger,” underlined the seriousness of the situation by presenting it as potentially as explosive as the situation of Maghrebis in the French banlieues that erupted in violent riots in 2005: “we are ‘reproducing the blueprint of the French banlieues,’ which could lead to ‘explosions’” (Bourgault-Côté 2008).11 Since then, although economic statistics began to show improvement for everyone in Quebec around 2016, as the economy slowly recovered from the 2008 crisis (Benzakour 2017, 18), the poor economic integration of Maghrebis remains.12 As a result, Maghrebis fear an increase rather than a decrease of similarities between France and Quebec when it comes to their economic integration. The difficult political and economic climate for Maghrebis in Quebec leads to a general social anxiety about a potential French fate for Maghrebis in the province. In a 2013 article referring to “Le Petit Maghreb,” an area of Montreal with 4000 Maghrebis, Katia Gagnon highlights the work of city mediators, themselves from the Maghrebi community, in bringing social peace to the area. As the article highlights the success and importance of this program, it refers twice to the situation of Maghrebis in France. Annie Samson, a Montreal city councilor, is quoted as saying that if the police and the municipality do nothing, “what happens in France in the ghetto-suburbs, might happen here in ten years” (Gagnon 2013).13 Another interlocutor, Malik Bedoui, a local resident of “Le Petit Maghreb,” confirms Samson’s claim when he explains that in France, “Beurs14 have reached the third generation, yet they are still considered as foreigners, […]. If we continue, it will be the same thing here. A ghetto. Like in Montreal-Nord” (Gagnon 2013).15 In spite of these clear signs of the social, economic, and political anxiety felt by Maghrebis in Quebec, an anxiety which testifies to the ongoing ghostly presence of France’s postcolonial tensions in the province, the vast majority of Maghrebis in Quebec continue to believe that the province is

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a better place for them than France. In her 2007 study of Maghrebis from Quebec, sociologist Dounia Benchaâlal interviewed 16 members of the community who were close to unanimous in thinking that Quebec is less prejudiced, less racist, and more promising than France for them (Benchaâlal 2007). In fact, no event seems to shake this belief. Two months after the Quebec-city mosque attack of January 2017 killed six worshippers (four of them Maghrebis), professor Taïeb Hafsi tells French journalist Akram Belkaïd that “[o]verall, Maghrebis are happy to be in Quebec where they are a lot more welcome than in Europe” (Belkaïd 2017).16 He believes that problems only arise when Quebec imports foreign issues, like “the French debate around secularism and the place of Islam in the public sphere” (Belkaïd 2017).17 It is not so far-fetched, however, to imagine that this favorable comparison of Quebec over France on the part of Maghrebis may itself be the not-so-distant cousin of the tense French-Maghrebi postcolonial relationship. The love that Maghrebis show for Quebec does not, indeed, exist out of nowhere but in clear reaction to the French-Maghrebi postcolonial relationship that is featured so prominently in the Francophone Quebec press. The idea that, no matter what, Quebec is better than France for Maghrebis may be partly a myth, but it is one that endures and shows no sign of abating.

Maghrebi Writers of Quebec: Becoming Quebecers It is in this context of a Quebec understood as not perfect but felt as more welcoming than France that a Maghrebi-Quebec literature emerges. While studies of migrant literature in Quebec are certainly not new, studies that focus exclusively on Maghrebi writers and their specificities began to emerge only recently.18 As a result, there remains a need to analyze how this literature represents the new Maghrebi-Quebec relationship, as well as how (and if) France features in that relationship. In 2014, Lila Ibrahim-­ Lamrous offered a brief overview of the literature of the Maghrebi diaspora in Quebec in which she highlighted both the ever-presence of France in the Maghrebi-Quebec imaginary and the demystification of Quebec’s image as an Eldorado. The brevity of Ibrahim-Lamrous’s article, however, did not allow for a full contextualization of this cultural and psychological baggage, resulting in the suggestion that Maghrebis alone carry that baggage while Quebecers are exempt from it. Contrary to this article, this chapter argues that Quebec shares with its new residents and citizens of Maghrebi origins a relationship with France, and, furthermore, that this

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relationship has become a major player in the still emerging Maghrebi-­ Quebec relationship. These ideas are exemplified by the play Montréal la Blanche by Bachir Bensaddek (2004), a writer and filmmaker from Algeria who settled in Montreal in 1992. Although unpublished to this day, the play remains culturally relevant since it became a film in 2018.19 Montréal was produced by the PorteParole Theater, a stage created in 1998 in Montreal and specializing in documentary-style theater, that is, theater using real-life narratives. Unlike memoirs and novels by migrants, which tend to focus more on memory and history than on the present, this play gives voice to the immigrant’s experience in the host country. This voice-giving is literal: the monologues and dialogues are largely transcripts of Bensaddek’s interviews of Algerian immigrants. The play focuses on seven Algerian immigrants (Amokrane, Slimane, Hasno, Safia, Omar, Kahina, and Aziz), and two Quebec immigration officers (Renald Choquette and Jacques). Amokrane, the main character, is a 40-year-old former union organizer who fled his country after terrorists killed his brother. Now a taxi driver in Montreal, his vehicle is the setting of many of the play’s dialogues. The play also follows different characters in three distinct spaces: Safia, a 35-year-old agronomist that is battling Quebec bureaucracy by phone from her small apartment; Jacques, a retired immigration officer in his art studio, which displays paintings made of old immigration papers; Aziz in the immigration office of Renald Choquette, where he is battling Quebec’s bureaucracy to save his Maghrebi library. In 35 scenes, each dialogue and monologue exposes and reframes the complex French-Maghrebi-Quebec triangular relationship by showing, on the one hand, the characters’ repeated attempts to dissociate themselves from the Maghreb and from France, and, on the other, their parallel desire to create a Maghrebi-Quebec relationship freed from its postcolonial entanglements with France. Throughout the play, the very notion of a Maghrebi community, and a French-Maghrebi connection is destabilized. After all, the play is not about Maghrebis in general but about Algerians who live with connections neither to Moroccan or Tunisian immigrants nor to France. Even their Algerian group lacks cohesion: none of them agrees on how to assess their present-day situation in Quebec, or how to even be Muslim in Quebec. They all implicitly agree, however, on dissociating themselves from their past and the country they left behind.

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The first image of Algeria in the play happens in the opening scene with a striking allegory summarizing Algerian history. Amokrane is alone in his taxi, drifting asleep to “Ageggig,” Idir’s famous Berber song about life’s fragile resilience in front of adversity (Idir 1993), when a nightmare violently interrupts this poetic remembrance of the past: he hears a machine-­ gun and the metallic sound of sabers, before seeing a veiled woman shot fall in the snow (Bensaddek 2004, scene 1). The allegorical nature of this sound-image crystallizes 200 years of Algerian history: from Abdelkhader’s resistance with sabers against the French conquest in the early nineteenth century; to the terrorists’ use of machine-guns in the 1990s; and finally to the metaphoric silencing of the veiled woman during the debates about the headscarf in France, Algeria, and Quebec. It also captures the main stereotype many have about the Maghreb, and about Algeria in particular, as a place of endless violence (Bensaddek 2004, scene 27).20 This past is clearly traumatic, however; Amokrane remembers it involuntarily and experiences it in the context of a recurrent nightmare. In other words, Amokrane is forced to remember Algeria’s politics instead of poetry, and he is not alone in not wanting to remember this past. Other immigrants in the play rarely volunteer to narrate neither their country’s history, nor their personal past. The play offers 35 scenes, yet we truly only begin to know more about the characters’ personal backgrounds in Algeria in scene 33. By the end of the story, we still do not have more than a few lines on the exact circumstances that brought Safia, Omar, Kahina, and others to Quebec. The past is not absent from the play, however, but it is almost always coaxed from the shadows by Quebecers themselves. In fact, it is as if Quebecers refused to let Algerian immigrants forget about their history, and in particular forget about French colonialism. When Patrice enters Amokrane’s taxi in the second scene, he immediately asks him about French colonial times upon learning that Amokrane is Algerian: “Is it true they used to make fantastic wines in Algeria before [independence]?” (Bensaddek 2004, scene 2).21 In another scene, Slimane, a former journalist, recalls how the first immigration officer he met in Quebec felt the need to explain to him twice that “Quebec is a small country, not like France” (Bensaddek 2004, scene 30).22 Only Kahina, a former TV personality who fled Algeria after receiving death threats, voluntarily brings up France when she reveals that she met a Quebec woman thanks to a girlfriend in France: “I called her on behalf of a friend in France” (Bensaddek 2004, scene 31).23 But this constitutes the only instance in the play when an immigrant voluntarily brings up France at all. In all other

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instances, references to France and the colonial past in the play are provoked by the Quebecers. Algerians’ reluctance to talk about France is not the result of amnesia but of trauma. Remembering France is still very painful. When Amokrane is forced to talk about the colonial past, he angrily shifts the discussion to his pride about his Moudjedine father who fought against France during the war of independence. Through this provoked, reluctant retelling of history, one realizes both how much France is present in the Quebec frame of mind when dealing with Maghrebis, but also how much the French-­ Maghrebi ghost is still traumatic for Maghrebis who crossed the Atlantic to go to Quebec. These instances, however, do not suggest that Maghrebis cannot escape their (post)colonial history. Instead, the play actually suggests the opposite. It spends so much time on the daily struggles of Maghrebis in Quebec, and insists so clearly on their reluctance to unearth the past, that the play’s immigrants end up looking like pioneer Quebecers, focused as they are on their present and future in the province. Eager to focus on their lives in Quebec, the immigrants in the play are nevertheless quick to shatter the myth held by newcomers that Quebec is an Eldorado, revealing in the process the difficulty of creating a real Maghrebi-Quebec connection. The play makes it clear that the daily life of immigrants in Quebec is one of endless struggles. We thus witness Safia’s daily phone calls with Quebec bureaucrats to resolve a salary issue, Aziz’s battle to get a loan to preserve his Maghrebi library and livelihood, Omar’s long-term unemployment and depression, and so on. As we follow their daily lives, we understand that the major obstacles these refugees face are not in a Franco-Algerian past (or present), however traumatic it might be, but in building connections with Quebecers. Initially, the disconnect between Quebecers and the immigrants seems deep. It is particularly visible in the lack of meaningful dialogues between both the parties. While dialogues occur between Amokrane and his Quebecois customers, as well as between the immigration officers and the immigrants they encounter, these interactions remain brief and superficial, or focus on a topic (the past) the refugees would rather forget. The resulting alienation for all involved strikes in the play’s many monologues which contradict each other and reveal a lack of attentive listening between the parties. In scene 19, for instance, Omar talks about his depression due to his unemployment, and the lack of warning he received about the difficulties of integrating into Quebec society (Bensaddek 2004, scene 19). In the same scene, former immigration officer Jacques mentions the many

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­ arnings he gave immigrants precisely about the difficulty of immigrating, w and shares his frustration with feeling unheard (Bensaddek 2004, scene 19). More characters join them in that scene, sharing monologues of their own, creating a collage of deeply moving experiences in present-day Quebec. But if the characters are simultaneously present on stage, no true dialogue occurs; they hear but do not listen to one another. Each character, immigrant or not, is profoundly isolated and alone. This emotional alienation is reinforced by the spaces the characters occupy in the play. Between Amokrane’s taxi, Safia’s small apartment, Jacques’s painting studio, and Renald Choquette’s office, only two of these spaces (the office and the taxi) force immigrants and Quebecers to interact in person. However, these spaces themselves are not conducive to connections, separating driver and customer, or agent and immigrant in two distinct subspaces. What is more, by definition, these transient spaces can only foster transient encounters rather than long-lasting relations. Somehow, however, the play’s tone shifts dramatically beginning in scene 29, ushering in hope for a Maghrebi-Quebec connection after all. At that point, the immigrants’ struggles begin to ease, and they become thankful for the many Quebecers who helped them. We see a happy Safia who received the back pay she fought for, thankful for the help of a bureaucrat aptly named Jesus; Slimane who is thankful for the agent who signed the form that allowed him to immigrate; Kahina who is thankful for the stranger who found and furnished her first apartment. As the immigrants in the play begin to see a brighter future, they begin to give back to their new society, and the play ends when Amokrane invites everyone to join him in his taxi for a free ride. As the taxi welcomes everyone, we hear the same Idir’s song which opened the play. This time, no nightmarish vision of the past interrupts the song. The lyrics flow, allowing everyone, Quebecers and immigrants alike, to share in its sad beauty.

Conclusion Although the socio-economic and political reality of Maghrebis in Quebec suggests that “la belle province” is not yet able to offer Maghrebis a life free from the French-Maghrebi postcolonial paradigm, the play does capture a glimpse of hope about the province’s ability to do so. The play may not use the recurrent terms of Quebec’s political debates about assimilation, multiculturalism, interculturalism, and reasonable accommodations, yet it explores in depth the French-Maghrebi-Quebec forces that sustain

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these debates. It also gives agency to the Algerian characters to reframe and destabilize this triangular relationship. As immigrants reluctantly reconnect with their difficult (post)colonial past with France and the Maghreb, and initially experience a profound sense of alienation toward their new society, they indirectly reject France’s assimilationist policies (which would expect them to forget their past), and the multiculturalism of Anglophone Canada (which would keep them isolated in an Algerian or Maghrebi bubble). Instead, when the immigrants finally receive the help they need from Quebec, and they in turn can welcome Quebecers in their own space, the play highlights the feasibility of an intercultural relationship based on exchange and mutual respect between Maghrebis and Quebecers. Ironically, as Quebec develops its own way of managing its pluralism, France has begun looking at Quebec more attentively. In 2008, French researcher Jean Baubérot saw Quebec’s interculturalism and open secularism as a model France should follow (Baubérot 2008). More recently, Belkaïd’s article on Maghrebis’ disappointment with Quebec was published in Le Monde diplomatique (Belkaïd 2017). Meanwhile, Quebec sociologist Mathieu Bock-Côté now makes regular appearances on French television and in the French press to talk about the province. In 2015, he informed French readers of the newspaper Le Figaro that France serves as a foil when Quebec debates secularism (Bock-Côté 2015). More recently, following the Legault government’s proposed bill 21, he claimed France was now a model of secularism that inspires Quebec (Bock-Côté 2019). In other words, it seems a Quebec-Maghrebi ghost is beginning to haunt France as it continues, like Quebec, to debate how to manage cultural differences.

Notes 1. General statistics about Quebec’s immigrant population are available at: http://www.micc.gouv.qc.ca/fr/recherches-statistiques/stats-immigration-recente.html (Quebec Government 2018). 2. The Maghreb can also include Libya and Mauritania, but in France and Quebec, the region usually refers to Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. 3. Moroccan Jews were part of an earlier wave of migration to Quebec between the 1950s and 1970s. For additional statistics on the population of Moroccan Jews in Montreal, see Charles Shahar (2015). For an understanding of the making of a Sephardic identity in Montreal, see Yolande Cohen (2010).

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4. During the multiple demonstrations in Algeria against president Bouteflika in spring 2019, many signs and news articles denounced France’s continued interference in Algerian politics. See Nadia Bouzeghrane (2019). 5. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights approved France’s 2010 law banning the full-face veil in the name of social cohesion. In 2018, however, a UN Human Rights Committee found the law in violation of Human Rights. 6. In 2013, Thierry Tuot’s governmental report on integration confirmed what everyone already knew: that the French policy of integration had always been more of a desire than a reality (Tuot 2013). 7. For more on the topic, see Coryse Ciceri (1998). 8. For more on the topic, see Typhaine Leservot (2009). 9. “[D]e nombreux Maghrébins nous ont dit, au cours de nos consultations, qu’ils avaient précisément choisi le Québec plutôt que la France parce qu’ils se sentaient plus acceptés ici et libérés du poids de la mémoire d’une longue relation de domination” (in text translation mine). 10. “Aucun groupe n’a une situation aussi peu enviable au Canada” (in text translation mine). 11. “On est ‘en train de reproduire le schéma des banlieues françaises,’ ce qui pourrait conduire à des ‘explosions’”(in text translation mine). 12. In 2018, Jean Beauregard’s research revealed that Maghrebis in Quebec city face a 50% chance of job discrimination (Mercure 2018). 13. “Si la police et la municipalité restent les bras croisés, ‘ce qui se passe en France dans les cités, dans 10 ans, il y a des chances que ça se passe ici” (in text translation mine). 14. Beur is originally slang for Arab. It was first created by French youth of Maghrebi origins before becoming a popular label to designate a French citizen of Maghrebi origins. By extension, it indicates anything that belongs to, or is created by a French citizen of Maghrebi origin: Beur literature, Beur authors, Beur generation, and so on. 15. “En France, les Beurs en sont à la troisième génération et ils sont toujours considérés comme des étrangers, […]. Si on continue, ça va être la même chose ici. Un ghetto. Comme à Montréal-Nord” (in text translation mine). 16. “Dans l’ensemble, les Maghrébins sont heureux d’être au Québec et ils y sont bien mieux accueillis qu’en Europe” (in text translation mine). 17. “en reproduisant par exemple le débat français à propos de la laïcité et de la place de l’islam dans l’espace public” (Belkaïd 2017), in text translation mine. 18. See Lilyane Rachédi (2010); Yvette Bénayoun-Szmidt and Najib Redouane (2017); Mostafa Benfares (2017). 19. The play is significantly different from the film, but during the many local and international interviews done by the author during the promotion of his film, he repeatedly mentioned the play and its importance.

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20. Later in the play, the character Kahina explains: “when I speak with Quebecers, they don’t know where Algeria is, but all they know is that people behead” (“quand je parle avec les Québécois, ils savent pas où c’est l’Algérie, mais tout ce qu’ils savent c’est les gens qui égorgent,” Bensaddek 2004, scene 27). 21. “C’est vrai qu’ils faisaient des vins fantastiques en Algérie avant?” (in text translation mine). 22. “Le Québec c’est un petit pays, c’est pas la France” (in text translation mine). 23. “Je l’ai appelée de la part d’une copine en France” (in text translation mine).

References Baubérot, Jean. 2008. Une laïcité interculturelle. Le Québec, avenir de la France? La Tour d’Aigues: Éditions de l’Aube. Belkaïd, Akram. 2017. Désenchantement des Maghrébins au Quebec. Le Monde Diplomatique (March):8–9. https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2017/03/ BELKAID/57273. Accessed 23 Dec 2018. Bénayoun-Szmidt, Yvette, and Najib Redouane. 2017. Voix migrantes au Québec: Emergence d’une littérature maghrébine. Paris: L’Harmattan. Benchaâlal, Dounia. 2007. Paroles d’immigrants: Les Maghrébins au Quebec. Paris: L’Harmattan. Benfares, Mostafa. 2017. Francophonie Québécoise et littérature marocaine migrante: mémoire, médiation et potentiel symbolique. Paris: L’Harmattan. Bensaddek, Bachir. 2004. Montréal la Blanche. Montreal: Thêatre PorteParole (unpublished). Benzakour, Chakib (ed.). 2017 (November). 2016: Les personnes immigrées et le marché du travail québécois. Government of Quebec: Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion. http://www.midi.gouv.qc.ca/publications/ fr/recherchesstatistiques/ImmigrantsMarcheTravail2016.pdf Bisonnette, Lisa. 1994. Appel aux sages du modem. Le Devoir, November 21. Bock-Côté, Matthieu. 2015. Identité et Laïcité au Québec. Le Figaro, January 30. http://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/societe/2015/01/30/31003-20150130ARTFIG00401-identite-et-laicite-au-quebec.php. Accessed 20 Dec 2018. ———. 2019. Laïcité: la France inspire le Québec! Le Figaro, March 29. http:// www.lefigaro.fr/vox/monde/2019/03/29/31002-20190329ARTFIG00113-laicite-la-france-inspire-le-quebec.php. Accessed 1 Apr 2019. Bouchard, Gérard. 2012. L’Interculturalisme: Un point de vue Québécois. Montréal: Boréal.

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Bouchard, Gérard, and Charles Taylor. 2008. Rapport: Fonder l’avenir: Le temps de la conciliation. Québec: Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d’accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles. Bourgault-Côté, Guillaume. 2008. Chômage: le feu couve au sein de la communauté maghrébine. Le Devoir, March 27. https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/ 182305/chomage-le-feu-couve-au-sein-de-la-communaute-maghrebine. Accessed 18 Nov 2018. Bourque, Olivier. 2008. Chômage des Maghrébins: une honte pour le Québec. La Presse, March 28. https://vigile.quebec/articles/chomage-des-maghrebinsune-honte-pour-le-quebec. Accessed 18 Nov 2018. Boutchenik, Béatrice, and Jérôme Lê. 2017. Les descendants d’immigrés maghrébins: des difficultés d’accès à l’emploi et aux salaires les plus élevés. In Emploi, chômage, revenus du travail, ed. Marceline Bodier, 21–33. Paris: INSEE. Bouzeghrane, Nadia. 2019. Manifestations contre le ‘système’ et les relations algéro-françaises: Paris a-t-il acté la fin prochaine et inéluctable de l’ère Bouteflika? El Watan, March 31. https://www.elwatan.com/edition/actualite/manifestations-contre-le-systeme-et-les-relations-algero-francaises-paris-at-il-acte-la-fin-prochaine-et-ineluctable-de-lere-bouteflika-31-03-2019. Accessed 1 Apr 2019. Ciceri, Coryse. 1998. Le Foulard islamique à l’école publique: analyse comparée du débat dans la presse française et québécoise francophone (1994–1995). Montréal: Université de Montréal, Faculté des sciences de l’éducation. Cohen, Yolande. 2010. Juifs au Maroc, Séfarades au Canada. Migrations et processus de construction identitaire. Archives Juives 43 (2): 132–144. https:// www.cairn.info/revue-archives-juives1-2010-2-page-132.htm. Accessed 10 Sept 2018. Dench, Janet. 1999. A Hundred Years of Immigration to Canada 1900–1999 (Part 2). Canadian Council for Refugees. http://ccrweb.ca/en/hundredyears-immigration-canada-part-2. Accessed 20 Dec 2018. Ferhi, Salah. 2013. Immigration maghrébine au Québec: Quelle intégration? Centre d’information et d’études sur les migrations internationales: Migrations Société 146 (2): 29–48. https://www.cairn.info/revue-migrations-societe2013-2-page-29.htm Gagnon, Katia. 2013. Médiateurs urbains: le fragile équilibre du petit Maghreb. La Presse, February 15. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/grand-montreal/ 201302/15/01-4621991-mediateur-urbain-le-fragile-equilibre-du-petitmaghreb.php. Accessed 5 May 2015. Ibrahim-Lamrous, Lila. 2014. La littérature de la diaspora maghrébine au Québec: des trajectoires diverses et complexes. Expressions maghrébines: Nouvelles diasporas: hospitalités et appartenance 13,1 (Summer): 59–74. Idir. 1993. Ageggig. In Les chasseurs de lumière. Global Music.

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Leservot, Typhaine. 2009. Le voile musulman au Québec: vers une nouvelle arabo-francophonie? Contemporary French and Francophone Studies: Franco-­ Arabic Dialogues 13,3 (June): 321–329. Manaï, Bochra. 2018. Les Maghrébins de Montréal. Montréal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Mercure, Philippe. 2018. Les Maghrébins discriminés à Québec. La Presse, May 9. https://www.lapresse.ca/affaires/economie/quebec/201805/09/015177916-les-maghrebins-discrimines-a-quebec.php. Accessed 10 Sept 2018. Quebec Government. 2014. Portrait statistique de la population d’origine ethnique maghrébine au Québec en 2011. http://www.quebecinterculturel.gouv. qc.ca/publications/fr/diversite-ethnoculturelle/com-maghrebine-2011.pdf ———. 2018. Statistiques sur l’immigration récente. http://www.midi.gouv.qc. ca/fr/recherches-statistiques/stats-immigration-recente.html. Accessed 20 Dec 2018. Rachédi, Lilyane. 2010. L’écriture comme espace d’insertion et de citoyenneté pour les immigrants: parcours migratoires et stratégies identitaires d’écrivains maghrébins au Québec. Quebec: Presses de l’Université du Québec. Shahar, Charles. 2015. 2011: National Household Survey: The Jewish Community of Montreal. Part 7: The Sephardic Community. Toronto: Jewish Federations of Canada/United Israel Appeal. https://www.federationcja.org/media/mediaContent/2011%20Montreal_Part7_Sephardic%20Community_Final-E.pdf. Accessed 10 Sept 2018. Tuot, Thierry. 2013. La Grande nation. Pour une société inclusive. http://www. cnle.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/rapport_au_premier_ministre_sur_la_refondation_ des_politiques_d_integration.pdf. Accessed 26 November 2019.

CHAPTER 8

Feminist Citizenship in the Banlieue: Houda Benyamina’s Divines (2016) Michela Ardizzoni

Franco-Moroccan director Houda Benyamina’s first feature film Divines (2016) focuses on female friendship and multicultural experience in the same banlieues foregrounded in numerous French productions. Yet, hers is a quite original and unique take on the routine story of marginalized French youth of African and Arab origins, as it spotlights the vicissitudes of young women and their often-neglected vision of identity. Early on in the film, Dounia (Oulaya Amamra, Benyamina’s younger sister), one of the two female protagonists, tries to befriend the local queen-pin Rebecca (Jisca Kalvanda), who is impressed by the youngster’s street smarts and welcomes her into her circle with the following words: “You’ve got clitoris. I like that.” This simple sentence, uttered with conviction and nonchalance, becomes one of the focal points in Benyamina’s own vision of struggles and poverty in marginalized France and was thus repeated by the director as she thanked her crew at Cannes after winning the Caméra d’Or. Leaving the audience and the jury quite perplexed with her lexical choice, Benyamina made sure her re-appropriation and re-interpretation of the M. Ardizzoni (*) Department of French and Italian, Affiliate Department of Media Studies, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_8

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socio-economic environment in which she grew up were seen as well as heard on a stage—that of Cannes—which rarely finds space for Franco-­ Arab female filmmakers. Indeed, Benyamina’s contribution to French multicultural cinematic production relies precisely on her ability to unveil the layers of complexity that a life on the margins entails. Unlike her predecessors, though, Benyamina’s vision is unapologetically feminine and feminist. The analysis that follows aims to shed light on how contemporary French cinema has reflected on the centrality of female and feminist citizens in the banlieue. Divines has often been characterized as another film on the banlieue, a genre that is well established in French cinema and has generated copious analyses in the press and academic circles.1 The New Yorker’s review of the film, for instance, categorized Benyamina as “the French director who brought the banlieue to Hollywood” (Azimi 2017). The label of ‘banlieue film’ proves almost inescapable in the context of French productions set in working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of the capital. As Benyamina herself has repeatedly argued in several interviews, the classification of ‘banlieue cinema’ can often deter funding or international exposure, particularly given its female authorship. Yet, as Tarr argues, since the mid-­ 2000s French banlieue cinema has witnessed a growing interest in films by women filmmakers, “whose foregrounding of female banlieue characters offers a certain feminization of a cinematic space which has hitherto been considered primarily a space for the expression of young, troubled, postcolonial masculine identities” (Tarr 2005, 31). Indeed, Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine/Hate (1995), the film that publicized this genre and its indelibly masculine outlook on marginalized communities, still remains one of the most well-known films on the banlieue. Set in the community of Chanteloup-les-Vignes, this black-and-white film, whose raw shots and use of real riots footage give it an almost documentaristic feel, focuses on three friends—a Jew, a Maghrebi, and an African—and their lives of struggle in the destitute and violent suburb in which their families live. With a domestic box office of over two million tickets and even wider acclaim in international art cinema theaters, La Haine paved the way for a variety of banlieue films by ethnic minorities as well as French majority filmmakers, who saw the need to shed light on a reality still sidelined in mainstream media, while also benefiting from the genre’s popularity and the ensuing funding available for these productions in the mid-late 1990s. It was in fact during this time period that banlieue films became popular and, in some ways, exploited the exoticized narratives of some productions. La

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Haine’s banlieue is utterly masculine in terms of its protagonists, its issues, and its language. Albeit a multicultural space, this banlieue leaves little to no room for women, whose lives seem completely unaffected by the male protagonists’ experiences. As Vincendeau reminds us, Kassovitz was adamant in focusing solely on male characters as this would lend more credibility to the hardships depicted in the narrative: When Kassovitz was questioned in 1995 about the absence of women from his film, he replied that they would have detracted from the seriousness of its purpose: “I didn’t want to soften the topic. What would love have to do with this story?” – as if women could only signify love and did not have a social identity too. The plight of women as victims of male violence, and their frequent opposition to violence in real life (e.g. black and beur women staged demonstrations against the rioters in several locations), are ignored (Vincendeau 2012).

Acquiescent with a blindfolded view that associates womanhood to weakness (or, softness at best), La Haine traced what was to become a well-­ treaded path for a more masculine window into peripheral urban life in France. In reaction to this clearly distorted vision of the banlieue, more recent films have centered on female protagonists able to narrate a different world, not completely disconnected from, yet inevitably complementary to, the masculine perspective seen in previous films. In this context, it is particularly important to acknowledge the role played by female directors like Nora Hamdi (Des Poupées et des anges, 2008), Karin Albou (La petite Jérusalem, 2005), Audrey Estrougo (Regarde-moi, 2007), and Isabelle Cjazka (L’année suivante, 2007), whose works portrays French housing projects where young women struggle to find their own identities, caught between familial obligations, traditions, adolescence, and economic constraints. Here, personal relationships foreground social and economic adversity and help delineate the complex contours of banlieue life. In this sense, rather than juxtaposing and comparing these films to La Haine or L’Esquive (2003; Adbellatif Kechiche) and using these as models of banlieue cinema, it is important to understand and read productions like the ones mentioned above (and Benyamina’s Divines) as fundamental contributions to a genre whose gender imbalance has thoroughly limited the perception of banlieues as what Marc Augé calls ‘non-places’, those transient spaces that do not hold enough significance to be defined as ‘places’ (Augé 2008). Unlike some previous cinematic representations, Benyamina’s Divines identifies the destitute urban outskirts not as spaces

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of transiency, but rather as deeply rooted places, where identities are defined—and not debilitated by—the cultural richness and economic want of their milieux. The banlieue landscape depicted in Divines is an environment quite familiar to Houda Benyamina. Born of Moroccan parents in France, the director grew up in Viry-Châtillon, a commune in the Southern suburbs of Paris approximately 13 miles from the capital. Characterized by a high concentration of migrants (around 35% according to the 2018 census), Viry-Châtillon is also known for ‘La Grande Borne’, a large, serpentine housing project designed to host over 11,000 inhabitants that quickly degenerated into a magnet for destitution (with an unemployment rate of 40%) and the inevitable, ensuing repercussions: drug trafficking, youth criminality, and riots against the police. The quagmire-like nature of Viry-­ Châtillon is aptly summarized in this article in Le Monde: “Une démographie galopante, un noyau dur d’émeutiers, une hostilité générale envers la police: la Grande-Borne réunit tous les ingrédients d’un cocktail explosif” (‘A growing population, a rioters’ stronghold, a general hostility against the police: la Grande Borne combines all the ingredients for an explosive cocktail’) (Bronner 2008). While reflective of a core aspect of this suburb, this byline also tends to reinforce the univocal view of the banlieue that Benyamina posits to complicate with her film. Growing up in a low-­ income, working-class family (both parents worked odd jobs to make ends meet), Benyamina was never well integrated into the French public school system—a system that was ineffective in dealing with the different demands of diverse student populations (Curtis 2011). Indeed, as she recounts in her New Yorker interview, Benyamina felt alienated and performed poorly: “We were trained to become good little French boys and girls, but with none of the tools to do so… I was always being told I wouldn’t amount to much” (Azimi 2017). A semi-autobiographical reflection on this period of her life is included in Divines, as Dounia struggles to stay focused in school and challenges her teacher’s position of authority. One of the most emblematic scenes of the film sets the tone on Dounia’s irreverent and abrasive cynicism early on in the narrative. Here, Dounia, Maimouna, and a dozen classmates attend a communication class, where they train to become receptionists. During a role-playing activity, Dounia insistently mocks her teacher’s suggestions for a proper form (“You have to smile, you need to sit up straight”), much to the amusement of her peers, who burst out in laughter. When the upset teacher, with a condescending tone, questions Dounia’s plans for her future, the teenager quickly retorts by

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mimicking Lil Wayne skimming banknotes off the top of a pile: “Money, money, money!” (Rose 2016). The argument between pupil and teacher continues with a back-and-forth on the importance of rules and money, until Dounia storms out of the room yelling “I will make more money than you’ve ever made in your life. I’m never coming back to this shitty school!” As in Benyamina’s past, Dounia’s talents and dreams are quashed in a system that privileges the already privileged and leaves the rest to their own fortune. In this scene, Madame Labutte, the teacher, is as much a victim of the system as her students: with a salary of a little over 1000 euros and few opportunities for a career improvement, she is hopeless about the prospects of the younger generation and cannot withstand their utopian dreams. Although Divines has often been equated to Kassovitz’s film for its grainy texture and harsh reality, Benyamina admits to not having been influenced much by one of the first movies that brought the banlieues to the big screen. Indeed, the depictions found in La Haine were not jarring for Benyamina, whose upbringing in Viry-Châtillon exposed her to a similar environment. Instead, her cinematic taste was shaped more by Spike Lee’s work, in particular Do the Right Thing (1989), whose vibrant and honest depiction of an African-American community in Brooklyn and the racism it incurs inspired her to address the resilience and (in)visibility of minorities in France. Indeed, when in 2000 she was accepted into ERAC (a regional drama school in Cannes), she personally ascertained the insularity of French cinema, which would allocate only limited roles for non-­ white actors. As noted by Nabil Ayouch, the acclaimed Franco-Moroccan director of Ali Zaoua (2000), Horses of God (2012) and Much Loved (2015), among others, “If we want to present a son-in-law to parents, we will make a joke out of it by making him black or Arab … A cop will be black or Arab if he lives in the housing projects” (“Does French cinema also have a problem with race?,” 2016). In order to avoid such a typecasting approach, in 2006 Benyamina founded her own organization—1000 Visages Production—with the goal of democratizing the cinematic milieu in France by providing disadvantaged populations with access to cinema. Some of the objectives of this organization are as follows: the valorization of cultural diversity and promotion of equal opportunities; the development of films aimed at fostering intercultural respect, tolerance, and dialogue; and the scouting of creative potential and talent in destitute neighborhoods. In her interview with Presse et Cité, the official newspaper of the banlieues, Benyamina summarized the goal of 1000 Visages as

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f­ollows: “L’art est réservé en France à une élite aristocratisée. Les jeunes qui sortent des écoles, les techniciens, les acteurs n’ont pas les bons réseaux. Notre but est de démocratiser la culture, de faire un cinéma qui représente les visages de la France d’aujourd’hui dans toute sa diversité, que celle-ci soit ethnoculturelle ou sociale” (“Art is only for an aristocratic elite in France. Young people who graduate from high school, technicians, actors don’t have the right connections. Our goal is to democratize culture, to make films that represent the faces of today’s France in all its diversity, be it ethno-cultural or social”)(“1000 visages – Ciné Talents,” n.d.). To gain more leverage in the French media, Benyamina and the founders of five other associations have recently formed the Fedération pour la Démocratisation du Cinéma et de l’Audiovisuel (FEDCA) as a tool to pool resources (rather than competing) and provide more opportunities to young people from the quartiers (“La FEDCA, pour une prise de pouvoir cinématographique,” n.d.). The organization 1000 Visages was instrumental in launching Benyamina’s directorial career. Indeed, before her first feature film, Benyamina wrote and directed two shorts, produced within her association. Ma poubelle géante (2008) is a 26-minute film about a young man, Yazid, who returns to his family house in France after having completed his MBA in Japan. Given his prestigious degree, Yazid is certain of finding a respectable and remunerative job, but his hopes are soon shattered when he finds himself stuck in his town, which becomes ‘his giant trash can’. Sur la route du paradis (2011) is a 43-minute-long dramatic comedy about a woman, Leila, and her two children as they leave their country of origin to reach France, while waiting to find their husband and father respectively in the United Kingdom. Here, Benyamina explores the stories of illegal migrants, whose lives are characterized by secrecy, rejection, and isolation. Leila and her children find strength and support only with each other and learn how to take the stock of small moments of happiness, however few they may be. While decisively distant from the incisiveness of her debut feature film, these shorts plant the seeds for her most recent feature film and served as an experimental laboratory to explore the cinematic representation of underprivileged groups and their place in contemporary France. The inspiration for Divines came from Benyamina’s own background and the infamous 2005 riots that set fire to many housing projects in France. The events in the Fall of that year, which started after two youth died by electrocution while hiding during a police chase, were ­characterized

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by burning cars and buildings and, for a period of time, raised awareness about youth unemployment and police harassment of young people in the banlieues (Jobard 2009; Murphy 2011). With more than 8000 vehicles burned and 2500 people arrested, 10 years after the release of La Haine the situation in the French banlieues had not improved and much remained to be done to facilitate some sort of cohesive dialogue between France’s center and margins. At the time, Benyamina was living in Viry-­Châtillon and was pressured to take to the streets and fight along with her neighbors. Instead, she took up her camera and began filming. Denouncing the lack of intellectual engagement during the riots, Benyamina recalls: “In 1968, the anger was understood and translated by an intelligentsia: authors, intellectuals, artists, who then formulated demands, and so made progress. In 2005, that same anger didn’t find an echo; it just got worse. There was no intelligentsia who took it up, no one created anything out of it, so we ended up with the Roma camps and more misery and poverty than we started with” (Bradshaw 2017). In this sense, Divines can be construed as a cinematic intervention in the paucity of intellectual engagement on poverty and injustice in the quartiers. Rather than defining the focus of the film around ethno-cultural and religious tropes, Benyamina opted to foreground the degree of destitution and inequity endured by different minority groups, regardless of their roots. Benyamina succeeded in producing a high-impact film—nominated for and/or awarded several prizes at French and international film festivals—with a relatively low budget of 2.4 million euros, casting emerging actors (such as Oulaya Amamra, Déborah Lukumena, and Jisca Kalvanda), whose remuneration was well below the excessive standards of many star actors (Brody 2013). Of particular relevance in this film is the tactical use of music that contributes to a sophisticated look into lives on the margins and acts as destabilizer of conventional expectations about banlieue films. Indeed, while the opening scene after the credits features traditional Koranic chanting, the rest of the film is punctuated by an eclectic soundtrack that fuses an original score by Demusmaker, classical music by Vivaldi, Händel, and Mozart, and pre-existing songs by Chateau Marmont, Azealia Banks, Siboy, and Shamir. In the context of this analysis, the use of “212”, the 2011 debut single by American rapper Azealia Banks, is of particular relevance. As a piece that has been hailed as one of the best songs of 2011 by several music critics, “212” is a raunchy, straightforward reflection on Banks’ upbringing in New York City that reflects unapologetically on the music industry and its tendency to falsify and polish images

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to fit sanctioned molds. Demusmaker uses Banks’ beats in the scene where a grown-up, sexy Dounia takes hold of the dance floor to allure the older man she will rob. Besides the obviously fitting rhythm, the choice of Banks’ single to underscore Dounia’s momentary, tactical transformation is consequential in re-centering the feminist logic at the heart of this narrative. As emblematized in this scene, Benyamina’s banlieue is a place of marginality where women take center stage and animate a daily routine characterized by poverty, struggles, injustice, but also laughter, determination, and strength. In juxtaposition to earlier and more conventional representations of the French suburbs, Divines provides the viewer with a more balanced outlook on a slice of life where women matter and take destiny in their own hands. Music, photography, acting, and script all converge to challenge the assumption that women’s presence in banlieue films would inevitably entail a softer, romanticized look. Indeed, while mirroring the director’s own forthright style, Benyamina’s characters reflect the kind of grit and fortitude that has been missing in contemporary banlieue films, particularly those comedies that tend to exoticize the Other reality of banlieue life. In the film, we can discern different types of women, who, in their own different ways, complement each other and contribute to a richly complex portrayal of womanhood in the Parisian outskirts. Dounia is a no-nonsense teenager who lives with her mother Myriam in a traditionally Roma camp, which is now inhabited by the poor of different ethnicities. Played by Benyamina’s younger sister, Oulaya Amamra, Dounia is the narrative pivot of the film, holding together the threads of all the other main characters: Maimouna (her best friend), Myriam (her mother), Rebecca (her boss), and Djigui (her romantic interest). As implied by her name, Dounia is indeed the ‘source of life’ in Benyamina’s story as she complicates the viewer’s expectations toward the everyday life of marginalized teenagers. Enriched by Amamra’s intensely believable performance, for which she won the César Award for most promising actress, Dounia’s unique personality comes through a series of indelible vignettes that see her navigate the tough reality of life on the margins with the impetuousness and acerbic desires of a teenager but also the precocious maturity that comes with a broken upbringing. In the opening scene of the film, the viewer catches the first, filtered look of Dounia as she tries to call her friend from behind the grid of a make-shift mosque, where Maimouna’s father is giving the sermon. Defiant toward the solemnity of the moment, Dounia urges Maimouna to join her outside, where they see,

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for the first time, Rebecca involved in drug trafficking. From the beginning Dounia displays the typical behavior of a young woman her age and the tomboyish style that she will parade throughout the film, up until the last part of the film, when, at Rebecca’s order, she is tasked with flirting with a rich, older man in order to rob him. In these last scenes, Dounia’s metamorphosis into a fashionable, high-class woman is achieved through the use of make-up, evening wear, low camera angles, and softer lighting. This polished look reflects a significant shift from the gritty images of the rest of the movie and contributes to a layered understanding of the banlieue as a place with depths and contrasts, where different identities are visible and well defined. Unlike Augé’s notion of non-places that has characterized mainstream portrayals of the suburbs, Benyamina’s banlieues are lived and complicated, hosting sets of relationships that punctuate the characters’ daily interactions. As such, Benyamina succeeds in re-­ positioning her female characters vis-à-vis the banlieue tradition and creating a new point of view from which this story can be told. In contrast to mainstream cinematic representations, which subject similar characters to a tripartite form of marginalization—as women, non-white, and poor— Divines re-centers their place in society by prioritizing their language, accenting their outlooks, and foregrounding their bodies, all the while eschewing trite typifications. As the director pointed out in several interviews, Divines is a denunciation of injustice and poverty, two societal problems that are foregrounded through the narrative insistence on money and wealth. Indeed, the present and the future of the characters are shaped by their unrelenting search for economic betterment and the ineludible association of material goods with personal happiness and success. As noted in Vice’s review of the film, “The endgame is to become rich enough that racism, sexism, and classism can no longer keep them from living their lives. It’s not that they are apolitical; they’re just rightfully apathetic about a political system that has not changed a lot since La Haine” (Lever 2017). From the beginning, we see Dounia and Maimouna recur to shoplifting and hustling stolen items outside of school as a means to cover their daily expenses and, in the case of Dounia, provide for her single-parent family. The shoplifting scene provides Benyamina with an opportunity to comment on France’s laïcité laws, which prohibit the visible display of religious symbols: here, the two teenagers, who usually wear jeans, t-shirts, and hoodies, publicly espouse their Muslim background by wearing a black niqab. Yet, rather than serving as an emblem of the young women’s religiosity, the choice of the niqab is

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purely pragmatic, since it can hide the stolen merchandise without raising too many concerns on the part of the store owner. In this sense, Benyamina highlights the misdirected fears of secularists, who oppose the ostensible display of these garments as symbols of specific ideological positions. Instead, Benyamina notes, the niqab can be chosen solely for tactical reasons and, indeed, in clear defiance of the religious ideology it is supposed to express. Mainstream stereotypes about Muslim women as submissively orthodox are capsized in this tale of the young women’s tricky use of their cultural background to reach their materialistic goals. Later in the film, it is Rebecca’s dream of moving to Thailand and building a successful sex tourism business that attracts Dounia and Maimouna to her and convinces them to demonstrate their drug-dealing skills. After a few minor jobs, which they successfully complete, the two friends are gifted with an iPhone 6 Plus, a status symbol that defines their social positioning and their endorsement of contemporary notions of modernity. The centrality of smartphones in the narrative is established from the opening of the film, when Benyamina chooses grainy, casual cell phone footage to introduce the friendship between Maimouna and Dounia, a relationship marked by the youth’s joie de vivre. The young women film each other as they parade their feminine gait, play with younger children in the Roma camp, and stroll down the streets while singing. These images, which serve as the opening credits of the film, conclude with a low-angle shot of Dounia standing at the bottom of a flight of steps in a housing project and screaming to the camera: “Look at my hands! My hands are made of gold because I’m the queen of the world!” As a fil rouge threading the characters’ actions, wealth is here seen as a way out of the poverty and injustice that frame this slice of France. As Bradshaw notes in The Guardian a propos a later scene, “there’s a very funny in-­ camera trick when Maimouna and Dounia are fantasising about driving around in their Ferrari and then, framed at the head-and-shoulders level, they really do appear to roll around the estate in an ecstasy of wonder, maybe being dollied along a track, or standing on a wheeled platform. It’s a moment of weirdly childlike likability” (Bradshaw 2017). What might otherwise come across as a scene of delusional dreariness becomes indeed likable because of the perspective it embraces: the vantage point of young teenagers for whom happiness and success are defined by material possessions. In this sense, the youth in Divines are not unlike many of their peers across the world.

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As Dounia’s best friend and sidekick, Maimouna is a buoyant and effervescent teenage of African origins, who hails from a fairly religious family. Her father, the imam at the local mosque, and her mother, a similarly pious woman, often caution her against Dounia’s company and forbid her from seeing her after the two friends are released from jail. Perhaps because of her more stable family background, Maimouna is always more circumspect in plunging into illegal trades but is soon swayed by Dounia’s hot-­ headed determination and her fierce loyalty to their friendship. For instance, in one scene in the first half of the movie, the teenagers find themselves having to steal gas at night. While Dounia fearlessly siphons gas from a tank, the camera zooms in on Maimouna who gingerly guards her while whispering unintelligible words. When Dounia turns brusquely and frowns at her, Maimouna explains assertively: “It’s to keep the jinns away. I can feel them around. They hide everywhere. In rats, dogs, snakes…They don’t like being disturbed.” These moments of justifiable fear are juxtaposed with episodes of hilarity and confidence, where Maimouna is the force driving the duo forward in their escape from poverty. In one of the pivotal scenes of the film, when Dounia decides to ask Rebecca for a job, it is Maimouna who takes the lead. As Dounia knocks timidly on Rebecca’s door, afraid of waking her up, Maimouna pushes her aside and rings the bell, indifferent to the loud noise or the late hour. The teenager is then equally bold when she stares, coveting the chiseled, semi-­ naked body of Rebecca’s beau as he opens the door. Through Maimouna’s portrayal, Benyamina offers the viewer a look into the interracial communities that inhabit many housing projects in the Parisian suburbs, where indigence is a common thread across ethnic boundaries. In this sense, the relationship at the heart of Divines is evocative of the intercultural friendship among Vinz (Jewish), Hubert (Black), and Saïd (Arab), the protagonists in La Haine, whose different backgrounds share experiences of racism and police brutality in the banlieues. The sisterhood between Maimouna and Dounia is further developed through cinematic artistry in the scenes where the young women meet in their secret hiding place, the catwalk of a local theater. Functioning diegetically as the place where Dounia conceals her loot, the narrow, almost suspended space offers the two friends a covert window into the world of art. It is from here, in fact, that they can spy on Djigui, the talented dancer who becomes Dounia’s romantic interest. These scenes, repeated a few times in the narrative, juxtapose the darkness of the women’s position, hidden from sight and whispering not to be heard, to the gold-lighted stage below them, where

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Djigui’s undressed, free body moves with fluidity across the floor. This narrative tool can be discerned as Benyamina’s metaphorical commentary on some groups’ limited access to art in France. As with Dounia and Maimouna, many underprivileged young people are allowed only a peephole into the world of art creation and consumption, a situation that Benyamina’s 1000 Visages association aims to redress. The third major character in Benyamina’s storyline is Rebecca, the banlieue’s toughest drug dealer. Strong, bossy, intrepid, Rebecca turns filmic conventions on their head as she supervises the local petty criminals in her quest for richness. Dounia’s attraction to Rebecca’s world (and her dreams of a luxurious lifestyle) is accentuated by the oxymoronic juxtaposition of Dounia’s desperate reality to Rebecca’s dreamy hopes. Ten minutes into the film the viewer witnesses how Dounia is made to grow up beyond her years when her mother Myriam, a hostess at a local night club, gets drunk at her workplace. The teenager becomes the responsible adult in this scene and protects her mother’s despondent behavior and fragile body from the ire of her boss. As Dounia walks, fatigued down, an empty street while holding her oblivious parent, the montage cuts to an underwater shot of Rebecca, swimming freely in the crystal-clear Thai seas. The sunny, green-­ azure tones of these images are in stark contrast to the smoky, gloomy lights at the night club. Rebecca’s dreams are then transferred to an iPad, surrounded by a group of young men sitting, equally attracted to the possibility of change she embodies. As the men joke among themselves and take in these images of luxury, Dounia towers over them in silence, with a timid, hopeful smile as she looks at Rebecca from the corner of her eye. In these images Rebecca represents ambition, confidence, and optimism, and thereby stands against the grim reality of Dounia’s life, embodied by her teacher. It is in this moment that Dounia decides to ditch her vocational school to follow Rebecca. Benyamina’s first feature film occupies an important place in contemporary French productions because it subverts expectations and clichés about the Parisian banlieues and women’s own positioning. Divines presents a world where assumed gender roles are swapped, where women are in charge and are not subjected to the objectifying male gaze, unless they strategically want it. Men are instead the eye candy, easily duped, and quickly dismissed. In this context, it is women who film their own bodies and thus adopt the cinematic lens (both in the diegesis and outside of it) to frame their own representation. As Picard remarks, “Divines transcende son statut de kaïra movie en prenant des héroïnes qui accomplissent des

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exploits d’ordinaire affectés à des personnages masculins. C’est simple et ça change tout” (“Divines transcends its status of kaïra movie by using heroines who succeed in feats that are usually reserved for male characters. It’s simple and it changes everything.”) (Picard 2017). In this world, though, it is not just a simple role reversal that ensures a new, feminist vision of banlieue citizenship: it is rather a more composite artistic production, where camera work, music, montage, acting, and script coalesce to support the inherent significance of the movie’s key line: “You’ve got clitoris! I like that!” With Divines Benyamina contributes to the ongoing debate about national identity and Frenchness by shifting our attention to two foci that are often neglected in contemporary discussions on multiculturalism in France. One the one hand, her narrative moves away from an almost stifling obsession with ethnicity and religion to center instead on the economically poor. Here, the main characters hail from different cultural backgrounds, but they all share a similar level of destitution and a consummate desire to achieve material wealth. On the other hand, Benyamina’s feminist lens supersedes the anchored vision of a multicultural society that necessarily replaces the cardinal tenets of Frenchness. I would, instead, argue that the feminist logic that frames this production provides for a more fluid, malleable, and, ultimately, inclusive view of cultural integration and collaboration.

Note 1. On the genre of banlieue cinema, the reader could refer to: Austin (2009); Hewitt and Reader (2014); Milleliri (2012); Orlando (2003); Tarr (2005).

References 1000 Visages. n.d. Ciné Talents. Presse et Cité. http://www.presseetcite.info/ annuaire/ile-de-france/1000-visages-cine-talents. Accessed 12 Jan 2018. Augé, Marc. 2008. Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity. Trans. J. Howe. London/New York: Verso. Austin, James. 2009. Destroying the Banlieue: Reconfigurations of Suburban Space in French Film. Yale French Studies 115: 80–92. Azimi, Negar. 2017. Houda Benyamina, the French Filmmaker Who Brought the Banlieues to Hollywood. The New Yorker, April 9. Bradshaw, Peter. 2017. Divines Review – Exhilarating Urban Thriller Froths with Joie de Vivre. The Guardian, November 11.

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Brody, Richard. 2013. The Future of French Cinema. The New Yorker, January 2. Bronner, Luc. 2008. Grigny: “L’ État d’Urgence.” Le Monde, April 25. Curtis, Polly. 2011. Revolt Stirs in France’s Schools against ‘Elitist’ Education System. The Guardian, March 25. Does French Cinema also Have a Problem with Race? 2016. The Local, April 18. https://www.thelocal.fr/20160418/does-french-cinema-also-have-aproblem-with-race Hewitt, Nicholas, and Keith Reader. 2014. The Banlieue in French Cinema of the 1930s. French Cultural Studies 25 (3–4): 387–395. Jobard, Fabien. 2009. Rioting as a Political Tool: The 2005 Riots in France. The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice 48 (3): 235–244. La FEDCA, pour une Prise de Pouvoir Cinématographique. n.d. http://www. presseetcite.info/ressource/associationsgroupes-dinfluence/la-fedca-pourune-prise-de-pouvoir-cinematographique. Accessed 12 Jan 2018. Lever, Emily. 2017. Divines Is a Modern, Gender-Flipped Take on French Coming-of-Age Films. VICE, February 27. Milleliri, Carole. 2012. Minorités Croisées: La France Black-Blanc-Beur en Quête d’Identité: L’Américanité du Cinéma de banlieue. CinémAction, 189–197. Murphy, John. 2011. Baguettes, Berets and Burning Cars: The 2005 Riots and the Question of Race in Contemporary France. French Cultural Studies 22 (1): 33–49. Orlando, Valérie. 2003. From Rap to Raï in the Mixing Bowl: Beur Hip-Hop Culture and Banlieue Cinema in Urban France. The Journal of Popular Culture 36 (3): 395–415. Picard, Sylvestre. 2017. Divines d’Houda Benyamina Est un Scarface Féministe. Premiere, March 1. Rose, Steve. 2016. Divines Director Houda Benyamina: “It’s Better to Make a Film than a Bomb.” The Guardian, November 10. Tarr, Carrie. 2005. Reframing Difference: Beur and Banlieue Filmmaking in France. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Vincendeau, Ginette. 2012. La Haine and After: Arts, Politics, and the Banlieue. The Criterion Collection, May 9.

Filmography Albou, Karin. 2005. La Petite Jérusalem. Paris: Gloria Films. Ayouch, Nabil. 2000. Ali Zaoua: Prince de la rue. Alençon: 2M. ———. 2012. Horses of God. Casablanca: Ali’n Productions. ———. 2015. Much Loved. Paris: Les films du nouveau monde. Benyamina, Houda. 2008. Ma Poubelle Géante. Paris: 1000 Visages Productions. ———. 2011. Sur la Route du Paradis. Paris: Easy Tiger.

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———. 2016. Divines. Paris: Easy Tiger. Cjazka, Isabelle. 2007. L’Année Suivante. Paris: Ad Vitam. Estrougo, Audrey. 2007. Regarde-moi. Paris: Gaumont. Hamdi, Nora. 2008. Des Poupées et des Anges. Paris: Rezo Films. Kassovitz, Mathieu. 1995. La Haine. Paris: Canal +. Kechiche, Adbellatif. 2003. L’Esquive. Paris: Lola Films. Lee, Spike. 1989. Do the Right Thing. New York: 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks.

CHAPTER 9

“Let me explain: this is who I am”: Interview with Anita Aloisio with Introduction by Dervila Cooke Dervila Cooke

Introduction Anita Aloisio, the Québec-born daughter of Italian immigrants, is the director and narrator of the 2007 documentary film Les Enfants de la Loi 101, which means ‘the children of Bill 101’.1 This personal and incisive film analyzes the impact la Loi 101 (also called Bill 101 and La Charte de la langue française) has had on a generation, 30 years after coming into effect. This law has often been contested, including by Aloisio herself, as she explains below, although she ultimately considers it a very positive force that needs to be applied with a better explanation to everyone in Québec society, and with much greater sensitivity. Brought in by René Levesque’s newly arrived Parti Québécois government in 1977, the law famously established three areas in which French was to be protected as the language of the 80% Francophone majority in the province: the workplace (with some exemptions, companies must enforce French as the main D. Cooke (*) School of Applied Language and Intercultural Studies, Dublin City University, Dublin 9, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_9

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language of commerce); signage (public signage, advertising, and other signage, where French must be visibly dominant); and at school (where immigrant and Francophone children attending state-funded schools now had to do so in French, while the rights of the long-established Anglophone minority to attend English school remained unchanged).2 In her interview here, Aloisio mentions some of the intentions of the law, and some of its unexpected effects. Some of the latter are very positive, such as the fact that Montreal has some of the most trilingual citizens in Canada. Given the strong presence of English as well as French on the island of Montreal (though not in the regions, or outside the island), Allophones in Montreal (native speakers of a language other than French or English) often have to switch between languages on a daily basis: their heritage language, French and English. The high levels of trilingualism in Montreal are something that Aloisio returns to again and again in the interview, as just one of the riches of the enfants de la Loi 101. Other positive attributes this group possesses include adaptability, openness to new cultures, and a high level of cultural expertise—just some of the many cadeaux (gifts) that Aloisio feels often lie unopened, because not fully recognized, by the Québec government. Her film follows four main interviewees, all immigrant children or children of immigrants who were the first members of the ‘Génération 101’ at school. Two, Guerrina and Mauro, come from Italian families like Aloisio herself, although Mauro actually attended English school. One, Courtney, is an Anglophone Jamaican who arrived in Montreal aged four. Another, Tihana, is of Croatian descent, but was born in Québec. Interestingly, the film also interviews the Italian parents of the Bill 101 children, and we also see some of the then 30-something adults in the role of parents of young children themselves. Although these children of the Bill 101 children represent the future, the film does not focus strongly on them. However, in her interview here, Aloisio provides an inkling of what these children may become and how they can enhance Québec society, if their cultural richness is recognized. Aloisio is of the generation who were the first to experience the effects of the law at school, attending primary school in Montreal in the late 1970s and 1980s. Three of her four main interviewees—Courtney, Tihana, and Guerrina—carry the traces of trauma quite explicitly. The English-­ school attendee, Mauro, experienced a less complex (and non-traumatic) linguistic playing field, but remains on the outskirts of Francophone society, to his apparent regret, only meeting French speakers in occasional

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hockey matches. Courtney and Tihana were made to feel different at school in the late 1970s and 1980s, Courtney suffering most because of being from a ‘visible minority’ as a Black Anglophone, and because of losing his sense of Jamaican identity at school. Tihana’s French quickly became better than that of her classmates, so her trauma is not about language. However, she speaks emotionally about the effects of being made to feel a foreigner in school, and of the lack of support from teachers. Still, Tihana has gone on to become an advisor in intercultural relations for young people. She points out that the constant self-questioning she went through made her fit for the job. Equally, Courtney, who works in a Black resource center, is committed to acting as a bridge between the Francophone and Black Anglophone communities, and to teaching his child the importance of French in order to feel part of Québec society. Guerrina suffers from a conflicted relationship with her mother partly because of Bill 101. While Guerrina was socialized in French at school, and became committed to what Aloisio calls “the Québec cause”, her mother cannot understand her attachment to French. Guerrina’s trauma underlines some of the identity turmoil experienced by young Allophones because of Bill 101: who does Francophone Québec society want me to be, and who do my parents want me to be, and who do I want to be? The altruistic involvement of Courtney and Tihana in Québec society and Guerrina’s passionate attachment to French-speaking culture in Québec suggest that despite the trauma, much good has come out of the problems of identity caused by the initial effects of Bill 101 as applied in schools. This is despite the fact that child happiness was not the main focus, and language was long considered the most important issue. It is also important to remember that the educational landscape has changed dramatically since Bill 101 came into effect, as Courtney points out in the film. There are now much improved, though not perfect, provisions for language learning by non-native speakers in classes d’accueil (reception classes for native speakers of foreign languages). There is also heritage language support by the government, although this is limited. A pilot program of metalinguistic and intercultural awareness in some schools draws on and promotes all of the heritage languages of Québec society, and other languages (Élodil: éducation interculturelle et diversité linguistique), led by linguistic educationalist Françoise Armand of the Université de Montréal.3 In a 2016 article, I alluded to certain defining elements of the collective mindset of Francophones in Québec, including an obsession with language and a dislike of the term ‘multiculturalism’, which semantically ­displaces

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the two dominant groups of long-established French and English speakers traditionally known as les deux Canadas, or, to cite the famous title of Hugh McLennan’s 1945 novel: Two Solitudes.4 These elements coexist with a persistent feeling of threat due to what Marie McAndrew has called the status of “fragile majority” of this small enclave surrounded by Anglophone Canada, the US, and the English-speaking globalized world (McAndrew 2000).5 Aloisio alludes to this “unconscious and collective” fear in her interview and points out the irony that the level of French taught in secondary schools—to both immigrants and longer-­ established Francophones—is, in her view, insufficient, despite the insistence on French being the dominant language in Québec. It is also worth remembering that while Aloisio’s film deals primarily with the relationship between longestablished Francophones and those of immigrant origin or descent, the old-stock Anglophones in Québec who were for so long economically and politically powerful now find themselves in the position of a minority that often feels forgotten in the cultural context of Québec (Rukavina 2018).6 The collective (and, in Aloisio’s view, unfounded) fear about French declining in power in Québec can therefore have a blinding effect. This sometimes runs counter to the sentiment in the Canadian Multiculturalism Act (1988), which stressed the need for all members of Canadian society to have the freedom to “preserve”, “enhance”, and “share” cultural heritage. Looking beyond Bill 101 for a moment, outside the sphere of school, but still in the educational domain, Aloisio laments in this interview the lack of recognition of qualifications by people who have come from abroad, who are still so often forced to work in unskilled and precarious jobs that the native population disdain. This is a common complaint across the whole of Canada, but Aloisio focuses her remarks on Québec. Her own father suffered from such exploitation, as a college-educated housepainter in 1970s Québec. This reminds us that there are more important things than language, as pointed out most clearly by another Italo-­ Quebecois, Marco Micone, in his important collection of autobiographical and sociological fragments Le Figuier enchanté (1998).7 To conclude, three important points strike me in Aloisio’s responses to my questions, in terms of what she feels has been lacking in Québec’s society response to Bill 101 so far. The first is the lack of acknowledgment of what the experience of Bill 101 means to non-Francophone children at French school, particularly to those who lived through the first painful years of its application. This experience was traumatic for many, including for Aloisio herself, and can still be problematic today.8 However, she

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­ erceives that the benefits for the individual seem to far outweigh the pain p in most cases, Courtney’s included. This trauma deserves to be recognized, in her view, and also needs to be mitigated, through a more sensitive approach to exceptions, and to schooling in general. Secondly, she feels very strongly that the contribution of immigrants and those of recent immigrant descent to preserving French language and culture in Québec has not been adequately acknowledged, and that their substantial economic and demographic role has been largely ignored. Thirdly, and most importantly perhaps, she repeatedly stresses the need to explain the reasons behind Bill 101—to all stakeholders, immigrant parents, children, Anglophones, and Francophones alike. Without adequate and sustained explanation and discussion with all members of Québec society, she considers that hatred, rebellion, frustration, and ignorance can counter the plethora of benefits that this law can bring, in terms of providing immigrants with a voice in a Francophone society, and the social cohesion and understanding promoted by the mingling of ethnicities and cultures.9

Interview with Anita Aloisio DC: Can you talk a little about what motivated you to make Les Enfants de la Loi 101? AA: The film was the result of a long process—about ten  years—of interrogation of my own identity and my own role in society. From a very young age I questioned my identity. I struggled to find an answer to why I always felt a little different to my peers who were going to ‘English school’, like Mauro in my film, whose parents smuggled him in, where I was going to ‘French school’. Throughout my whole schooling, up until the end of high school, I didn’t know the answer to that. I was always surrounded by people who were completely different from what I found at home. I was surrounded by different cultures, different attitudes, and that opened my mind to another world. It also allowed me to contest and question what was going on in Québec. I was very politicized at a very young age. I went into Communications at Concordia University. That’s how I discovered that I wanted to be in the media and that I wanted to speak about this experience through film. The process started with my first film, Straniera come donna [A Woman, A Stranger]. I then produced My Grandmother, which was inspired by my reflections on my relationship with my grandmother in my first film. I ­suppose you could say she was a grandmother I never really had.10 I’m

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named after her (my full name is Maria Antonietta Anita), but I met her only about three times in my life. Being named after her, I carried a lot of expectations, but many of those expectations no longer had currency in the Québec I grew up in. There was a lot of research, a lot of turmoil, a lot of questioning, and going against what my parents wanted for me. It was only after I made Straniera come donna that I would talk about this to various people. I realized that I was tired of hearing about la Loi 101 and that I wanted to speak about it myself. I was tired of hearing the terms ‘immigrants’ and ‘allophones’ bandied about, and being seen as ‘the Other’, with no proper explanation of the situation. So that was the motivation for making the film Les Enfants de la Loi 101. If you do research on Monique Simard, the producer, you will find that she is quite outstanding, very politicized, very nationalist. We’re very different but I admire her a lot as a woman. I told her that I myself was an enfant de la Loi 101, that I’d lived that. That’s why I felt I could bring about this vision. I wanted to give people from that generation a chance to explain their feelings, and also to value their contribution to what Québec society is today. Forty-odd years after the adoption of the law, we don’t speak enough about what has enabled Québec society to preserve French and promote its culture. Obviously it’s relatively new, 40 years is not a very long time, but we need to look at how this has been achieved, in a geographical context where we are surrounded by Anglophones. I wanted to value what this generation has created, even though what came about may not have been the initial intent of those who wrote La Charte de la langue française. DC: I’m interested in the two sets of expectations you’ve mentioned: the expectations having to do with being named after your grandmother and the intentions of the fathers of Bill 101. AA: My grandmother represents the Southern Italian culture of my ancestors. In the home, I was carrying a lot of expectations of how a daughter of Italian immigrants should act, and what she should believe. That’s how I would be rewarded and accepted. But I had to also struggle to find a place outside, in school, in a context when Québec was experiencing a period of incredible turmoil. I was caught in that, not understanding it. I had to be accepted but it never really worked, because in the school system or in the rest of society I was still not very accepted. And bringing those values back to the home, saying “this is what I want to become” was not accepted either, and that’s how Straniera comme donna was born, and became such a personal film. I went to Italy for the first time

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at the age of ten. I had never experienced Italian culture directly before that. There were only three of us in the family, my parents and myself, so I didn’t have numerous relatives around me that could strengthen the identity handed down by my parents, as other people sometimes had. In Italy, I was looked upon as an outsider. And that’s another thing that people born here of immigrant parents share—this feeling of being an outsider wherever they go—until they learn to belong, and to say, years later, “this is my position on this, and this, and this, and I’m very comfortable with that”. We have to learn how to say: “Let me explain: this is who I am”. As regards the expectations of the wider society, we need to remember the series of situations that led to the need to adopt the French language charter in 1977. At the end of the 1960s, most children of Italian immigrants were going to English schools. Many Italian parents would in fact have wished to send their children to French school due to the linguistic similarities and the religious commonality of Catholicism. Remember, the schools in Québec were divided into Protestant and Catholic school boards until as late at 2000! Despite their Catholicism, Italian children were regularly refused entry to French schools by the clergy who ruled the French school system. There seems to have been a fear that their ethnicity would contaminate the pure French-stock race, although this is never publicly voiced. By the 1970s, the Catholic religion had loosened its hold on Francophone Québec society. There was a growing realization that if the children of immigrants had to go to French school, not only would they learn the language but they also would become open to what Québec is living. Inherent in the French language charter of 1977 was the notion that if you are not speaking French, then really you cannot be that close to what is going on, or understand the political situation. Sovereignty was another expectation. The Law was also intended to make the next generation more sensitized to the national cause of Québec, so that 30–35 years later Québec might actually be a country. People may deny that this was an aim, but if you look closely at what was stated by Camille Laurins, one of the ‘fathers’ of the Law, you will see it is true. Guy Rocher, one of the last living contributors to the Law, confirmed this when I interviewed him. National sovereignty didn’t happen but something else happened, and that’s what interests me. In Québec we now have a large number of people in their mid-40s who are fully trilingual. They have not only adopted French but they have functional English and have kept their mother tongue. These people easily adapt to new environments,

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they have an open vision, some are nationalist, some not, and they have great affinities to the Québec cause. So there are very many positive things that came from la Loi 101. DC: Guerrina (whose name was initially spelled as Guerina in the film) in Les Enfants de la Loi 101 seems quite nationalist. However, she appears to me to be very conflicted or confused about her mother tongue (Italian), which she does not use a lot in the film, and also about her mother more directly. Do you think this is representative of many enfants de la Loi 101 born to parents from other immigrant backgrounds? AA: Guerrina doesn’t feel it a necessity to speak Italian to her children. She is fully trilingual, went to English college, like me, but it seems to come naturally in the film for her to speak French. Her mother wants her little boy to learn English, and she says that he will learn it later. That’s understandable because Guerrina is a single mother and has a lot to try to coordinate. Guerrina has a lot of issues that she has not finished resolving or expressing, and they don’t always have to do with the fact that she cares about the plight of Québec. For example, by choosing not to get married, she contested the traditional culture of her Italian parents. By choosing French, she is actually saying “I am choosing modern Québec culture, because I can flourish better in it than in the Italian culture in Québec”. This could be true of any strict immigrant culture that is confining for women. She is a lot like me in many ways. I had a conflicted relationship with my mother. We need to look more closely at the conflict of values in immigrant homes between parents—most of whom were not highly educated—and their children: conflicts of values, culture, and expectations. Where the parents should be admired, many of whom came from nothing, is that they came here with no English, no French, and have learned good functional French, often more than English, actually. In Guerrina’s case the parents are quite trilingual themselves. Also, they have a good point, wanting their grandchildren to have the chance to learn English and Italian. They feel that the political aspects of Québec society are being used to limit people’s opportunities. It’s true, though, that in some schools where there is a high proportion of children of Italian descent, Italian has been offered as an option of study. And then there are always the Italian schools on Saturday mornings—la scuola del sabbato, funded by the Italian state through the PICAI Scheme. I attended that myself, although it wasn’t very good at the time.

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DC: I’m fascinated by generational questions, having studied work by Marco Micone, whose parents came to Québec in the 1950s. People like his parents are often in their mid-eighties today, as we approach 2020. Do you have any insight into how the people of that era might have felt, and feel now, as concerns the question of belonging? And what are the most important lessons for the children who are being born in Québec today, the third generation, as it were? AA: I think it’s important to remember the dream. In the 1950s and 1960s, most of them came by boat, in dire straits, for example from Southern Italy, where the soil was so dry they couldn’t even farm the land. Many of them were so poor and their lives were so confined that they hadn’t even seen Rome. Hopes of work were spread by word of mouth, from cousins in America, and the dream was to send back money, and to come home. The dream was shattered when they landed in a place that had long, extremely cold, winters, for which they were not prepared at all. The shock was absolute. Younger people nowadays forget how hard it was for them. They were called ‘wops’, they couldn’t sign documents, they couldn’t speak the language, they lived 12 or 15 to a house, worked the jobs that nobody else wanted, and congregated for support, which is how all the ‘Little Italy’ areas of big cities in North America came about. As far as I’m concerned, under any building in this city, there’s an Italian flag. You could say the same about the Irish—there was also a great population of Irish immigrants here. I think the people you mention never had the chance to belong. They lived in ghettos and clans, often speaking their regional dialect. Often today, many of the original generation still do not even speak Italian properly. They’ve usually stayed in the same house for a very long time. The important things were to work, get your house, and send your kids off into the world. They got out of their ghettos sometimes and bought homes. Most Italians in Québec of that generation are homeowners. I think that, in a general perspective, that generation should be honored for their sacrifices. They were not given the right opportunity to flourish, but they did all they could. But their stories are dying out. Their traditions such as culinary habits and recipes don’t even exist anymore back ‘at home’ in Italy, for example bottling tomatoes—les conserves—which takes 3 days, in September, around Labor Day. I’ve always wanted to film the area of Saint Leonard in Montreal, where people of that generation bottle tomatoes in their garages. Nowadays, people of other immigrant backgrounds bottle other foods there too.

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Those who came after the Second World War don’t communicate well with the world outside the ghetto or enclave, and don’t have a clear understanding of the Québec plight. Québec was ‘sold’ to them as a land of opportunity that needed immigrants for work, and not a land that was also conflicted in itself, just like Italy. It’s always important to analyze the context from which people came or in which they grew up. Before the Second World War, the Italians and Francophones in Québec were very close, because of the Catholic religion, common linguistic roots, and often because of shared economic poverty. They often worked as masons, or with Francophones in factories owned by the elite Anglophone community at the time. There were a lot of marriages between the Francophones and the Italians. That relationship was broken down greatly when about 200 Italian immigrants in Montreal were put in internment camps for several years when Italy declared war against Britain and France in 1940. For people who came here right after the war, Canada was dreamed of as the land of choice—la scelta, which Guerrina’s mother is so attached to. For those immigrants in particular, who were leaving behind a Fascist regime, it was very important to have the freedom to choose which languages to learn. They were often unable to comprehend and indeed to accept decisions such as the Loi 101. But that’s because there was no attempt to explain it properly to them. And then there were people like my parents who came in 1970 when there was a state of emergency in Québec, les mesures de guerre, imposed by Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau in response to political kidnappings by the Front de Libération du Québec, the FLQ. This must have been very confusing for them. It was also disappointing that my father had to earn a living by painting houses, even though he had a college education and even though Québec had put out a call for immigrants with qualifications like his. This question of rejection of qualifications gained outside Canada, la non-reconnaissance des diplômes, troubles me greatly. It’s still a big problem today, in a more refined way, among other immigrant groups. We still look at the immigrant as a sort of guest in our home in Québec, which does not help with questions of belonging. To give you just one example, we have a whole host of extremely qualified engineers here who come from North Africa. Why are they not being employed except as taxi drivers? It’s a question that the CRARR (Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations) is very interested in, but not enough is being done by the government.

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DC: A teacher in Les Enfants de la Loi 101 says that at least three generations are needed before integration can take place. Taking your parents as a first generation and yourself as a second, what is the prognosis in terms of feelings of heritage for your own children, who are the grandchildren of people who arrived from Italy? AA: It starts in the home, to try and give your children a sense of belonging, to try to make them feel comfortable with who they are. I have two children, and speak to them only in Italian, and my husband, whose mother tongue is French even though he is of Swiss Italian background, speaks to them only in French. I wanted them to have Italian and French at home. They speak English in their pre-school, their garderie. I explain to them that all of this is totally normal here, to give them the tools to feel that this is ‘their place’. They are very proud of all of the aspects of their identities. They are still very different from children who have generations of French-Canadian relatives but I don’t want them to feel they do not belong because they are neither ‘pure laine’ nor purely Anglophone. In terms of the teacher in the film, I actually wanted to include a different teacher, my own fourth-grade teacher, whom I wanted to confront. I wanted to show her the film and ask her what she thought now. All those teachers and children were thrown into a very politicized situation. Some teachers were extremely strict about speaking one word of English, even though most of the children hadn’t a word of French. Many had just their mother tongues. As regards the term ‘integration’, I don’t like it. ‘Assimilation’ is even worse, but no-one uses that any more. I don’t want to ‘integrate’. I am who I am. People coming from ‘elsewhere’ should not have to ‘integrate’ to belong. I don’t want to fit into a box. The Québec government uses the term ‘integration’ when they talk about interculturalism. But I’m cynical about that. That discourse can be patronizing. It’s more precise to say that they ‘need’ immigrants, economically, demographically, and also to sustain the French language and culture. DC: In the film, two people in particular stand out as having been traumatized by the way in which the Loi 101 was applied. Tihana seems very upset about having felt—or being made to feel—so much of an outsider in her bourgeois class in Québec City in the 1970s, where there were very few classmates who were different in any way. Courtney, who is of Jamaican origin and speaks more English than French, seems to be quite bitter and traumatized, even though he says (in French) that he is Montréalais and (a little wryly, perhaps) “même Québécois”. Could you talk a little about them?

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AA: The regions outside of the island of Montreal were much more homogeneous, so it was particularly difficult for Tihana. She was almost crying when I asked her my questions. It was so hard for her growing up. The regions hadn’t realized what the potential conflicts of la Loi 101 could be. They were often not confronted with that reality. Even today, the regions and the ville de Québec are very monocultural. Courtney has lived here most of his life, he is helping others. He is a very respected member of the Jamaican community but he is caught in all sorts of difficult situations. For example, I can think of one instance where by law he had to use French in a gangland mediation situation when his clientele was mostly Anglophone Black attending a French school. A lot of people who see the film view him as the person who has not been successful, who has not integrated, just because he’s angry about his own experiences growing up in Québec and the experiences of the children he has made it his mission to help. But he is a university graduate, and he has succeeded against quite a few odds. He feels more comfortable in English because he makes mistakes with gender in French, but his French accent is perfect. He wonders in the film how he never had to repeat a class, despite struggling with French, but he managed because he was clever. I view him as the person in the film who most wants to belong, and also who wants to assert what is his, to take what is his. That is why he says he is Montréalais and Québécois—he is taking those things as part of his identity. [For 5  minutes Anita lapsed into perfect, Québec-accented French, translated here]: Coming back to the teacher who talked about integration I would say it’s more that we need to change the discourse. Immigrants are always going to shake up the status quo a bit, but they also create richness, in terms of the culture and expertise they bring with them. We’ve got to open these gifts—il faut ouvrir ces cadeaux—we must not ignore them. There is still not enough acceptance of people from elsewhere. We don’t see them enough in the public eye. We don’t hear enough different accents. When you are not recognized or accepted, when your opinions are not seen to be valid, you cannot feel yourself to be a full citizen. DC: Do Francophones feel linguistically secure enough now to deal with these questions? AA: That’s a very good question! I think that on an unconscious, collective level they still feel threatened. A while back there was this ridiculous lobby to make publicly funded garderie (day care) available only in French. Can you imagine? It would never work even in terms of logistics. Also, there is always this great fear that Montreal is no longer French speaking,

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whereas in reality we should celebrate the fact that there have never been more bilingual people in Québec than at this time, especially in Montreal. Even then, the data is not reliable, because the people gathering it only consider the main language that is spoken at home. In my case we speak mainly Italian at home but we are in fact trilingual. It’s the people who have only Francophones in their family and circle who will very often remain most linguistically poor, monolingual. English-­ language teaching in French schools is very badly done, once a week for 45 minutes, starting at 8–9 years of age, and often by a ‘Marie Tremblay’—a Francophone who speaks with a strong French accent. The Anglophones have their immersion schools—the écoles d’immersion (though I should add that some of these are struggling nowadays, as more Anglophones now choose to send their children to French schools, which of course places a burden on space and resources for the French speakers). However, there is no countermodel—no ‘English immersion school’—for the Francophones. Immigrant children on the other hand often have friends from elsewhere who speak English, so they end up trilingual that way. And the Francophones who have only French often have a poor level of the language, since French is taught so badly in schools. It’s probably because grammar and linguistic rigor at school has been abandoned, which is ironic, given all the public discourse about promoting French. We need much more emphasis on good French at a general level in Québec. But there is little recognition of this. DC: Have you any guiding principles in terms of how you make documentaries? AA: I like to humanize things. I prefer candid interviews. I use a small hand-held camera that people can forget. I like to meet people a few times beforehand if I can. I sometimes try to throw something fiery into the conversation to get a candid moment. I like to be close to my interviewees but I also want them to forget I’m there. Often the people I have chosen have an affinity with me. I like to put them in a context where they are expressing something in a very natural way. I like to include social spaces, workspaces, family space, to give as complete a picture as I can. For Les Enfants de la Loi 101, I based my question on my own experiences. I also want to show that people in my film have grown, through the process and the questions. With Mauro, for example, I found it very difficult to get him to speak at first. He didn’t understand the relevance of my questions. Ironically, I feel that this was a cathartic process for him, and a d ­ evelopmental process, and his discourse changed a little bit. Courtney is another example of someone who changes during the film.

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I too changed a little in the process. I’m very angry—no, perhaps ‘emotional’ is the better word—about what I went through at school. Originally, in the marketing poster and the opening scene of the film I wanted a fence, with an adult looking in. The people working with me felt that it was too harsh. When I was at French school, the schoolyard and corridors were policed so that everyone spoke French. In some ways it was like a prison. It made me hate the fact that I was obliged to speak the language. So that’s why I went to English college even though French colleges were closer to me geographically and I loved French literature. A gentler approach might have meant that more people of immigrant background went to French college at that time. I can understand the motivation to an extent, but when you have children coming from all over the world, a harsh approach is not right. What needed to be done, and is necessary even today, is to constantly explain why it’s a positive thing to speak French. And [exasperatedly] maybe to stop being so paranoid. Fifteen minutes in the recess is not going to make such a difference if the children speak another language. I feel a sense of responsibility to show issues like this through documentary, and also to show what people have achieved, what I find beautiful about them. So my films become very personal. During a recent film of mine for my Masters in Fine Arts at Concordia, and long before that, I wanted to throw light on artists of different origins, to explore how they marry their sense of their background, their struggles with their identities, and their feeling of belonging in Canada, across Canada. I wanted to give them visibility. These people have enriched my life. DC: Are there any things you would have preferred to have been the case when you were going to school? AA: I would have preferred the teachers to have been more prepared in applying this law, and to be less aggressive, to know their clientele, to understand the sensitivities of children who came from all over the world, or who were born here but have no idea how to speak anything other than their mother tongue because their parents are immigrants. I wish they could have created a dynamic and environment that was not stressful and frightening. In terms of back then and also now, I would prefer that Bill 101 was not treated as a law for immigrants. We need to explain to everyone, all the time, that the law applies to everyone, in the three domains of work, ­signage, and school. We too often forget that Francophone children are obliged to go to French school too if they attend the public system.

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I wish I had been given a sense of how much of a great gift Bill 101 was going to be for me in the end. It is a great gift for me now, despite everything. I would also like to have understood how much of a great richness it was going to bring to society. I say this, but actually the potential and achievements of the Bill 101 generation are not valued in political discourses and in the media. Nor do people recognize how much of a price has been paid by my generation, who were caught in a political and social dilemma that was not of their making. We skim over too many things here in Québec—on est toujours à la surface des choses. There’s an interest in the nuances of the linguistic situation of Québec in Europe but I don’t actually find there to be much real interest in Bill 101 here in Québec itself. I still think it’s a very positive law, and I’m for it, but I’m also for it being revised, re-actualized, to be more inclusive to exceptions, as Courtney says in the film, and constantly re-explained. For example, a totally Anglophone 15-year-old Jamaican coming here can request an exception to not have to go to French school, but he or she may not get that exemption, and that creates a very difficult situation for that human being!

Conclusion In terms of the concerns of this volume regarding citizenship and multiculturalism, it is useful to remember the insistence among Québec nationalists on the term ‘interculturalism’, which is the term the Québec state uses in its policies on pluricultural issues. Interculturalism in Québec is promoted as being based on the principle of reciprocity and harmonious exchange.11 This is how Québec society usually distances itself from the term of multiculturalism, which places the main (and some say ghettoizing) emphasis on the heritage identity of the minority ethnic group.12 However, despite the slight ‘spin’ of the prefix ‘inter’, interculturalism is not all about exchange in Québec; this exchange is expected to happen in the context of adherence to Québec core values, which include the protection of the French language and secularism.13 Aloisio’s words in this interview seem to call for a greater emphasis on the exchange factor. “Il faut ouvrir ces cadeaux”, she says, calling on the government to recognize and promote the richness of the cultural heritage of its many multilingual and pluricultural citizens.

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Notes 1. Les Enfants de la Loi 101. 2007. Virage. As a critic, Aloisio has published an analysis of the work of Italo-Quebecois singer Marco Calliari, whose work she continues to explore, including his complex linguistic travails. She completed a Masters in Communication and Media Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, with a dissertation on the ‘transmemoric process’ (Aloisio 2016). Her short film Creatori d’Italicità highlights recent Canadian Italian directors who have influenced Québec and Canadian society (Aloisio 2017). 2. For an accessible English-language presentation of Bill 101, see the McCord Museum’s website at http://collections.musee-mccord.qc.ca/ scripts/explore.php?Lang=1&elementid=103__true&tableid=11&conten tlong French became the only official language of Québec in 1974, following on from Bill 63 in 1969, which aimed to establish French as the working language of the province. (Under Bill 63, parents could choose the language of instruction of their children). The business and labor-related aspects of the law were brought in to combat a situation whereby in 1977 there were few French speakers in top management positions, and workers who spoke only French earned less than those who spoke only English. Today, those eager to see an increased emphasis on French focus on the fact that, while over 90% of employees in Québec speak French regularly in the workplace, there is a growing number whose work is bilingual in English. Companies with over 50 employees are required to have a committee to promote and ensure the speaking of French (comité de francisation). In terms of signage, all is not clear cut, and monolingual signs in English have been not uncommon, especially on the island of Montreal. Since 2016, commercial brands must have a visibly evident French element to their advertising. For the text of the law in these two domains, see Chapters VI and VII of the Bill: http://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/ showdoc/cs/C-11 3. For a pan-Canadian perspective on heritage languages, see “L’Enseignement des langues d’origine au Canada: réalités et débats” (McAndrew and Ciceri 2003). For a guide to Élodil’s intercultural approach and practice, see the detailed 2013 brochure by Françoise Armand and Erica Maraillet available from the Université de Montréal website. 4. Introduction to “New Work in Immigration and Identity, in France, Québec, and Ireland”. 5. Fragile Majorities and Education: Belgium, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, and Québec [trans. of 2000 publication].

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6. See for example the 2018 cultural policy for Québec in which the initial briefings did not mention support for Anglophone cultural production. 7. I have analyzed Micone’s nuanced and inclusive approach in my article, “Hybridity and Intercultural Exchange in Marco Micone’s Le Figuier enchanté” (Cooke 2011). In Micone’s text, the autobiographical narrator-­ essayist attended English school, with the result that he knew little about the majority Francophone society and culture until he was drawn to fill that gap and study it as a young man, becoming a Quebecois writer and cultural commentator sympathetic to the Québec national cause. More importantly perhaps, Micone’s text seems to advocate a feeling of solidarity between immigrants of different groups, who share the experience of immigration, with its possible feelings of exile, and possible economic exploitation, but also the potential richness of hybridity. All of this merges to form what he terms ‘la culture immigrée’. He also underlines the importance of valuing heritage by teaching and learning about the culture of origin. 8. Geneviève Bernard Barbeau’s 2018 article, “40 ans après”, discusses current perceptions of this law across various sectors of society, through the press. 9. Dawn Allen’s 2006 article “Who’s in and who’s out?” showcases Québec immigrant youths at school experiencing comparable feelings. 10. My Grandmother, Baltalya and Betulla productions, 2004; Straniera come donna, Québec Ministry of Immigration, 2002. 11. See for example “De l’assimilation” and “Immigration, littérature et société” (Micone 1990, 2004). 12. The image of the multifaceted Canadian mosaic does not appeal to the Québécois imaginary, given its perception of itself as a founder-nation in Canada. 13. Secularism as a core value for Québec has been foregrounded sharply in the last decade, most recently with Bill 21 on Secularism, seeking to prohibit people in positions of professional authority from wearing religious attire (unless in religious contexts), which is nonetheless being hotly contested in Montreal in 2019.

References Allen, Dawn. 2006. Who’s In and Who’s Out? Language and the Integration of New Immigrant Youth in Québec. International Journal of Inclusive Education 10 (2): 251–263. Aloisio, Anita. 2002. Straniera come donna. Canada: Québec Ministry of Immigration. ———. 2007. Les Enfants de la loi 101. Montréal: Les Productions Virage.

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———. 2015. Marco Calliari, an Italian-Québécois Artist. A Reflection of Identity, Cultural Belonging and Artistic Patrimony. Oltreoceano 9: 23–31. ———. 2016. The Transmemoric Process: The Journey of Italian-Québécois Artists. MA thesis. Montreal: Concordia University. ———. 2017. Creatori d’Italicità [18 minutes short film]. Aloisio, Anita, Ingrid Berzins Leuzy, Gilles Blais, Meiyen Chan, and Tolga Kutluay. 2004. My Grandmother. Canada: Baltalya and Betulla Productions. Barbeau, Geneviève Bernard. 2018. 40 ans après, qu’en est-il de la loi 101? Représentations et discours conflictuels dans la presse québécoise. Circula, Revue d’idéologie linguistique 7: 51–59. https://doi.org/10.17118/11143/14494. Cooke, Dervila. 2011. Hybridity and Intercultural Exchange in Marco Micone’s Le Figuier enchanté. The French Review 84 (6): 1160–1172. ———. 2016. Introduction to “New Work in Immigration and Identity, in France, Québec, and Ireland”. Comparative Literature and Culture 18: 4. https://doi. org/10.7771/1481-4374.2968. McAndrew, Marie. 2013. Fragile Majorities and Education: Belgium, Catalonia, Northern Ireland, and Québec. Montreal: McGill-Queens U P [Trans. McAndrew, Marie. Les Majorités fragiles et l’éducation: Belgique, Catalogne, Irlande du Nord, Québec. Montreal: Presses universitaires de Montreal, 2000]. McAndrew, Marie, and Coryse Ciceri. 2003. L’Enseignement des langues d’origine au Canada: réalités et débats. Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 19 (1): 173–194. Micone, Marco. 1990. De l’assimilation à la culture immigrée. Possibles 14 (3): 55–64. ———. 1998. Le Figuier enchanté. Montreal: Boréal. ———. 2004. Immigration, littérature et société. Spirale (janvier–février): 4. Rukavina, Steve. 2018. Anglophones get a nod in Québec’s new cultural policy but funding remains unclear. CBC News, June 12. Accessed 25 Mar 2019. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/anglophones-Québec-newcultural-policy-1.4702834

PART III

Framing Identity and Nationality: Crimmigration, Islamophobia and the Politics of Ethnic Exclusion

CHAPTER 10

Shy Elitism: A New Keyword in Critical Multiculturalism Studies Daniel McNeil

Introduction “Do you have anything to declare?” Many of the formal questions posed to migrants and travelers have become recognizable, accessible and banal. “Nothing but my genius.” Celebrated responses, which demonstrate the wit, flair and imagination of global souls, have passed into folklore. “You are a welcome reprieve from the serious business of integration.” Immigrants may generate smiles when they help their new neighbors demonstrate their tolerance and commitment to diversity targets. “You are placed under scrutiny as a potentially serious threat to the order of things.” They raise eyebrows when they do not seem to display enough deference to the established laws, representatives and customs of their ‘host society’. The historian of immigration who accesses the archives of departments of Canadian Heritage, Race Relations, Human Rights, Labour, Multiculturalism and the Status of Women finds material from politicians, policy analysts, social scientists and journalists that consider it self-evident that state intervention can solve, and is already solving, the problem of

D. McNeil (*) Department of History, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_10

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diversity (Day 2000, 16). She scours plans to place stricter limits on ­immigration, activities designed to promote intercultural exchange and initiatives developed to celebrate the success of individuals from racialized and marginalized groups. In a country considered “liberal society at its best” (Žižek 2016, 33), it is difficult to overstate the amount of material that has been generated to manage anxieties surrounding the size and quality of immigrants and refugees admitted into the country, and how discussions about immigration are invariably connected to multiculturalism, anti-­racism and campaigns against religious discrimination.1 If the early period of state-sanctioned multiculturalism in Canada in the 1970s focused on addressing cultural and linguistic barriers to inclusion, the institutionalization of multiculturalism in the 1980s involved the grafting of race relations and employment equity onto multicultural departments and agencies. One thus finds social scientists asserting that “the absence of a divisive immigration debate in Canada avoids racial polarization … enabling Canada to address its race problems in time to prevent serious social marginalisation of racial minority groups” (Reitz 1988, 141). By 2002, lead writers at The Globe and Mail, which advertises itself as the most authoritative news source in Canada, simply used the terms ‘visible minorities’, ‘ethnic minorities’ and ‘immigrants’ interchangeably (Ibbitson 2005. Also see McNeil 2010, 69). What is to be done in a context in which all the immigrants are presumed to be visible minorities and all the visible minorities are presumed to be immigrants (or, like immigrants, thought to be alienated in “a profoundly psychic sense” from the Canadian nation (NourbeSe Philip 1992, 29))? There is a substantial body of literature in Indigenous and Canadian Studies that connects the construction and management of diversity to the preoccupations “of the same old empire, with the same kinds of men in charge, revering the same distant Queen, jockeying for the same threadbare colonial honours, flocking in their sunset years to the same anti-­ democratic Senate” (McKay 2000, 644). Critical scholarship has identified how Canadian discussions of managing the integration of immigrants and racialized groups into Canadian society has been overdetermined by a small-l liberal framework that seeks to extend across time and space a belief in the epistemological and ontological primacy of the category ‘individual’.2 They have demonstrated that this small-l liberal framework has been dominant across the capital-L Liberal Party, the Progressive Conservative Party and the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the twentieth and twenty-­ first centuries. They have revealed how it has been used to divert the radi-

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cal demands of decolonial and national liberation movements into dry and technical debates, and the pitfalls of a politics of recognition that is all too often a euphemism for the uncritical celebration of individuals from immigrant and racialized groups who achieve recognition from mainstream Canadian society. This chapter connects such critical sorties to the insights of black, Canadian and translocal thinkers who appreciate the desire of subaltern subjects to push for inclusion among those protected by the state while at the same time acknowledging the limits of this recognition (Iton 2008, 202). It introduces the keyword ‘shy elitism’ to grapple with the practices of a Canadian state that (1) nudges and encourages the public to celebrate and defer to prominent, respectable figures in elite institutions as well as the recipients of ‘prestigious’ and ‘important’ awards, and (2) grants awards, credentials and patronage to ‘accessible’ work that represses material that may appear too elitist, esoteric or radical for ‘ordinary Canadians’. I use the term shy elitism to unsettle a particular form of privilege that is sustained by critiquing ostentatious celebrity culture or unadulterated market capitalism (usually deemed ‘too American’) and radical thought (usually characterized as too speculative, too intellectual or, ironically, too elitist). I do not argue that shy elitists are uninterested in the sales of books, films and other cultural products. Nor that they are unable to call for transformative and symbolic changes to the middle and upper levels of Canadian institutions. My more limited goals are to note how shy elitism has meant (1) prizing and overemphasizing accessible work that seeks to minimize confusion and misunderstanding in the hopes of cultivating harmonious race relations and (2) oversimplifying and marginalizing black popular cultures which, like all popular cultures in the modern world, are bound to be contradictory spaces. To illustrate the shape and contours of shy elitism, I pay particular attention to the longstanding attempts to celebrate, recognize and incorporate responsible, ‘quiet leaders’ from marginalized and racialized groups. I demonstrate how such quiet leaders are expected to prevent the alienation of subaltern groups that are associated with wretchedness, suffering and misery. How they are invited to translate the pain of so-called ordinary people ‘upwards’ to the real power brokers and elites. How they are permitted to say their piece, “in a kind of United Nations plenary session”, in which they are given respectful (and ‘politically correct’) hearing by representatives of various ethnic and cultural groups (Jameson 1993, 27). How they are not encouraged to carve out the theoretical and politi-

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cal space to consider race relations to be a “counterproductive, ­essentializing euphemism for hierarchy” (Reed 2015). How they are granted more theoretical and political space to represent and translate the pain of black communities—and celebrate blacks who have achieved recognition in mainstream society—than stimulate deep engagement with the political and moral intelligence of black vernacular cultures that work within, against, outside and against the nation-state. The first section of the chapter provides a very brief introduction to the colonial frameworks and decolonial movements that inform the shape and contours of Canadian multiculturalism. It draws on extensive archival research to reveal the attempts to cultivate awareness and acceptance of multiculturalism as a Canadian reality after the official promulgation of multicultural policy by the Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau on October 8, 1971. The second section considers how Frances Henry, a Jewish social anthropologist born in Germany in 1931 who moved with her family to the United States when she was eight, made her work available to this mostly male world of shy elitists in Canada in the 1970s. The third section uses Henry’s work on racism in Canada after 1978 to illustrate the practice of shy elitism in contexts in which multiculturalism was consistently framed as an anti-racist and pro-business policy in the Progressive Conservative government led by Brian Mulroney between 1984 and 1993, and Liberal governments between 1993 and 2006  in which the concept of national cohesion was mobilized to define and confine multiculturalism. As Henry acknowledges, her reports on racism and race relations in Canada used her position as a white social scientist to translate the suffering of black people to representatives of the middle and upper levels of formal Canadian institutions. She has obtained recognition for her advocacy research from the Canadian state, becoming a member of the Royal Society of Canada in 1989 and receiving a race relations award from the Ministry of Multiculturalism and Citizenship in 1991. However, she has also drawn attention to the lack of recognition bestowed on her as a white, anti-racist ‘pioneer’ by the black Canadian community and claimed that black intellectuals have ‘negative feelings’ about her research based on ‘race ownership’ (Agnew 2007, 389). One finds, for example, black intellectuals critiquing the ‘condescending’ work by Henry that reduces black being to “sociological plotting subsumed within the paternalistic hold of the Canadian nation” (Hudson and Kamugisha 2014, 7).

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“Gentlemanly Experts in the Business of Fighting Gentleman Bigots”: The Early Years of Multiculturalism It is de rigueur for studies of Canadian multiculturalism to note the significance of official moves to discredit scientific racism and white supremacy after World War Two. It is similarly important for academics and journalists to acknowledge the role of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and decolonization movements in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean on the development of a Canadian immigration policy in the 1960s that was celebrated as non-racist.3 Rather less attention has been granted to the colonial origins of multiculturalism in the Advisory Committee on Cooperation in Citizenship established in the Canadian Department of National War Services during World War Two. This committee was largely the brainchild of Captain Tracy Phillips, an Englishman with a “lifetime of experience in the British colonial and overseas intelligence service” (Caccia 2010, 68, 107). It sought to interpret the views of Canadian citizens of non-British and non-French origins and to communicate them to the government and the general Canadian public. The manner in which it interested itself in situations that appeared to be producing “misunderstanding, dissatisfaction or discord amongst groups of Canadians of European origin, non-French or non-British” is particularly notable as a template for the official introduction of Canadian multiculturalism policy on October 8, 1971 that sought to assist the development and growth of non-­ Indigenous, non-British and non-French cultural groups, help immigrants learn French or English, and promote creative exchanges between cultural groups “in the interest of national unity”.4 The impetus to transform complaints about national disunity into celebrations of Canadians as ideal peace brokers and translators also informed the federal government’s symbolic commitment to multiculturalism. The Canadian self-image as do-gooders, which perhaps reached its apogee in the celebration of Prime Minister Lester Pearson’s finessing of the Suez Crisis, and acceptance of a Nobel Peace Prize in 1957, meant that state functionaries were particularly sensitive to anything that may hinder the country’s ability to play the role of international peace broker (Litt 2016, 249). As a result of the importance attached to resisting the charge that Canada was as racist as any other Western nation, it has been suggested that multicultural policy may be understood as a response to events such as the Black Writers Congress in 1968 and the Sir George Williams Affair

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in 1969, the largest student occupation in Canadian history that was sparked by accusations of a Biology Professor unfairly grading students of color (Austin 2018; Clarke 2002, 65–6 n13). With that said, the desire of the Canadian federal government to establish plausible deniability against charges of racism does not mean that its policy was informed by substantive engagement with black theorists. The early years of multiculturalism reflected an interest in removing cultural and linguistic barriers to integration into Canadian society rather than anti-racism. My concern in this chapter is not to provide a comprehensive history of multiculturalism. As we move toward the fiftieth anniversary of the federal policy, other historians will no doubt draw on the archives of the Progressive Conservative Senator Paul Yuzyk, the most prominent spokesperson for Canadians of Ukrainian ancestry, to develop correctives to policy analysts and political scientists who contend that “the actual term multiculturalism was first coined as a result of the federal policy in 1971.”5 As noted by the well-known historian of immigration and ethnicity Robert Harney, we are well served with commentary about Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s handling of the findings of volume four of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which was tasked with examining the cultural contributions of non-British and non-French ethnic groups. Such work invariably considers multiculturalism to be a cynical political move to win votes from ethnic communities in Ontario, a forward-looking civic philosophy of democratic pluralism to replace loyalty to the British Empire as a legitimizing principle for the Canadian state, a means to appease the opposition to official bilingualism in Western Canada and/or an attempt to offset the challenge to the Liberal Party’s traditional base of support in Quebec from the rise of separatism after the FLQ crisis of 1970 (Harney 1988). Rather than rehash the rather stale debates about the motivation behind the federal government’s symbolic commitment to multiculturalism, this section explores questions relating to the practice of multiculturalism and shy elitism at the federal, provincial and municipal levels of the Canadian government. How, for example, was multiculturalism connected to political calculations about managing diffuse xenophobic sentiment and concerns about the voting power of immigrants and ethnic minorities in competitive urban ridings? How did civil servants communicate the fact that, until 1967, Europeans accounted for approximately 80% of the total immigration to Canada, and by 1974, this figure had fallen to 40%?6 How did ambitious politicians respond to the contention that their Prime

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Minister’s references to ancient Greek playwrights were too ‘esoteric’ for ordinary Canadians and, perhaps, too focused on Eurocentric history for a forward-looking nation in which multiculturalism would become equated with multiracialism as much as, if not more than, poly ethnicity (English 2010, 147)? How would federal cabinet ministers align multiculturalism with the use of arts and culture to promote national unity (and respond to parallel developments to use media, culture and the arts to encourage immigrants to embrace a néo-Quebecois identity)?7 The public pronouncements and confidential cabinet memos from John Munro, the Minister for Labour responsible for Multiculturalism, provide us with some answers to these related questions. After the formation of a Multiculturalism Directorate within the Department of the Secretary of State in 1972, a Ministry of Multiculturalism was grafted onto the Ministry for Labour in 1973 to monitor the implementation of multicultural initiatives within government departments. Finding it difficult to focus on both portfolios (Pal 1993, 136), Munro proposed that a new Ministry of Multiculturalism should be created and given more authority to make use of the national public broadcaster, the public authority in charge of regulating and supervising Canadian broadcasting and telecommunications, and the ethnic press. Such proposals built on public speeches in which he contended that multiculturalism was too important to be left to the discussions of “bearded academics” and that the government needed to build “awareness and acceptance” of multiculturalism as a means to resist American consumer culture.8 However, his confidential memo to cabinet colleagues emphasized that such shy elitism could be tailored to meet the needs of the capital-L Liberal Party rather than the national self-interest. Noting that the Ontario Liberal Party had lost its official opposition status to the NDP in the 1975 provincial election, and predominantly Italian ridings in Toronto had switched from supporting the Liberal Party to the NDP, Munro contended that the “emotional attachment of immigrant groups to the party that brought them to Canada is waning”. With some notable exceptions, immigrant and ethnic groups were “no longer intimidated by communist or socialist philosophies”, and their electoral support was not assured by “high profile but selective ethnic issues, backed by grant programs”. To address this situation, he recommended that the Liberal Party needed to appeal to immigrants from the Communist bloc by assigning knowledgeable MPs to communicate Canada’s support for prominent Soviet dissidents. They also needed to

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emphasize the federal government’s aid to ‘underdeveloped countries’ to garner greater support among Caribbean communities.9 If Munro may be enlisted to address how the capital-L Liberal Party wanted to put multiculturalism to work in opposition to radicals who pointed to the role of Bay Street and Rue Saint-Jacques in colonizing the Caribbean, academic historians such as Robin Winks are helpful guides to the work of small-l liberals who considered the principles of individualism and meritocracy, as well as benign (i.e. unbigoted) forms of assimilationism, to be the only fair and effective policies for an immigrant nation that just happened to be dominated by members of a British ethnic group. According to Winks (1997, 477, 482), a white American of Welsh ancestry, multiculturalism was fine for groups such as “the Irish … the Scots, the English” who could take pride in their “old world cultures”, but it would leave black Canadians adrift since they did not have a national self-­ identification or “cultural base to which they could return.” He maintained that pragmatic black Canadians “wanted nothing more than to be accepted as quiet Canadians… [and] were unlikely to organize militant, noisy, pushy protests” (Ibid., 466). It was only some militant Caribbean students and ‘paranoid’ blacks who detected “racial insults … where none are intended”, pushed for ‘black racism’, spread ‘un-Canadian ideas’ about Black Power, and stirred up “thoughtless, needless, and frustrated destruction of the twentieth century’s symbol of quantification, the ultimate equality – Sir George Williams University’s computer center” (Ibid., 403, 478). Shortly after the publication of a new introduction to the second edition of The Black in Canada in 1997, Winks did not engage with the arguments advanced by Canadian radicals in the 1970s that black students who protested racism in Canada were subject to criticism in Canadian media in a manner that black students in sit-in protests against racism in the United States were not. Nor did he investigate the evidence that the supposedly destroyed computers were working functionally at the University of Michigan.10 Instead, he lamented the existence of undisciplined and untutored readers who ‘carelessly’ read the work of Frantz Fanon and other radical writers because of a desire to claim that all the imperialists were white and all the non-whites were victims (Winks 1999, 656). He was willing to acknowledge the brilliance of Fanon, but remained concerned that ‘didactic’ scholars on the left simplified his message because they were “blinkered by secularist or religious perspectives that do not admit to alternative questions, let alone alternative conclusions” (Ibid., 668). The Professor of History at Yale was not shy about embracing an

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elitist position to cultivate an “educated western public” and challenge the misinterpretations of ‘simple’ and ‘imprecise’ minds.11 Winks’ interpretations could be adapted to meet the needs of Canadian sociologists, human rights advocates and consultants such as Daniel Hill. The first full-time director of the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 1962 praised the portion of Blacks in Canada that had been sent to the Canadian Commission on Biculturalism and Bilingualism, in advance of its official publication, to be as good and accurate as anything he could hope to do in campaigns against serious discrimination in housing, education and employment.12 During the 1960s, Hill’s campaigns against racial discrimination included campaigns to save “negro and part-negro children” from a “light grey world of polite rejection that stifles their potential, shatters their egos and fills them with bewildered hostility toward the indifferent society that produced him.”13 They did not exert energy building a black community since Hill believed that “only some Negroes, West Indians primarily, maintain the notion of community … a sentimental illusion, a form of wish fulfilment” (Hill 1960, 357). In the 1970s, Hill continued to deliver barbed remarks about “aspiring leaders” in minority communities who preferred to demonstrate militancy by attacking responsible human rights organizations rather than proposing constructive action (Hill 1977, 38, 42). On the one hand, he was mindful that militants might receive attention from a veritable cottage industry of middlebrow journalists who popularized academic debates about Canadian nationalism (Litt 2016, 86). On the other, he was aware that many Canadian elites, such as Douglas Creighton, publisher of the Toronto Sun, believed that race relations were not of critical or serious importance to the city of Toronto, let alone the Canadian nation.14 To address what he considered the marginalization of ‘constructive’ race relations organizations, Hill would establish the first human rights consultancy firm in Canada and translate what he considered “obscure” material from historical journals into accessible histories about the struggles of black slaves and refugees to gain full citizenship rights in Canada.15 Alan Borovoy, the secretary of the Jewish Labour Committee in Toronto in the early 1960s and general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association between 1968 and 2009, was one of Daniel Hill’s friends and allies in the Canadian human rights industry (Lambertson 2005, 317). In the Canadian media, Borovoy was considered a gentlemanly expert “in the business of fighting gentleman bigots” who despised “ineffectual intellectuals with no concept of action”.16 He was portrayed

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as a champion of civil liberties who understood how to argue effectively with tax-paying citizens and men of influence. Like capital-l Liberals such as John Munro, he consulted academic experts but remained wary of knowledge that only resonated with intellectuals or minority groups. He might use the threat of violence to encourage political elites to enact reformist measure, but he was wary that loud rhetoric might make the anti-racist struggle appear untrustworthy to political and economic elites in Canada. He did not claim to salvage working-class communities from the condescension of posterity by recording their resistance to liberal, capitalist, technocratic society. He sought, instead, to salvage people from wretchedness, hopelessness and alienation so that they did not stain the consciences of a liberal middle-class. In August 1962, Borovoy visited the black community of Africville and concluded that it was unacceptable for respectable Canadians to tolerate a black ‘ghetto’ that was situated by a dump. Action needed to be taken to arouse public support and bring pressure on political leaders to relocate the people of Africville. In pursuit of this goal, he formed the Halifax Human Rights Advisory Committee. This committee engaged experts, such as Albert Rose, Professor of Social Work at the University of Toronto, and drew upon studies conducted by Institute of Public Affairs at Dalhousie University that claimed “self-help efforts by the Negro are not enough”—the white majority needed to give full acceptance, opportunity and social equality to blacks.17 In a context in which white experts in the social sciences and public affairs were considered reasonable, rational and charitable, black demands for greater representation were framed as bitter and impractical “personal impressions and opinion”.18 The Canadian press would not only report that the hiring committee of the Nova Scotian Human Rights Commission acted rationally to appoint Marvin Schiff, a white, Jewish individual, as its director—it also highlighted the exasperated comments of Rocky Jones, leader of the Afro Canadian Liberation Front, for ‘balance’: “when do we get a black man with any position of authority around this damned place?” (Urquhart 1968). As Chairman of the Halifax Human Rights Advisory Committee, Gus Wedderburn was also consulted regularly by the Nova Scotian media. In his public pronouncements, Wedderburn would argue that white liberals could be called upon to solve problems faced by blacks or, more accurately, what he considered the problem of black radicalism in Nova

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Scotia.19 In private letters to David Orlikow, a white NDP politician and progressive in fields such as immigration, refugees, social justice and labor, he would lament that Rocky Jones and other black Canadian radicals were “condemning all the positive things that have been done so far without any alternative … and being given leadership and support by outsiders.”20 In his director’s report to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, Marvin Schiff clarified that small-l liberals were concerned about radicals being given support by militants and Black Panthers from outside Canada. They were not opposed to experts from outside the community being invited to discuss how their scientific work could be fashioned to meet the needs of advocacy groups: Dr Frances Henry, a highly qualified McGill University anthropologist, has chosen to work with a research team in Cherry Brook and the Guysborough area, studying the mechanisms by which poor blacks in these parts of the province have adapted to or overcome the effects of discrimination and other social afflictions they have suffered for generations. After she and her two-man summer project team have completed a month’s work, she has said she would consult with us again to determine how her work might be fashioned to meet some of our needs.21

“Racists and Liberals Differed Significantly”: Frances Henry and a Canadian Race Relations Industry Frances Henry would meet some of the needs of small-l liberals with Forgotten Canadians: The Blacks of Nova Scotia, which contended that black Nova Scotians were a ‘miserable’ group that did not have an alternative value system and, as a result, had ended up “structuring their lives to correspond with the values they have learned from the society at large” (Henry 1973, 27, 155). Such interpretations were informed by Henry’s inability to perceive a black Nova Scotian culture that corresponded to the features she associated with the culture of black Americans and their ‘violent hostility’ to white authority (Ibid., 104, 161). She could not ignore the evidence collected by her research team of a leveling culture among black Nova Scotian that expressed the belief that “all people are, or should be, the same, and status distinctions should not exist” (Ibid., 158). However, she chose to interpret such a leveling culture as a liability for

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advancing the political goals of shy elitists rather than a distinctive value system that might be analyzed with the same care and attention as the radical egalitarianism and conservative collectivism of African American and European Canadian cultures.22 In her conclusion, Henry lamented that a leveling culture prevented black Nova Scotians from following or admiring potential leaders from the black community who advanced their status within mainstream Canadian society. She also maintained that the preconditions for “massive collection action, if only in embryonic form” were in place and the white, conservative power structure in Nova Scotia needed to listen to the demands of multiracial human rights organizations and the West Indians and black Canadians who were emerging as leaders of activist movements (Ibid., 175, 178). In a Freudian slip, Henry carved out the theoretical and political space to recognize liberal activists when she mistakenly recorded the title of a dissertation, on which she served as an internal supervisor, as “West Indian Activism Abroad” rather than “West Indian Radicalism Abroad” (Ibid., 174 n6). When she moved to York University to deliver lectures on Caribbean anthropology and the Caribbean Diaspora, Henry found that her classes attracted many white female students who “had black Caribbean boyfriends”. As the term would progress, they would come to me and spill out their guts; what are they going to do? Should they marry or partner with this man? The advice I always gave is: have a ball, have a great time, enjoy, but do not marry and do not get into a permanent relationship. But why, they would ask, you did it? [Henry was married to Jeff Henry, Black Trinidadian professor at York, and founder of Theatre Fountainhead in 1974, which developed and produced plays by Black playwrights] … In the Caribbean, gender relations are still very problematic; men are very patriarchal, for the most part … Then there is a deep-seated belief in, for want of a better word, male promiscuity. (Agnew 2007)

Such comments can be unpacked in a variety of ways. One may note that the tone of Henry’s reflections about black Caribbean males is markedly distinct to her reports for state departments and advocacy groups about Canadian racism in the 1970s and 1980s, which were wary about including anything that might be dismissed as “impressionistic evidence” (Henry 1986, 50, 65). It is also striking that Henry did not document how the attitudes and stereotypes about promiscuous behaviors of black Caribbean

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men might be connected to the policing of interracial relationships in Canada. The historian who accesses the cases assigned to the Ontario Human Rights Commission finds, for example, evidence of white police officers who felt entitled to stop and search a black Trinidadian male because they assumed that he was a pimp and his white common-law wife was a sex worker.23 Rather than document such manifestations of racism and sexism, Henry’s report on racism, which was funded by the Group Understanding and Human Rights Programme, Department of the Secretary of State Canada, used the “scientific method” to generate data about the “thoughts, feelings and attitudes of the majority of the mainstream population towards … visible minority groups” (Henry 1978, 6). In it, Henry analyzed the responses of 617 white Torontonians to a questionnaire on racial attitudes that associated racism with an authoritarian and anti-liberal perspective rather than, say, romantic racism and the exotification of non-­ white groups. She concluded that “racists and liberals differed significantly” and that 16% of the sample expressed “extremely racist thoughts and feelings, 35% exhibited “some degree of racism”, 19% were ‘extremely tolerant’ and 30% “inclined towards tolerance” (Ibid., 39).

Multiculturalism Means Business During the 1984 federal election campaign, the Liberal Prime Minister John Turner warned voters that a Progressive Conservative electoral victory would result in drastic cuts to the funding allocated to multicultural initiatives. When he traveled to Toronto to deliver a speech to the pro-­ business, male-dominated Canadian and Empire Clubs, he insisted that Canadian businesses needed to start accepting more representatives of visible minorities in the corridors of power. His message was “greeted with silence” (Hepburn 1984). In 1986, the Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney found a more receptive audience when he delivered a speech to the “Multiculturalism Means Business” Conference in Toronto. In 1987, the Ministry of Multiculturalism initiated annual citation awards that honored up to 20 Canadian individuals and organizations from the voluntary, private or public sectors that contributed to the integration of permanent residents or convention refugees in an exceptional way. In 1988 Mulroney’s federal government introduced a Canadian Multiculturalism Act, which acknowledged multiculturalism as

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a ­fundamental characteristic of Canadian society with an integral role in shaping Canada’s future. In 1991, the Department of Multiculturalism was made a senior office in the Cabinet of Canada. Such policy changes reflected many of the recommendations of a special committee—comprised of white, male politicians from the Liberal, Progressive Conservative and New Democratic parties—tasked with addressing the participation of visible minorities in Canadian Society. In a 1984 report (published under the beseeching title, Equality Now!), the special committee recommended that Multiculturalism should become a department with a full cabinet office. To rationalize this policy change, one of the committee members offered a revealing analogy that compared the position of the Multiculturalism Directorate within the Secretary of State Department to that of a teaching or research assistant in a university. According to Laverne Lewycky, it was just plain common sense that a dean of a faculty would look at a proposal for funds received from a teaching or research proposal differently to one submitted by a full professor.24 His mission was not to disrupt a system overdetermined by shy elitism in which status matters as much as, or perhaps even more than, the actual content of a proposal or policy. It was to ensure that visible minorities could enter into privileged cadre. Such shifts in government policy did not necessarily mean that multiculturalism was supported with more public money. Instead, multiculturalism and race relations were shaped by a practice of matching funds, as when the federal government matched the contribution of $12 million raised by the National Association of Japanese Canadians to create a one-­ time $24 million endowment fund to establish the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. Much work still needs to be done to historicize the practice of matching funds and how it impacted multicultural organizations, like Canadian arts organizations more generally, to collect “economic information quantifying outcomes to justify their activities in the corporate sector” in the 1990s (Godard 2002, 220). For analytic focus, this section merely unveils some of the ways in which Henry and her fellow advocates for progressive change responded to (1) a context between 1984 and 1993 in which there was a concerted effort on the part of the federal government to present multiculturalism as a means to address employment equity and racial discrimination as well as a viable commercial proposition that paid for itself and would help Canadian businesses to succeed in a globalized marketplace, and (2) a post-1993 period in which the rhetoric of multiculturalism foregrounded national cohesion.

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Henry and other advocates for progressive change were mindful of the federal government’s emphasis on multiculturalism’s economic impact when they called attention to the underrepresentation of women and ­visible minorities in the middle and upper levels of Canadian institutions in the 1980s and 1990s. Henry would cite her report on racism in Toronto as part of her collaborations with the Urban Alliance for Race Relations to address employment discrimination in 1985 (Henry and Ginzberg 1985). It is worth noting, however, that her advocacy research in the 1980s not only called for changes to Canadian institutions on the basis of fair-­ mindedness and justice, but repeated the concerns of her work on black Nova Scotians by expressing concern that Canadian society ran the risk of wasting (economic) potential and racial unrest or riots that might damage property if progressive changes were not made (Henry 1986, 27, 42). Such research would often depict blacks as victims with little agency in order to challenge narratives that portrayed Canada as a land free from a history of slavery, colonialism and racist violence. According to Carol Tator, the director of the Urban Alliance of Race Relations, a frequent collaborator with Henry on projects that addressed racism in Canada, and Henry’s partner in a race relations consultancy firm, “everyone was responsible for racism.” When asked if she also believed that visible minorities were responsible for racism, she abrogated visible minorities from any responsibility because she believed that they were “the victims of racism. The perpetrators are all the rest of us — the majority culture. Racism is a white person’s problem… The victims don’t have the control of the solutions.”25 In the mid-late 1990s, Henry and Tator confronted a media environment in Ontario in which neoconservative and neoliberal opinion writers rarely distinguished the shy elitism of their anti-racism from broad attacks on the purported elitism of black intellectuals, special interest groups and anyone else who considered racism to be a very serious issue in Canadian society. They also bore witness to staggering cuts to arts and multicultural organizations (Godard 1998). In such a conjuncture, they engaged more closely with writers such as M.  NourbeSe Philip, who repeatedly discussed the funding practices of the Canadian state in essays that portrayed blacks as survivors of racism in Canada rather than victims of it (NourbeSe Philip 1992). As part of their wide-ranging 2006 survey of racism in Canadian society, Henry and Tator were willing to propose that equal access and full participation for all Canada’s citizens could only be achieved by reforming its institutions and the behavior of people within

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them. They paid brief attention to non-white winners of awards such as the ‘prestigious’ Giller literary prize, but did not demonstrate any substantive engagement with the content of artistic work that bears witness to the formal and informal dimensions of racism in Canadian society (Henry and Tator 2006, 67, 244). Henry and Tator’s more discursive work in the 1990s and 2000s also drew on prominent figures in Cultural Studies, such as Stuart Hall, who suggested a new phase in the late 1980s and 1990s that would end an “innocent notion of the essential black subject” (Hall 1988). In their co-­authored books, they did not situate Hall as part of a postcolonial tradition of vernacular intellectuals who consider institutionalization to be a moment of profound danger to black people who do not need an academic elite to simplify their necessarily complex and contradictory identities—they described Hall as part of a postmodern movement that needed to be translated to ordinary readers and practitioners who found it difficult to grasp the points being made. As a result, Henry, Tator and their co-­ author Winston Mattis included a glossary for Challenging Racism in the Arts that featured terms such as ‘encoding/decoding’, ‘hybridity’ and ‘cultural studies’ (as well as terms such as ‘institutions’, ‘mainstream’ and ‘stereotype’ (Tator et al. 1998, 11, 271–8)). Such a desire to anticipate any potential misunderstandings evokes the specter of the Advisory Committee on Cooperation in Citizenship established in the Canadian Department of National War Services during World War Two. It also reflects Henry and Tator’s reservations about the use of literary techniques such as metaphor and irony. In contradistinction to Hall, who was sensitive to metaphors used by the British press to convey cultural racism, and used evocative metaphors to describe postcolonial subjects as the sugar in the British cup of tea (Hall 1978), Henry and Tator expressed concerns about the use of metaphoric imagery in Canadian newspaper articles that compared the skin color of victims and perpetrators of gun violence to ‘an elephant in the room’. Rather than noting the point that ‘the elephant in the room’ is a well-­known metaphor used to describe an obvious problem or difficult situation that no one wishes to discuss, they believed that it sent a “confusing message to readers. Why would a biological construct [sic] such as race be described as an elephant? The implicit message here was that the use of racial descriptors was a huge and unwieldy issue” (Tator and Henry 2006, 141). They would not only draw on the claims of African Canadian organizations who critiqued the Eurocentrism of the Royal

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Ontario Museum’s exhibit Into the Heart of Darkness and the museum’s limited consultation with the black community before its opening. They would also contend that “one of the many problems of the exhibit was the strong use of irony to deliver the message” about white colonialism that may not be intelligible to visitors to the museum (Henry and Tator 2006, 235. Emphasis added). In an interview with the academic Vijay Agnew, Henry elaborated on a professional career in which she sought to convey the realities of racism to non-black audiences. She acknowledged that the black community told her, “you’re not telling us anything new, we know this, we’ve experienced it,” but maintained that such work filled a societal need because “it takes white validation and ‘serious research’ that will hopefully get people to pay attention to it [white racism]” (Agnew 2007, 397). Henry’s ‘whitesplaining’ of race, racism and racialization, which was defined against anything that may seem trivial, impressionistic, artistic or unsystematic, has been deemed serious by the predominantly white members of Canadian institutions. She was awarded an excellence in race relations award by the Ministry of Multiculturalism and Citizenship in 1991, and her biography mentions that she became a member of the “prestigious Royal Society of Canada” in 1989.26 However, Henry has also suggested that her whiteness meant that Canadian politicians would not gain anything by recognizing her with seats on race relations boards and that her research has not been validated by awards from the black Canadian community. She contends, for example, that ‘black intellectuals’ in the 2000s were ‘very anti-Semitic’ and had largely negative feelings about her research because of ‘race ownership’ (Agnew 2007, 400–1). Such claims evoked the op-eds of black public intellectuals about ‘Black anti-semitism’ in ‘prestigious outlets’ such as The New York Times. They were not substantiated with ‘scientific evidence’. Nor did they seem to engage with the work of black intellectuals such as Gilroy who critiqued ethnic absolutism and invited dialogue between blacks and Jews about diaspora, exile, slavery, and the ambivalent experiences of being inside and outside the modern West. Indeed, they remind us to pay attention to the type of superficial engagement with black critical theory that leads Canadian academics to presume that Gilroy was an ‘American scholar’ while he happened to hold a faculty position at Yale University (Agnew 2007, 386). As Gilroy might say, it bears repetition that such errors are not only suggestive of a tendency to emphasize the academic status of individuals but a failure to substantively engage with the content of their work.27 Readers of Gilroy’s intellectual work are

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left with little doubt that it is defined against US-centrism and American statecraft as well as “merely”, “timid” and “narrow” scholasticism (Gilroy 1993, 2010a, b). He not only emphasizes the importance of e­ xtra-­academic intellectuals and draws on his work as a music journalist as well as his time as a research officer with the militant Greater London Council and a graduate student supervised by Stuart Hall at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham. He also recognizes the significance of Donald Wood, his undergraduate tutor at Sussex University, who suggested that he should read Frantz Fanon, C.L.R. James and other black Atlantic thinkers who knew that not all academics are intellectuals and not all intellectuals are academics (Vincent 2013).

Conclusion The term ‘intellectual’ appears eight times in Henry’s review of David Austin’s Fear of a Black Nation in the Literary Review of Canada in 2013, where it is used to refer to an ‘intellectual elite’ and left-orientated figures who are given “a great deal of credit”. Henry (2013) also expressed concern that Austin’s use of critical theory and Black Cultural Studies may be “misconstrued and misunderstood” by an “informed general public”. The informed general public is a floating signifier that points to no actual object and has no agreed upon meaning, but a close reading of Henry (2013) suggests that she imagines an informed general reader to be someone who believes that subcultural groups must experience “many of the elements of Canadian culture and its values”, considers it surprising that even the ideological left have often paid marginal attention to black movements for liberation, and accepts the premise that there is a widespread denial of racism in a Canadian establishment that pays lip service to questions of equity in “multicultural legislation, policies and practices”. In other words, Henry’s informed general reader bears a striking resemblance to a small-l liberal. One hear echoes of Alan Borovoy’s complaint against ‘ineffectual intellectuals’ when Henry (2013) contends that Austin’s book is “mainly confined to theoretical treatises and, often, literary voices”, and does not do enough to convey the white “sociocultural and institutional milieu in Canada” that set so many boundaries around black individual and communal activity in Canada. It is difficult to overlook the haunting presence of Robin Winks diatribe about the “thoughtless, needless, and frustrated destruction” of the Sir George Williams computer center when Henry (2013) writes that the 1969 Sir George Williams Affair led to “a

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roomful of destroyed computer equipment worth about 2 million” and later repeats, for emphasis, that the protest against racism led to the destruction of a ‘mainframe computer’. One is also reminded of her ­collaborative approach to interdisciplinary work, which combined social scientific research about racism in Canada with some brief notes about the recipients of literary awards and citations of prominent cultural theorists, when she contends that Fear of a Black Nation—a book informed by research in the humanities—should, at the very least, have summarized and described the social scientific literature. Taking seriously the politics and poetics of research in the humanities and social sciences, this chapter has put down some preliminary markers about a Canadian public sphere post-1971 that has (1) consistently buttressed the authority of politicians, academics and other experts by announcing their connections to elite universities while (2) translating or sublimating anything in their work that seems too elitist, esoteric or radical. On the one hand, the keyword ‘shy elitism’ apprehends the repetition of phrases such as, “a study by renowned Harvard psychologist” in the Canadian media (Ien 2018), and professors in Canadian universities who believe that a CV is ‘impeccable’ because it “included a PhD from McGill and a five-year stint at Harvard as an assistant professor” (Schiff 2018). On the other hand, ‘shy elitism’ is evident in a Canadian environment in which scholarly writing is judged successful and of high quality when it is accessible to a broad or general reading audience.28 In advancing an inevitably flawed and partial rendering of shy elitism after the official promulgation of multiculturalism in 1971, I am aware of some potentially discordant affinities with conservative jeremiads about dumbing down and the closing of the Western mind.29 My intention is not to protect the bathwater of political statements that are associated with liberal, Eurocentric, elitist institutions. It is to note how they also throw out the baby of a black radical tradition in which Stuart Hall and other Caribbean intellectuals applied the politics and poetics of ancient Greece and Rome to the praxis of revolutionary workers and anti-colonial movements (James 1956; Greenwood 2004). If we take seriously the provocative, suggestive and explorative work of radical egalitarians such as Hall, we may add some cutting edge to critiques of contemporary politicians who cling to a tradition in which they are introduced as “honourable members of Parliament”, but do not encourage their audiences to heed how the word ‘honourable’ can be delivered with irony, venom and contempt in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. We may note, with interest,

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the desire of contemporary political philosophers to maintain that ancient Greece was a homogenous city-state that does not necessarily provide an appropriate model for liberal, forward-looking, multicultural societies (Kymlicka 1996, 2). We may even recognize the value of corners of Canadian society that are not traditionally considered politically significant, and the cost of obtaining recognition from corners of Canadian ­society that are.

Notes 1. See, for example, Will Kymlicka, The Three Lives of Multiculturalism in S. Guo and L. Wong (eds) Revisiting Multiculturalism in Canada (Sense Publishers, Rotterdam, 2015); Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Christina Gabriel. Selling Diversity: Immigration, Multiculturalism, Employment Equity, and Globalization (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). 2. See, for example, Himanji Bannerji, The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender (Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2000); Eva Mackey, The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Sunera Thobani, Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007); May Chazan, Lisa Helps, Anna Stanley and Sonali Thakkar (eds), Home and Native Land: Unsettling Multiculturalism in Canada (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2011); Glen Sean Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2014). 3. See, for example, John English, Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968–2000 (Toronto: Vintage, 2010), Triadafilos Triadafilopoulos, Becoming multicultural: immigration and the politics of membership in Canada and Germany (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012). 4. Administrative Orders 40–46 (1942) passed under the War Measures Act, R.S.C. 1927 c. 206. Library and Archives Canada. Canada. Parliament. House of Commons. Debates, 28th Parliament, 3rd Session, Volume 8 (8 October 1971): 8545–8548, Appendix, 8580–8585. 5. Christine Inglis, “Multiculturalism: New Policy Responses to Diversity,” MOST Policy Paper 4 (Paris: UNESCO, 1996) 16. Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Christina Gabriel. Selling Diversity, 121. Yuzyk was the first to employ the word multiculturalism in a parliamentary debate on March 3, 1964. He also collaborated with other senators and groups such as the Canadian Cultural Rights Committee to develop a Thinkers’ Conference on Cultural

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Rights to study Canada’s Multicultural Patterns in the Sixties, which was held in Toronto from December 13 to 15, 1968. 6. Green Paper on Immigration and Population (Manpower and Immigration Canada, 1975). 7. Conseil National Parti Québécois (1975), 27–8. BaNQ Quebec City. 1987-­ 10-­003/6. P661, S4, D8. 8. Dr. Mark MacGuigan, “Remarks delivered to the Canadian Library Association Annual Conference on behalf of the honourable John Munro,” Halifax, June 11, 1976. Library and Archives Canada, Jack Budd Cullen Fonds, R11236-2-1-E. 183-16-1. 9. John Munro, “Confidential Political Cabinet Document,” October 22, 1976. Library and Archives Canada, Jack Budd Cullen Fonds, R11236-2-­ 1-E. 134-4-1. 10. Revolutionary Marxist Group Alliance, “Rosie Douglas” and “Rosie Douglas Defence”, Library and Archives Canada. MG 28 IV II 98. 41-10. 87-3. 11. Robin Winks, “Introduction,” in R.  Winks (ed.), Age of Imperialism (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall 1969); Robin Winks and J.  Rush, “Introduction,” in R.  Winks and J.  Rush, Asia in Western Fiction (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990), 5; Robin Winks, “Getting to Know the Beau Savage,” The Opening of the Pacific: Image and Reality (London: National Maritime Museum 1971), 16. Also see Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1987). Daniel McNeil, “Confronting ‘Liberal Lies’ about Black Canada: George Elliott Clarke and the Children of Frantz Fanon,” Slavery, Memory, Citizenship, eds. Paul E.  Lovejoy and Vanessa Oliveira (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2016), 191–210. 12. Robin Winks to Yale History Faculty c. 1967. Robin William Winks Papers, Yale University. 1992-M-070 5. 13. Daniel Hill, Negroes in Toronto: A Sociological Study of a Minority Group (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1960), 175, 221. Canadian Association for Coloured Youngsters, Script for the slide show, ‘A child is a child is a child.’ March 2, 1964. Archives of Ontario. RG 76-3-0-263 17. Also see Daniel McNeil, “Ushering Children Away From a “Light Grey World”: Dr. Daniel Hill and his Pursuit of a Respectable Black Canadian Community,” Ontario History 99:1 (2007), 96–106. 14. Meeting between the Continuing Committee on Race Relations with Douglas Creighton, publisher of the Toronto Sun, Archives of Ontario, August 31, 1978. RG 74-44 B306105. For examples of the Toronto Sun’s position on affirmative action, political correctness and the civilizing mission of British imperialism that antagonized racialized communities see, for

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example, its editorials on “racial lunacy” and “curried history” on May 25 and June 1, 1978. 15. Bob Bowers, “Interview with Daniel Hill,” CKLW, June 4, 1981. Archives of Ontario. Daniel Hill Fonds. F 2130-11-0-17. Daniel Hill, Freedom Seekers: Blacks in Early Canada (Agincourt, ON: Book Society of Canada, 1981). 16. David Lewis Stein, “The counterattack on diehard racism,” Maclean’s, October 20, 1962. 17. Institute of Public Affairs, The Condition of the Negroes of Halifax City, Nova Scotia (Dalhousie University, 1962). 18. Ibid., iii. 19. Gus Wedderburn, “From Slavery to the Ghetto: The Story of the Negro in the Maritimes,” A Paper Presented to the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission, March 26, 1968. 20. Gus Wedderburn to David Orlikow, February 24, 1969. Library and Archives Canada, Jewish Labour Committee. MG28 V 75. 41-1. 21. Marvin Schiff, “Director’s Report to the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission,” May 26, 1969. Library and Archives Canada, Jewish Labour Committee. MG28 V 75. 41-1. Emphasis added. 22. George Elliott Clarke proffers alternative interpretations to Henry’s inability to recognize cultural differences among people of African descent, and insists that critical, x-ray exact scholarly work must recognize the radical, liberal and conservative dimensions of black Nova Scotia, Africadia and African Canadian culture. George Elliott Clarke, Odysseys Home (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 8, 13, 14, 113. Clarke’s doctoral dissertation maintained that English Canadian and African American cultures “share a similar political philosophy, namely, that of a classical conservative collectivism stressing communitarian values and a respect for tradition”, and had both been cast in a “dissident or dissenting relationship with mainstream American – essentially liberal – culture.” George Elliott Clarke, A Comparative Study of the Development of English Canadian and African American Poetry and Poetics (PhD diss., Queen’s University, 1993). Also see Daniel McNeil, “Confronting ‘Liberal Lies’ about Black Canada: George Elliott Clarke and the Children of Frantz Fanon,” Slavery, Memory, Citizenship, eds. Paul E. Lovejoy and Vanessa Oliveira (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2016). Daniel McNeil, “Wrestling with Multicultural Snake Oil: A Newcomer’s Introduction to Black Canada,” Unsettling the Great White North: African Canadian History, eds. M. Johnson and F. Aladejebi (Toronto: University of Toronto Press). Forthcoming. 23. The black male who lodged the complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission accepted the apology of the Toronto Metropolitan Police force for incorrectly clocking his speed, and the assumptions made by the

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police officer about a black male and a white female in a large white car with a red leather interior. “He and his wife have decided to leave Canada and return to his home in Trinidad, partially because of the continuing harassment they have experienced, not just from the police, but from Canadian society.” Ontario Human Rights Commission, Community Relations Report, January 17, 1979. Archives of Ontario. Race Relations Policy and Program Records. RG 74-44. B306105. 24. “Is Multicultural Government Policy Working?” Ethnicity, January 30, 1985. Library and Archives Canada, R8446. 1993-0300. 25. Ibid. Bonnie Gross consistently asked guests on Ethnicity to describe how they had experienced the burden of anti-black racism, but did not ask her guests to share their understanding and experiences of blackness as a political culture that resisted racism. In response, guests such as Vera Cudjoe, the founder of Black Theatre Canada, and Robin Breon, Black Theatre Canada’s administrative director, patiently pointed out that Black Theatre companies in Canada had audiences that were more diverse and reflective of Toronto than the mostly white audiences that attended supposedly universal and state-sponsored theaters. Ethnicity, Black Theatre in Canada, April 1985. Daniel Caudeiron, the executive director of the Black Music Association, assertively maintained that blackness was a culture that had helped the world to dance. Ethnicity, Black Music Association, May 28, 1985. 26. Francs Henry, “Our Backgrounds,” https://www.yorku.ca/fhenry/background.htm Emphasis added. 27. On Gilroy’s penchant for the phrase “it bears repetition” see, for example, Paul Gilroy The Black Atlantic, 105, 155, 218, 223; “Exer(or)cising power: black bodies in the black public sphere,” in Dance in the City, ed. Helen Thomas (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 24, 32; Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000) 59, 165, 196, 237; Darker than Blue, 30, 33, 71, 77, 82, 137; “Shameful History: The Social Life of Races and the Postcolonial Archive.” Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writing 11.2 (2011), 25, 30; “‘My Britain is fuck all’: Zombie multiculturalism and the race politics of citizenship.” Identities, 19.4 (2012): 384. 28. See, for example, The Atlantic Book Award for Scholarly Writing, which includes “the quality of writing, accessible to a general reading audience” as a selection criterion (http://atlanticbookawards.ca/scholarly-writing/) and The Wilson Award for books that succeed in making “Canadian historical scholarship accessible to a wide and transnational audience” (https://wilson.humanities.mcmaster.ca/wilson-institute-prizes/) 29. A fuller history of shy elitism would consider the manner in which it complicates and exemplifies an elitist system of settler colonialism that rewarded

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work written with due decorum in English or French even if the abstractedness of such work meant that many average citizens would not read it. Ian McKay, “After Canada: On Amnesia and Apocalypse in the Contemporary Crisis,” Acadiensis, 28.1 (1998): 76–7 n1. Paul Rutherford, “Made in America: The Problem of Mass Culture in Canada,” in Frank Manning and David Flaherty (eds.) The Beaver Bites Back? American Popular Culture in Canada (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993). It would also analyze the way prestigious awards in Canada celebrate and defend the primacy of the category “individual” and work with book clubs, top 10 lists in the interests of promoting marketable, accessible texts. Jennifer Scott and Myka Tucker-Abramson, “Banking on a Prize: Multicultural Capitalism and the Canadian Literary Prize Industry,” Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature canadienne 32. 1 (2007): 5–20.

References Abu-Laban, Yasmeen, and Christina Gabriel. 2002. Selling Diversity: Immigration, Multiculturalism, Employment Equity, and Globalization. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Agnew, Vijay. 2007. Being White and Thinking Black: An Interview with Frances Henry. In Interrogating Race and Racism, ed. V. Agnew, 386–412. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Austin, David. 2018. The Black Lives Matter Movement has Its Roots in this Historical Moment: David Austin on his Book Exploring the 1968 Congress of Black Writers. Open Books, October 25. Bannerji, Himanji. 2000. The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press. Bloom, Allan. 1987. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. New  York: Simon and Schuster. Caccia, Ivana. 2010. Managing the Canadian Mosaic in Wartime: Shaping Citizenship Policy, 1939–1945. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Chazan, May, Lisa Helps, Anna Stanley, and Sonali Thakkar, eds. 2011. Home and Native Land: Unsettling Multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines. Clarke, George Elliott. 1993. A Comparative Study of the Development of English Canadian and African American Poetry and Poetics. PhD Dissertation, Queen’s University. ———. 2002. Odysseys Home. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Coulthard, Glen Sean. 2014. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press.

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Day, Richard. 2000. Multiculturalism and the History of Canadian Diversity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. English, John. 2010. Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968–2000. Toronto: Vintage. Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The Black Atlantic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 1997. Exer(or)cising Power: Black Bodies in the Black Public Sphere. In Dance in the City, ed. Helen Thomas, 21–34. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2000. Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond the Color Line. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2010a. Darker than Blue: On the Moral Economies of Black Atlantic Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ———. 2010b. Fanon and Amery: Theory, Torture and the Prospect of Humanism. Theory, Culture & Society 27 (7–8): 16–32. ———. 2011. Shameful History: The Social Life of Races and the Postcolonial Archive. Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writing 11 (2): 19–34. ———. 2012. ‘My Britain is Fuck All’: Zombie Multiculturalism and the Race Politics of Citizenship. Identities 19 (4): 380–397. Godard, Barbara. 1998. Feminist Speculations on Value: Culture in an Age of Downsizing. In Ghost in the Machine: Women and Culture in Canada and Australia, ed. Alison Beale and Annette Van Den Bosch, 43–76. Garamond: Toronto. ———. 2002. Feminist Periodicals and the Production of Cultural Value: The Canadian Context. Women’s Studies International Forum 25 (2): 209–223. Greenwood, Emily. 2004. Classics and the Ancient Triangle: Caribbean Readings of Greece and Rome Via Africa. Forum of Modern Language Studies 1 (4): 365–376. Hall, Stuart. 1978. Race and Moral Panics in Post-War Britain. In Five Views of Multi-Racial Britain. London: Commission for Racial Equality. ———. 1988. New Ethnicities. In Black Film, British Cinema, ed. Kobena Mercer, vol. 7. London: Institute of Contemporary Arts. Harney, Robert. 1988. ‘So Great a Heritage as Ours’ Immigration and the Survival of the Canadian Polity. Daedalus 117 (4): 51–97. Henry, Frances. 1973. Forgotten Canadians: The Blacks of Nova Scotia. Don Mills: Longman Canada. ———. 1978. The Dynamics of Racism in Toronto. Toronto: York University. ———. 1986. Race Relations Research in Canada Today: A “State of the Art” Review. Ottawa: Canadian Human Rights Commission. ———. 2013. Black Power in Montreal. Literary Review of Canada, July–August. Henry, Frances, and Effie Ginzberg. 1985. Who Gets the Work?: A Test of Racial Discrimination in Employment. Toronto: Urban Alliance on Race Relations and the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto.

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Henry, Frances, and Carol Tator. 2002. Discourses of Domination: Racial Bias in the Canadian English-Language Press. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ———. 2006. The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. Toronto: Nelson. Hepburn, Bob. 1984. Tories Plan to Slash Spending on Multiculturalism, PM Warns. Toronto Star, August 3. Hill, Daniel. 1960. Negroes in Toronto: A Sociological Study of a Minority Group. PhD Dissertation, University of Toronto. ———. 1977. Human Rights in Canada: A Focus on Racism. Ottawa: Canadian Labour Congress. Hudson, Peter James, and Aaron Kamugisha. 2014. On Black Canadian Thought. The C.L.R. James Journal 20 (1/2): 3–20. Ibbitson, John. 2005. Same-Sex will Smite Harper. Globe and Mail, February 18. Ien, Marci. 2018. The Double Standard of Driving While Black – In Canada. The Globe and Mail, February 26. Iton, Richard. 2008. In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era. Oxford: Oxford University Press. James, C.L.R. 1956. Every Cook Can Govern: A Study of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Detroit: Correspondence Publishing Co. Jameson, Fredric. 1993. On ‘Cultural Studies’. Social Text 34: 17–52. Kymlicka, Will. 1996. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Citizenship Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2015. The Three Lives of Multiculturalism. In Revisiting Multiculturalism in Canada, ed. S. Guo and L. Wong, 15–35. Rotterdam: Brill Sense Publishers. Lambertson, Ross. 2005. Repression and Resistance: Canadian Human Rights Activists, 1930–1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Litt, Paul. 2016. Trudeaumania. Vancouver: UBC Press. Mackey, Eva. 2002. The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McKay, Ian. 1998. After Canada: On Amnesia and Apocalypse in the Contemporary Crisis. Acadiensis 28 (1): 76–97. ———. 2000. The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History. The Canadian Historical Review 81 (4): 616–645. McNeil, Daniel. 2007. Ushering Children Away From a “Light Grey World”: Dr. Daniel Hill and his Pursuit of a Respectable Black Canadian Community. Ontario History 99 (1): 96–106. ———. 2010. Sex and Race in the Black Atlantic: Mulatto Devils and Multiracial Messiahs. London: Routledge. ———. 2016. Confronting ‘Liberal Lies’ About Black Canada: George Elliott Clarke and the Children of Frantz Fanon. In Slavery, Memory, Citizenship, ed. Paul E. Lovejoy and Vanessa Oliveira, 191–210. Trenton: Africa World Press. NourbeSe Philip, Marlene. 1992. Frontiers: Selected Essays and Writings on Racism and Culture, 1984–1992. Stratford: Mercury Press.

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Pal, Leslie. 1993. Interests of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism, and Feminism in Canada. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Reed, Adolph. 2015. The James Brown Theory of Black Liberation. Jacobin, October 6. Rutherford, Paul. 1993. Made in America: The Problem of Mass Culture in Canada. In The Beaver Bites Back? American Popular Culture in Canada, ed. Frank Manning and David Flaherty, 260–280. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Reitz, Jeffrey. 1988. The Institutional Structure of Immigration as a Determinant of Inter-Racial Competition: A Comparison of Britain and Canada. International Migration Review 22 (1): 117–146. Scott, Jennifer, and Myka Tucker-Abramson. 2007. Banking on a Prize: Multicultural Capitalism and the Canadian Literary Prize Industry. Studies in Canadian Literature/Études en littérature Canadienne 32 (1): 5–20. Schiff, Bernard. 2018. I Was Jordan Peterson’s Strongest Supporter. Now I Think He’s Dangerous. Toronto Star, May 25. Tator, Carol, and Frances Henry. 2006. Racial Profiling in Canada: Challenging the Myth of ‘A Few Bad Apples’. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Tator, Carol, Frances Henry, and Winston Mattis. 1998. Challenging Racism in the Arts: Case Studies of Controversy and Conflict. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Thobani, Sunera. 2007. Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Urquhart, Sheila. 1968. Co-ordinator’s First Task to Probe Own Appointment. Halifax Mail Star, December 9. Vincent, Hudson. 2013. Paul Gilroy Interview–2 June 2011. Cultural Studies 27 (5): 744–756. Winks, Robin. 1969. Introduction. In Age of Imperialism, ed. R.  Winks. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. ———. 1971. Getting to Know the Beau Savage. In The Opening of the Pacific: Image and Reality, 14–19. London: National Maritime Museum. ———. 1997. The Blacks in Canada: A History. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. ———. 1999. The Future of Imperial History. In The Oxford History of the British Empire, ed. R.  Winks, vol. 5, Historiography, 665. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Winks, Robin, and J. Rush. 1990. Introduction. In Asia in Western Fiction, ed. R. Winks and J. Rush. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Žižek, Slavoj. 2016. Against the Double Blackmail: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbours. London: Penguin.

CHAPTER 11

On the Islamophobic Mind and Its Agenda in France Abderrahman Beggar

Islamophobia and the Intellectual Landscape in France On March 15, 2019, when the ethno-nationalist Brenton Tarrant decided to shoot and kill worshippers in a mosque in the town of Christchurch in New Zealand, he described his decision to do so in a rambling 74-page manifesto entitled “Great Replacement”: homage to French writer Renaud Camus’s book Le Grand Remplacement (2011). Camus argues that non-­ white naturalized French immigrants, especially North African immigrants and their descendants, have seriously affected the demographic balance in the purportedly White Christian French nation. Camus goes so far with his argument that he suggests and fears the Islamization and Africanization of France. He also refers to this phenomenon as a grande déculturation (Le Grand Remplacement, 18), and for him, this process is happening with the complicity of leaders of certain Western democracies, whom he calls remplacistes in their will to substitute one population for another. In a tweet published on the website of the far-right political party he created, A. Beggar (*) Department of Religion and Culture, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_11

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Le Parti de l’Innocence, Camus writes: “Compared with Swedish remplacistes, Trudeau and Macron, Hitler is less guilty and more sincere and straightforward.”1 Camus is only the tip of a xenophobic and racist French intellectual iceberg. Another French thinker, Alain Finkielkraut, a member of the French Academy and host of a radio show on France Culture, apparently inspired Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik for his mass-murder of nearly 80 people in Norway in 2011. In his manifesto, Breivik allegedly quoted Finkielkraut: “antiracism is to the 21st century what communism was to the 20th century: a source of violence.”2 Other openly racist and highly publicized figures in France convey almost the same message as Camus, such as Éric Zemmour, who, according to the Le Parisien newspaper, is now the most widely sold author; Alain Soral, who was found guilty in April 2019 of negationism and sentenced to one year in prison; Michel Onfray, an atheist philosopher who has denounced all Abrahamic religions; and Michel Houellebecq, a laureate of France’s most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt. Éric Zemmour’s highly popular book Le suicide français (2014) is strangely similar to Camus’s France: suicide d’une nation (2014), another essay on how French identity and culture are endangered because of foreigners, especially North and sub-­ Saharan Africans. This idea of Muslims “invading”, “colonizing” and “replacing” the people of France is a common idea among several French intellectuals. Guillaume Faye, a negationist who claims Anne Frank’s journal is “fake” (1985, 26) and who considers the fight against “fascisme-racisme-­ nazisme” (26) just “a business matter” (26), follows the same line of thought. For him, a “multiracial” society is by essence “multiracist”, and the antidote to racism is what we can call a “monoracial” society (18), where diversity is unwelcome. In La colonisation de l’Europe. Discours vrai sur l’immigration et l’Islam he defends a worldview that echoes Bat Ye’or’s Eurabia. The Euro-Arab Axis, a very popular book among Euro-fascists and far-right thinkers. The book describes how Muslims are conspiring to take over the European community and convert it into a “post-Judeo-­ Christian civilization” (Eurabia 2005, 9). Faye mentions two categories of colonialism: one from above (colonialisme par le haut) that Europeans carried out, which he regards as superior because it purportedly brought civilization to the savage, and the one from beneath (colonialisme par le bas), which he believes characterizes the “Afro-Asian” Muslim influx of immigrants to European lands (2005, 23–25).

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These ideas go back to the birth of scientific racism in the Third French Republic (1870–1940), when France’s colonial Empire offered an ideal environment for its proliferation. It is also the period when Arthur de Gobineau wrote his Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines, first published in 1855. Not only was this book a source of legitimization for “colonialism from above”, but its spirit fed collective complexes of superiority and paranoia. This phenomenon targeted Muslims and Jews not to mention Black and Roma. The weight of those ideas is still carried in different forms in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We can find them in works by intellectuals such as Maurice Bardèche, especially in the magazine Défense de l’Occident which he founded in 1952; Robert Brasillach, editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper Je suis partout; and René Binet, especially in his Théorie du racisme in which he developed a theory close to Camus’s Grand Remplacement. Former member of the German SS during World War II, Binet defends racism as the most basic right: “Now, all those who, in this world, oppose the degeneration of their own people, the decadence of their race and its enslavement are accused of racism and fascism” (1950, 6).3 Binet believes that “inferior races” are now “replacing” superior ones (33). This “replacement” is due, in his view, to mixed race unions and to foreigners accessing executive positions in government (1950, 33). This is the context in which I want to introduce the discussion about Islamophobia. In this chapter I argue that, from an academic point of view, Islamophobia is not a mere term, but a concept: a nodal point in how problems are treated intellectually. In order to attain the status of theoretical concept, Islamophobia has to be seen more than just a certain gestalt or spirit of time; it has to be perceived as a platform for a critique that can encompass collective memory, history, and the nature of power.

Conceptualization of Islamophobia In 1910, the French colonial bureaucrat Alain Quellien wrote a report that evolved into his doctoral thesis, Islam in West Africa. While exploring works by travelers, soldiers, traders and bureaucrats, he concluded that the colonial literature can be “contained” in one concept: Islamophobia. Many refer to it as a “neologism” (Carnerero and Azeez 2016) by putting emphasis on the novelty of the word, and then misapplying it to the concept denoted by the word. Yet, Quellien is referring to a phenomenon that goes beyond field experience. He adopts a “genealogical” point of view,

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with genealogy being, from a Nietzschean point of view, the exploration of the interactions between “active” and “reactive” forces that generate meaning. The genealogical nature of what the author describes refers to the semiotic dimension of this phenomenon and the different actors involved, each trying to define roles and hierarchies. By doing so, he provides a context, having both horizontal and vertical dimensions, with horizontal referring to the actual dynamics determined by French hegemonic desires and the reactions they trigger, and vertical concerning the visceral and ancestral nature of the feelings toward Islam and Muslims. Even tough for Quellien, a good Muslim is one who does not resist the colonial enterprise, but rather tries to keep a critical distance from his own culture and his own status as an employee in the Ministry of the Colonies, his work does not simply propose a neologism. Instead of presenting it as a novelty, he tries to use Islamophobia as a reference to a historical development of ideas related to the nature of the colonial order. Islamophobia is about an accumulated knowledge that determines the different epistemological stances behind the debate around this topic.

The Return of a Concept In France, administrative reports have long referred to Islamophobia. It first appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century, most prominently in the work of two employees of the Ministry of Colonies, Maurice Delafosse and Paul Marty. It resurfaced in 1951 and 1985 (Hajjat and Mohammed 2013). Yet, it is mainly since the late 1990s, after the publication in Britain of the Runnymede report, Islamophobia: A Challenge for Us All (1997), that we start to witness a return of this concept to its birthplace, in a boomerang-like fashion, to face a ferocious rejection. Some consider it to be part of a conspiracy, a Trojan Horse for theocracies to interfere in domestic affairs (Ermakoff 2015). Others, like Pascal Bruckner, consider it the expression of an “imaginary racism”, as evidenced by the title of his book Un racisme imaginaire: islamophobie et culpabilité (2017). This pugnacious rejection of the concept of Islamophobia is present not only in popular and social media but also in the academic milieu. Islamophobia is the trigger for a highly polarized debate around issues of race, faith, immigration and national memory. In this text, I focus on the concept of Islamophobia, commonly considered as the “fear of Islam”. Others refer to Islamophobia as “Moorphobia”, due to the Moorish presence in the Iberian Peninsula and France in the

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Middle Ages, following the Moors’ invasion of the city of Poitiers in 732. The resulting persistent distrust and alienation clearly contributed to the prominence of La Chanson de Roland, an epic poem written in the eighth century that portrays the killing of Charlemagne’s nephew Roland by the Moors, a poem that Emilie Henriot has dubbed the “first French literary masterpiece” (1958, 198). As a reaction to the puritans who do not want French identity to be “polluted” by Islamic elements mainly from north and sub-Saharan Africa, linguist Jean Pruvost’s controversial book entitled, Nos ancêtres les Arabes (2017) playing on the common expression nos ancêtres les Gaulois, argues that, contrary to popular belief, the French language has been influenced by the Arabic language more than by Gallic. According to Pruvost, in terms of lexical presence, Arabic comes after English and Italian. Some critiques put emphasis on the need to frame Islamophobia in a distinct way. Why treat one faith differently knowing that, in its secularity, the Republic is beyond all reference to religion, even when it is a question of discrimination? We can talk, instead, of “Muslimphobia” or racism or discrimination. Benoît Bréville, a French journalist and historian, prefers the term “prolophobie” (2015), coined by French Trotskyists to express the way capitalism and neoliberalism treat the worker and the poor. In this sense, the word “prolo” can be used as a diminutive of proletariat as well as a reference to the lumpenproletariat.4 Instead of treating the issue from an ethno-religious perspective, Bréville prefers to treat it in terms of class struggle and social mobility. Is Islamophobia the fear of Islam? The limits of this definition are obvious: a phobia is a form of fear, yet not every form of fear is a phobia. Fear can be contextual and limited to a given moment in time, while phobia is structural: a mental state that defines the character. Fear can be a normal reaction, related to survival instincts, yet phobia is always implicitly pathological. Grammatically, the preposition “of” (in the expression “fear of Islam”) denotes the existence of an object. This is not the case in Islamophobia: Islam is not the object; rather it is part of the noun. What is denoted here is the idea of a category (of phobia), just as in arachnophobia, xenophobia or aerophobia. In all these three examples, the idea of phobia is the same, and the difference is in what triggers it (spiders, foreigners or airplanes). Psychologically, the trigger is not as important as the feeling itself. Intense and irrational fear stays the same and can be measured and studied. As for its object, it is a manifestation, an occurrence, a shadow, a ghost, a dark image of reality. We shall emphasize the following

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principle: phobic feelings target the relationship between the mind and the object of thought. It is because of this incapacity for the phobic mind to relate and determine accurately the source of fear, that when dealing with individuals, therapy can consist of exposing the patient to the object of phobia to create a situation where the source of anxiety can come out from behind the screen of anxiety. One of the examples that come to mind is related to Moorphobia in Spain. The object of phobia (the Moor) is any entity that triggers feeling of hostility toward colonialist Spaniards. Distant people such as Filipinos from the Western Pacific and Ayoreode from Paraguay and Bolivia have embodied Moors (Beggar 2013, 218–219). This type of amalgamation can be observed even nowadays. As we will see, Islamophobia is not just about Islam and Muslims; it can include even Indigenous peoples from across the Americas or the people of Vietnam, not to mention all victims of colonialism, slavery and imperialism. Far from trying to frame the current debate as a pathological phenomenon, the purpose is to show how Islamophobia is the product of a distortion in perception. In France, Étienne Dinet and Sliman Ben Ibrahim published the first book on the topic of Islamophobia, without using this term, L’Orient vu de l’Occident, at the same time as Quellien’s work. On the book cover, above the title, printed in Arabic calligraphy, a quote from Al-Hariri (1054–1122), a scholar from Basra, Iraq, in which he says “You are in a valley and I am in another one”. This in reference to a misunderstanding, due to what can be considered as an “agnotological stance”, agnotology being, as defined by Robert Proctor and Londa Schiebinger, the will to foster ignorance (2008). From Dinet and Sliman’s work, one can conclude that the source of Islamophobia is in the way Muslims are constructed. Theirs is an effort to show how misunderstanding and suspicion act as epistemological limitations. They denounce the incapacity of some French intellectuals of their time to go beyond usual categories fed by colonial paranoia.

Phobia Between Feeling and Fueling the Feeling If phobia is about feelings related to how a minority is imagined in France, agnotology is about fueling these same feelings in order to translate them into the “social dynamics” that Husserl discusses. Categories such as “Muslim”, “Islamist” or even Beur (French with North African descent), Maghrébin or “foreigner” are relevant to a particular social configuration:

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one concerned with reproducing an idea of belonging that enforces hierarchies and privileges. Naming matters. One of the most common structures in this domain is a Manichean one that opposes good and evil: I am the good one and the other is evil. The lesson from Terry Eagleton’s work On Evil (2010) is that evil is treated as that which escapes the domain of expression, an unnamed dark presence that materializes only when it strikes. The same happens in the case of Islam and Muslims. In English, it took more than 1000 years to use the name Muslim. Before that, this faith and its adherents were referred to in degrading terms such as “Saracens”, “Blacks”, “Pagans”, “Barbarians” etc. According to Jerry Brotton, the word Islam was first used in England in 1615 and Muslim in 1625 (2016, 5). Around that time, Muslim and Islam also started to become of interest in France. The first translation of the Muslim holy book, L’Alcoran de Mahomet, by André Du Ryer was published in 1647, more than 1000 years after the birth of this faith. The title shows how Europeans considered Islam to be a one-man invention by Mahomet rather than the faith of millions of people. Interestingly, nowadays, a short form of this same expression is still widely in use in French: “La religion du prophète” or The Prophet’s religion. An explanation of this attitude can be found in Antonio Gramsci’s work about the birth of the West around the sense of belonging to the one religion: Christianity. Medieval Europe was Christian, and the rest of the world was mainly a source of hostility. Eurocentrism is to be traced to the medieval city as a walled environment, protected from a world considered as the source of all evils, both material and spiritual. This ontological fear of strangers can be traced back to ancient Crete where the god Talos was in charge of protecting the island from what some might now call “illegal immigrants”. Malik Bezouh’s book on the clash of stereotypes (2015) corresponds to a historical approach to the distortion in perception we talked about earlier. The book starts by telling an anecdote about his brother, a teaching assistant, in a school who is blackmailed by a student who knew he was Arab. From there, the author goes back through history to study the way Muslims have been represented. Apart from some exceptions, Bezouh portrays a visceral rejection of Muslims and roots of feelings that are still prevailing even nowadays. One of the main characteristics of the phobic mind is its tendency toward projecting itself into the object that causes fear. When treating Islam as a source of fear, Quellien is, in the first place, talking about the colonial mind facing its own demons. He even describes many of the Muslim leaders as leaning more toward economic and political power than

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faith. If we take into consideration the geopolitical realities, we can see how the hostile Muslim in Western Africa serves as a projection of the Empire’s own fears and unsafety; the source of troubles is the competition between colonial powers in Africa: France, Great Britain and, with a smaller share than the others, Germany. The same avoidance of socioeconomic and geopolitical realities can be witnessed in Finkielkraut’s L’identité malheureuse (2013). When he starts talking about the need to outlaw wearing “the veil”, he jumps from the interdiction of this garment, to other topics: French gallantry, “distinction and elegance” (55), and the “art of seduction” (66). It becomes obvious that the problem is a feeling of loss, a bourgeois spleen, a disassociation with a disappointing world. From this reading, the real problem is a profound identity dissatisfaction (malaise), an imbalance between the monocultural ideal of an imagined community evolving in national and European environments driven toward multiculturalism.

Islamophobia and the Perverted Meaning Unable to make sense, thought tends to substitute its object with creations of its own. One of the most common strategies in this sense consists of perverting words by adapting and altering their meanings. Such appropriation-­with-modification makes it difficult to talk about a “pact of communication”, a shared ground of meaning that makes any exchange of ideas possible. Without a clear definition of words, even the idea of truth, as the core of what regulates beliefs and behaviors, is in jeopardy. That is why people dealing with these issues need to engage in a “semioliberation” that seeks to restore spoiled meanings. The debate on Muslims in France focuses mainly on two perspectives: (a) Muslims are the problem, or (b) if there is a problem, it is only with Islamist elements, not with all Muslims. Yet the category central to both perspectives, Muslim, is itself ambiguous in France, since citizenship is supposedly indifferent to confession and religious criteria are absent from all official censuses, given that, in France, there is a clear separation between the State and the Church, according to the La loi sur la laïcité, voted in 1905, just five years before the publication of Quellien’s work. Still the author discusses the source of the problem with Muslims in colonial West Africa in terms of proselytism. He describes the competition between the Catholic Church representative of a secular Republic and Islam as a religion that attracts the colonized.

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In French, it is common to talk about Boudhisme, Daoisme, Hindouisme, Jainisme, Judaisme, Mormonisme and Christianisme. Yet, islamisme is normally used to refer to Islamic extremism. The main explanation is its translation, Islam being the word used in Arabic to refer to this religion. This appears to be a tendency toward keeping the idiosyncrasy of the word. Still, why did translators not do the same with, let us say, Boudhisme, Daoisme, Hindouisme, and Judaïsme? Any of these religions would have a violent connotation (the same way as islamisme). In the French language, at least according to the dictionary Littré, the word islamisme refers to “Mohamed’s religion and all the countries where this religion reigns”. So, why this shift in meaning? And, which “materiality” does it connote? What we said about “la religion du prophète” applies to this term. Compared to others, Islam is not considered a “real religion”. Even Littré takes away the Latin religere (gathering or bringing together) from it, by referring it exclusively to one man: Mohamed, presented as a guru. When Islam adopts the suffix -ism, it becomes synonymous with a violent systematization, a lethal ideology. It is this ideological interpretation that the authors of L’Orient vu de l’Occident oppose when they complain about those who consider Islam exclusively as a form of “primitive socialism”. Like Éric Zemmour, the son of an Algerian immigrant, Beur author Lydia Guirous translates the same confusion in her work published by the renowned Plon and JCLattès. In her book “Ça n’a rien à voir avec l’islam?” Guirous underlines that there is no distinction between islame politique and islamisme. Islamists are portrayed as part of an international plot to assassinate “non-believers”, Westerners or “moderate Muslims” (2017, 17). All of this is happening because of a “political Islam” which non-Muslims consider “a destructive and hegemonic ideology” (2017, 17). From here, it is obvious that anyone who declares his or her belonging to this faith and adds even a slight note of political interpretation is a serious threat. A similar attitude is adopted by Yves Lacoste when he presents the Algerian Civil War 1991–2002 as a conflict between Islamists, referred to as the ones who “don’t speak French” and are “unemployed”, and “moderate Muslims”, all Francophones (2016, 61). In 2016, Lacoste, one of the most renowned French geographers, coauthored Géopolitique de la nation française with Frédéric Encel, a colleague from the same discipline. As far as Encel is concerned: “Islamists hate the nation. The concept of watan in Arabic is considered as occidental and anti-Muslim” (75).5 In what can be referred to as linguistic intimidation, Encel tries to keep the Arabic native speaker away from the

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meaning attached to the words that shape his world. Nation is omma. As for Watan, its meaning is country and homeland (patrie in French). Repeating a common interpretation of the word omma as an “Islamist creation”, in reference to a “community of faithful” that “concerns only Muslims”, he shows how this definition opposes the idea of nation. Confusion is more obvious when trying to identify who is “Islamist” and who is not. As Sam Keen concludes in his work on the figure of the enemy, especially in the context of the Cold War, paranoia is overwhelming in these kinds of representations. For him, at the individual and the collective levels, the paranoid mind suffers from a kind of toxic self-­ absorption: “Hence the paranoid person or nation will create a shared delusional system, a paranoia à deux, […] All we despise in ourselves, we attribute to them” (Faces of The Enemy, Reflections of The Hostile Imagination, 1991, 21). Even a scholar like Jean-Yves Lacoste could not avoid this kind of trap. After a long portrait of the “islamiste” and the risks posed by this figure, he could not define him. Then, his attention switched to new questions: How many Muslims are in France? And where are they? He then called on the reader’s power of observation. According to Lacoste, it was possible to identify their neighborhoods by the number of Halal butchers’ shops, mosques, “Salafi beards”, burkas and “Islamic clothes” (2016, 99–100). He then switched his attention to their behavior and portrayed Muslims as territorial. He considered Muslim neighborhoods as “citadels”, eager to attack any intruder who represented law and order or “le Français de souche” (Franco-French or French born citizens) (2016, 102). Phobia, especially social ones, generates catastrophic scenarios. Lacoste talks about France as being besieged from the inside and outside by Islamists and their “Islamic States”, scattered all over the Mediterranean Southern Rim, the Middle East and Africa (2016, 104–106). He develops a future scenario where France will face an “insurrection” by Muslims coming from all over Europe, Africa and the Middle East, with a special mention of Chechens, and he worries about its impact on the demographic balance. As discussed before, representing an enemy typically obeys the Manichean structure of good versus evil. The other is source of panic when he does not correspond to a presupposed image made from one’s own desires and worries. It all goes back to the power that Bertrand Russel talked about as the source of all powers: the fear of losing something (1967). In a highly nostalgic piece, Frédéric Encel evokes the France of his

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childhood as a land of beauty and harmony. He even remembers having Muslims as classmates, with “exotic names”, but kept at a distance. Later, he talks about a supposedly shared state of mind: “the nation is now sick” (38). Gépolitique de la nation française is full of examples of rejection and hostility toward the ones who do not fit in the category “real Republicans”. Encel, more than Lacoste, qualifies those who do not share his own idea of what it is to be French Republican, using very derogatory terms, such as ânerie (attitude proper to a donkey), islamo-gauchistes (Islamo-leftist), rouges (reds for Communists) and ridicules, idiots-utiles (useful idiots). He even talks about a rouge-brun complot (red-brown conspiracy), a lethal cocktail with ideology and race as the main ingredients.

Islamophobia and Its Agenda While observing these attitudes, one cannot avoid Eric Gans’s theory that he develops in The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation (1981) on how man created language to avoid war. Words make a “third space” possible where opposition can exist without the risk of death. For this reason, Encel puts his opponents in the same category as Islamist enemies, “even if they don’t believe in physical violence” (2016, 40). Situations appear more violent when described in physical terms and metaphors, as in the case of “Islamists” using “lethal force” or discussions of “leftists” helping them on the ideological “front”. In this situation, to avoid violence, the opposing groups need to refer to a transcending force or source of truth that constitutes what René Girard would call an “external mediator”. For Encel, as well as for anyone who considers himself “Republican”, the Republic is such an authoritative entity. Yet, the republic loses its neutral and transcendent character as a mediator when used to fit the semiological (in the sense of building a truth) need behind a given stance. Togetherness, as the republican sense of belonging, is an abstract idea that takes shape only through a given ideological horizon. France is, without doubt, one of the places where the debate around race, identity and belonging is most heated. Even though this country is one of the world’s oldest nation-states, doubt and uncertainty still determine how Frenchness is defined. Until the 1970s, identity issues were treated, even by the left, as a “minor contradiction”. It was a common idea for governments to privilege equality over diversity. A vision of one nation, one culture, one language and the same chances for everybody, even in terms of social mobility, has become the official French model,

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c­ ommemorated in various memorable mottos, even while it faces myriad challenges. In its nature, a model depends on a certain political will, which cannot by itself be the equivalent of the whole social and cultural landscape, especially in a liberal democracy where culture and politics define each other. The French model is not necessarily shared by its neighbors. In Germany, especially these past recent years, Angela Merkel’s government even started to consider a post-national model. In Spain, the system of Autonomies gives regions the right to adopt their own linguistic and cultural policies. Switzerland and Belgium model themselves as multinational countries. Yet, France is still faithful to the “Republican School” of Jean-­ Jaurès, which was based on a philosophy of education dedicated to converting schools into places where citizenship and identity are conceived. Since then, government after government, the task has been the same. It is not for nothing that former president Nicolas Sarkozy created in 2007 The Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development of France. Among other domains, the Ministry was in charge of “Memory” and “Republican values”. It thereby served a project that aimed to rehabilitate the colonial past. In 2005, law no. 2005-158 of February 23, 2005, regarding recognition of the Nation and national contribution in favor of the French repatriates was behind a project of reform of school curriculum to interpret the colonial past in a more positive way. Such an oxymoron as “positive” and “colonialism” is at the core of colonial ideology as synthesized in this expression “The benign yoke of French authority” (Delafosse 1972, 212).6 The main challenge facing France and other countries is how to create a balance between the Enlightenment idea of state as a legal body before which all citizens are equal, and the nation, a diversity of cultures, subcultures and counter-cultures that the state is supposed to harmonize and integrate under the umbrella of a single national identity. France today appears to offer a more homogeneous cultural landscape than its neighbors, such as Spain. With the birth of the European community and the fall of borders, mobility has become the rule and Frenchness has had to adapt to face new realities. Ironically, some people consider adaptation itself an existential threat. The gatekeepers start to feel more and more vulnerable, and alarming cries are translated into books with a highly pessimistic tone such as Éloge des frontières by Régis Debray or L’identité malheureuse by Finkielkraut or Le suicide français by Éric Zemmour. Recently, the shift in Régis Debray’s thought is obvious. Author of Transmitting Culture and

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founder of mediology,7 Debray considers the force of a culture in its power of transmission and resistance. However, with Éloge des frontières (2004) the impression is one of withdrawal and retraction. It is noteworthy how the book starts with a eulogy for Japan, a land surrounded by the sea where only 1.6% of the population is immigrant. For French people, such feelings of loss and a need cultural incontinence have their origins in Enlightenment ideas around a universalist France as a power aimed at projecting itself and “civilizing others”; France was supposed to be a strong center to which the world refers, rather than a place where change is dictated by external factors. Keen’s conception of the enemy considered as a mirror can lead us further in our exploration of Islamophobia. Until now, this study has described the phenomenon of Islamophobia as a concept that exposes the difficulties of conceptualizing challenges faced by the French nation-state model. Now, it is time to explore Islamophobia as a scapegoating mechanism that masks an ontological fear. In Pour les musulmans (2016), Edwy Plenel tries to give an opposing interpretation. His effort focuses on defining the concept in this work. He chooses to go through history and explore experiences he sees as similar, such as the Dreyfus affair and the tragic death of French writer Emile Zola. One of the main conclusions in this book is that most French Muslims do not recognize themselves in the facade that media and a certain category of French intellectuals are elaborating for France. He locates the problem in the will to attack all “minorities”, “differences” and “dissidences” (Plenel, 13). Broadening the perspective and making Islamophobia a symptomatic reaction to a reality that goes beyond Islam can help us answer the following question: what does the intellectual Islamophobic mind want? What is the mission behind this debate? In this context, Lacoste and Encel’s work Géopolitique de la nation française provides a general insight. If we follow their logic, as explained before, the object of phobia is the Islamist. Seeking to identify this figure, Yves Lacoste focuses on criteria he considers distinctively Muslim, such as diet, clothing, habitat and facial hair, blaming these for Muslims’ supposed inability to blend in. He explained this attitude as follows: “We have to take into consideration the geopolitical challenges France is facing and try, rightly or wrongly, to pinpoint Muslims”8 (2016, 102). Even the words used are appropriated and perverted. Based on these factors, a new category is born: the “Official French” (“la population officiellement de nationalité française”) those who are French only by

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their administrative status, but still foreigners in their heart and mind (2016, 106). Muslims, Islamists, Official French, “Red-Brown axis” as a mix of race and ideology (2016, 121) and so on are all categories, related to the same source: phobia. At a certain stage of the book, the triggers of phobia start to broaden to include the colonial past. First Lacoste invites us to forget about Christian ventures into the mid-East during the time of the Crusades, even while he emphasizes how Muslims invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Second, the fact that Africans used to sell Africans is used to present the larger history of European responsibility for the transatlantic slave-trade as a lie (2016, 110). Then, the history of the Americas is revised, as authors deny both particular genocides and the applicability of the concept of genocide. For Lacoste, Native Americans were victims of diseases, not invasions (2016, 109). The War of Algeria is even denied the status of a War between White Settlers and the French State against the Natives; it is instead considered as a “civil war” between pro-France (settlers and autochthones) and the rest of the population (168–180). This way, the colonial reality is denied. Encel focuses more on political opponents, for example those who oppose US imperialism (125, 127) or show little fidelity to the nation (called “islamo-gauchistes” or leftist-Islamists), while Lacoste targets history programs and asks teachers to stop talking about colonial traumas (115, 118). He expresses his support for enforcing policing structures by giving security forces all the logistical support they need (2016, 104). These examples show how Islamophobia fuels feelings of extreme fear. However, such fear is not completely unproductive. Islamophobics capitalize on the emotion, so that they can essentialize and transubstantiate the Other to serve a hidden agenda. As a result, in a phobic situation, the mind of the target (it can be a reader or a follower or an audience) is incapacitated and cannot adopt a critical stance. Sometimes this phobic perception is close to the mob mentality as defined by Elias Canetti in Crowds and Power (1984) where the masses are hypnotized by rage and confusion. At the same time, it can be the product of a mind trying to fuel feelings and to keep a status quo. Islamophobia is a concept about the impossibility of conceptualizing outside of the “monumental history” that Nietzsche refers to when talking about the ones who worship the past. The multiple calls to reconsider Islamophobia by adopting different terminologies such as Moorphobia, Muslimphobia, Prolophobia and racism, are, in this sense, accurate—the object being Islam as a religion,

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Muslims as an ethno-cultural group and “prolos” as a social group that can, by the same token, include all ethno-religious groups. It is also about the revision of French and world history and the school curriculum, a call for a strong police state, an opposition to all kinds of dissent knowing that France is facing a “red-brown plot”, and a skeptical stance toward the geopolitical environment, especially Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean. It is about the need to reform the foundation of the democratic state and the sense of belonging.

Notes 1. “Au regard des remplacistes à la Trudeau, Macron ou suédois, Hitler ne paraîtra pas moins criminel mais peut-être plus franc, plus net.” @Renaud Camus, Oct 21st, 2017. All translations in the text are mine unless otherwise indicated. 2. Quoted by Rokhaya Diallo in an article in the Washington Post, “French Islamophobia goes global.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ 2019/03/18/french-islamophobia-goes-global/?noredirect=on&utm_ term=.4725761170ae 3. “Désormais, tous ceux qui s’opposent en quelque point du globe à la déchéance de leur peuple, à la décadence de la race et à l’asservissement sont accusés de racisme et de fascisme.” 4. Lumpenproletariat is a concept coined by Karl Marx that refers to unorganized masses. As opposed to the Proletariat, it is seen as deprived of a sense of class conscience. Often, it is considered as the equivalent of malevolent elements in society as in this definition by Anton Allahar: “The lumpenproletariat is not merely a class of unemployed women and men; its ranks are made up of unemployable drunks, drug addicts, ruthless pimps, diseased prostitutes, violent murderers and the like, whose passions revolve around their vices” (51). 5. “Les islamistes détestent la nation. Le concept même, watan en arabe, est considéré comme occidental et antimusulman.” 6. “Le joug, pourtant bénin, de l’autorité française.” 7. Mediology is a philosophy dedicated to the transmission of culture and meaning through technology. It can be viewed as a cousin of transhumanism (a philosophy around the idea of how new technologies can improve dramatically human life and even insure immortality). 8. “Il faut faire face aux périls géopolitiques qui existent en France et chercher à y localizer les musulmans, à tort ou à raison, et à titre de précautions”.

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References Aguilera-Carnerero, Carmen, and Abdul Halik Azeez. 2016. ‘Islamonausea, Not Islamophobia’: The Many Faces of Cyber Hate Speech. Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research 9 (1): 21–40. Allahar, Anton. 2003. ‘Racing’Caribbean Political Culture: Afrocentrism, Black Nationalism and Fanonism. In Modern Political Culture in the Caribbean, ed. Holger Henke and Fred Reno, 21–58. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. Bajos, Sandrine. 2018. Zemmour, numéro 1 des ventes de livres, détrône Nothomb. Le Parisien. http://www.leparisien.fr/culture-loisirs/livres/zemmour-numero1-des-ventes-de-livres-detrone-nothomb-27-09-2018-7905015.php. Accessed 12 Jan 2019. Beggar, Abderrahman. 2013. Maure. Dictionnaire de la méchanceté, ouvrage collectif dirigé par Lucien Faggion et Christophe Regina. Paris: Max Milo, coll, « Beaux livres ». Bezouh, Malik. 2015. France-islam: le choc des préjugés. Notre histoire des croisades à nos jours. Paris: Plon. Binet, René. 1950. Théorie du racisme. Paris: l’Auteur. Bréville, Benoît. 2015. Islamophobie ou prolophobie ? Monde Diplomatique 2: 22. Accessed 1 May 2019. Brotton, Jerry. 2016. The Sultan And The Queen, The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam. New York: Penguin. Bruckner, Pascal. 2017. Un racisme imaginaire: islamophobie et culpabilité. Paris: Grasset. Camus, Renaud. 2011. Le Grand Remplacement. Neilly-Sur-Seine: David Reinharc. ———. 2014. France: suicide d’une nation. Béziers: Éditions Moricus. Coll. “Coups de colère”. Canetti, Elias. 1984. Crowds and Power. Trans. Carol Stewart. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. Debray, Ré. 2004. Transmitting Culture. Trans. Eric Rauth. New York: University of Colombia Press. De Gobineau, A. 1967. Essai sur l’inégalité des races humaines. Paris: Éditions Pierre Belfond. Delafosse, Maurice. 1972. (Re-print from 1912). Haut-Sénégal-Niger. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose. Dinet, Etienne, and Sliman Ben Ibrahim. 1925. L’Orient vu de l’Occident. Paris: H. Piazza. Eagleton, Terry. 2010. On Evil. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Encel, Frédéric, and Yves Lacoste. 2016. Géopolitique de la nation française. Paris: PUF.

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Ermakoff, Thierry. 2015. Charb. Lettre aux escrocs de l’islamophobie qui font le jeu des racistes. Paris: Les Échappés. Faye, Guillaume. 1985. Les nouveaux enjeux idéologiques. Paris: Éditions du Labyrinthe, Coll, “Les cahiers de la nouvelle droite”. Finkielkraut, Alain. 2013. L’identité malheureuse. Paris: Stock. Gans, Eric, and Lawrence. 1981. The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation. Berkeley: University of California Press. Guirous, Lydia. 2017. Ça n’a rien à voir avec l’islam? Paris: Plon. Hajjat, Abdellali, and Marwan Mohammed. 2013. Islamophobie. Comment les élites françaises fabriquent le « problème musulman ». Paris: La Découverte. Henriot, Emile. 1958. Neuf siècles de littérature française: I. Revue Des Deux Mondes (1829–1971): 193–214. Marty, Paul. 1921. L’islam en Guinée: Fouta-Diallon. Paris: Édition René Leroux. Coll. “Revue du Monde Musulman”. Plenel, Edwy. 2016. Pour les musulmans. Nouvelle édition revue et augmentée. Paris: La Découverte. Proctor, Robert, and Londa Schiebinger. 2008. Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Pruvost, Jean. 2017. Nos ancêtres les Arabes. Paris: Jc Lattès. Quellien, Alain. 1910. La politique musulmane dans l’Afrique occidentale française. Paris: Émile Larose. Rokhaya, Diallo. 2018. French Islamophobia goes global. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/18/french-islamophobia-goes-global/?utm_term=.373d05bc1ef8. Accessed 19 Mar 2019. Russell, Bertrand. 1967. Power. In A New Social Analysis. London: Unwin Books. Ye’or, Bat. 2005. Eurabia. In The Euro-Arab Axis. Cranbury: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. Zemmour, Éric. 2014. Le suicide français. Paris: Albin Michel.

CHAPTER 12

Framing the Immigration Discourse and Drawing the Citizen: Concrete Representations of the “Migration Crisis” in Comics Journalism Simona Emilia Pruteanu

“The citizen is not a concrete individual. One does not meet the citizen. It is a subject of law” (27),1 French political scientist Dominique Schnapper wrote in his entry on citizenship for the Republican Guide (Guide Républicain), a pedagogical reference tool published in 2004. And yet, in the current political climate, dominated by what has been termed since 2015 “the European migration crisis”, media and political discourse routinely use abstract notions such as citizen, nationality and identity as if they were interchangeable with the individual characterised by those adjectives. In the last decade several studies have shown that media actions can have the effect of fostering a ‘crisis mentality’ (Esses et al. 2013) in which immigrants and refugees are portrayed as ‘enemies at the gate’, ready to invade and destroy Western civilisation. Esses et al. argue that such media cover-

S. E. Pruteanu (*) Department of Languages and Literatures, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_12

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age transforms relatively ordinary episodes into newsworthy events that serve as support for extreme political platforms. This chapter focuses on the role that comics journalism, a relatively new branch within the popular cultural medium of the graphic novel, seems to have undertaken in response to the way media portrays the subject of undocumented immigrants. Often based on the author’s personal experience, “these graphic reports convey a clearly subjective viewpoint but have a documentary vocation, based on facts. … They differ from the mass media in the way they observe and depict reality, in the way they address the reader” (Howell 2016, 20). In this chapter, we explore two examples of such work—Droit du sol by Charles Masson and Clandestino by Aurel. Both books depict the plight of undocumented immigrants who attempt to cross into European territories in search of a better life. They also graphically express emotions and portray real individuals with complex lives which go unnoticed in the shadow of the all-purpose concept of ‘illegal immigration’. After a brief review of the inaccuracy and ambiguity of this term, we will focus on the image of the author/reporter as the witness in the two works, a symbol of authenticity of the facts related. I am proposing that Masson’s and Aurel’s writing and drawing styles allow both the authors to raise awareness of the complexities of the often called “illegal immigration” by offering “a purposefully subjective view that actively seeks to humanise frequently dehumanised accounts in the press and mass media” (Howell 2016, 20). This personal view belongs to a subject embodied by the author/reporter who, I argue, only allows themselves a partly fictitious identity in the narrative thus inscribing graphic novels in the biofiction literary genre. Moreover, I will also show that both Masson and Aurel’s works link the lack of civic integration of migrants to sexual and labour exploitation by the host country.

Mis-representing Immigrants: What’s in a Word? In his article which argues that clandestine migration is asocial construct of the twenty-first century, Franck Düvell immediately points out that any sort of research in the field is bound to stumble upon terminology because “No fewer than six different expressions are applied: clandestine, illegal, unlawful, undocumented, unauthorized and irregular migration” (2008, 484). Düvell’s analysis of a rich corpus including books, journal articles, newspapers and even encyclopaedic entries reveals that these terms are often used interchangeably, which is of course inappropriate, since each term has its specific reference point such as law, crime, identity documents

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or regularity (2008, 484). Furthermore, they rarely take into account all three aspects which accompany immigrant status, namely entry, residence and employment.2 However, when one takes into account the specific contexts in which these terms occur, Düvell’s conclusion is that researchers and public figures alike find it hard to avoid the emotional and political charged environment which has seen the term clandestine migration appearing most often within the framework of national security concerns: For instance, some sources emphasize the criminal aspect of clandestine migration and associate it with other social concerns such as ‘unpaid taxes, and rising crime and unemployment rates’ (Akhmeteli 2007: 1). Other sources like to allege that there are one million or more migrants in Libya alone who are waiting to clandestinely enter Western Europe (e.g. Laurence Hart, IOM representative in Libya quoted in BBC, 2008). Such practices contribute to a sense of threat and panic, fueling angst amongst the host society. For others, clandestine migrants are instead victims of crime. (2008, 485)

Back in 1998, Mireille Rosello had already revealed a clear symbiosis between media and politics in an article on undocumented immigrants in France when she quoted Didier Fassin’s study on the power of semantics3 which can lead to “a dangerous tautology between two supposedly separate realms: that of representation and that of policy-making” (1998, 137). The historical event depicted in Rosello’s study marks a shift in perspective, when those labelled as ‘illegal immigrants’ decided to take control over their situation and rename themselves ‘undocumented’ (sans-­ papiers). The incident—which has become known as the Saint-Bernard Affair, when over 300 undocumented immigrants took refuge in a church in Paris for several months—was sparked by the swift changes that had recently been made in France’s immigration policy, especially the adoption of the second Pasqua Law in 1993 which made overnight ‘illegal’ and ‘clandestine’ immigrants out of people who had been granted residence status before and were waiting for their papers. The laws concerning immigration in France had rapidly succeeded one another between the 1970s and the 1990s, and they had become more and more restrictive. For example, in 1976 a decree announced the withdrawal of a Resident Permit (valid for ten years, renewable and allowing the holder to work or study) if the holder should find themselves unemployed or without resources for more than six months, while the Bonnet Law of 1980 allowed a person’s expulsion from the country in cases of irregular entrance

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or irregular stay. Even stricter, the first Pasqua Law, adopted in 1986, empowered officials to immediately send back any person found without the legal papers, while the second Pasqua Law, adopted in 1993, lengthened the detention time of people in custody, denied immigrants with papers in process the right to ask for social welfare and, among others, restrained the rights concerning family reunion visas for immigrants. The law also immediately revoked the automatic right to French citizenship by virtue of birth on the national soil. As Rosello points out in her analysis, since illegality is an abstract concept, it is relatively easy for politicians and the media to pen the narrative of an ‘illegal immigration’ by pairing it with more concrete concepts such as ethnicities and races. This is why Rosello states that switching to the term ‘undocumented immigrants’ (les sans-papiers) “represented a new authoring principle”, which opened the way for new visual narratives on immigration: The sans-papiers capitalized on the ambiguity of that hyphen and introduced a new element in the system of representation: by focusing on the absence of papers and not on the ‘fake’ passports, they made it clear that the way in which illegal immigration is defined determines what are going to be the acceptable or justifiable responses to the illegal immigrant. (1998, 147)

Twenty years after Rosello’s somewhat optimistic conclusion, Masson and Aurel’s works revive the question of the agency of the irregular migrant. Their representations of the lives and work conditions of individuals cast aside as illegal by the state highlight the extreme vulnerability of such people who are often subjected to a type of modern slavery.

The Reporter as Author and Witness: Literary Reportage Versus News Coverage Although they do not belong to what is strictly known as ‘news coverage’, which follows often unexpected events, publicised as soon as they happen, Droit du sol and Clandestino are written in the vein of what Mélodie Simard-Houde calls reportage feuilletonesque or series like reportage (2017, 254). This kind of reporting is less subject to temporal laws of immediacy as its subject will not disappear if the reporter chooses to cover it over a span of time; nevertheless, its essence is still determined by the cultural, political, social and economic circumstances, which also include

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current, pressing issues. While Aurel’s main occupation is that of a reporter turned author, Charles Masson is a former doctor who spent five years working in Mayotte before settling on the neighbouring island of La Réunion. His choice of subject and the abundance of details underline his kinship with the figure of the nineteenth-century travel reporter who combines the three postures of news mediator, writer and hero in a variety of communication tools and speeches (Simard-Houde 2017, 14). One of the many evolutions in the journalistic style that Simard-Houde discusses in her study involves nineteenth-century ‘voyage chroniclers’ who, without being specifically called reporters, contribute to the development of faraway imagery, reaffirm the journalist stance and enrich the reporting poetics (2017, 44).4 In his interviews Masson has insisted on the fact that Droit du sol was primarily written for the French readers so that they would learn of the harsh realities in France’s Department of Mayotte.5 The events he illustrates originate in real events, a collection of real scenes, which he witnessed or heard about from locals as well as from clandestine migrants, according to the acknowledgements. In addition, the book is dedicated to Patrice who “left us, one morning, on his couch in the centre of Mayotte; at the same moment, on another island, I was drawing his character. We miss him.”6 Aurel, the author of Clandestino, drew on the unused material he had gathered with another journalist, Pierre Daum, for a series of exposés commissioned by Le Monde Diplomatique as he felt that the stories of irregular migrants he had encountered needed to be heard. Aurel purposely avoided creating a reporting graphic novel where he would have become the narrator after having tried this approach first and obtaining, by his own admission, “an inconclusive and self-absorbed text” (Laurent Filippi 2014, online). Instead, he opted to create the fictional character of Hubert Paris, which allowed him a certain distance and at the same time a certain freedom in the narration (Truc 2014, online). The album’s afterword, just like Masson’s, insists on the fictionalising of true events and authentic lives: “If the scenarios are fictitious, the situations reported, as well as most of the characters, are inspired by proven facts and real people whose words are transcribed here.”7 Masson and Aurel make use of the post-modern novelistic strategy of the ‘biofiction’8 in their albums in order to paint a larger picture of immigration policies, religion and multi-­cultural societies. While all the information is based on his knowledge and experiences, Aurel admitted to having combined different feature stories he had researched which were not necessarily related to one another in real life. The author does not alter the veracity of the facts but he makes a choice

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when it comes to their order and arrangement. The result of this skilfully arranged puzzle is a diversity of personal points of view which guide readers towards breaking the walls of the stereotyped formulae they are so used to, such as ‘the migrant crisis’ or ‘the clandestine experience’. According to Tony Barber, Europe Editor of The Financial Times, these seemingly all-purpose terms are meant to distract the public from the real issue, which is Europe’s current political crisis.9 Droit du sol and Clandestino immediately position the current historical and political debates on their covers both through text and images, and in doing so establish a clear idea as to whose identity is going to be discussed. The titles are not at all metaphorical: droit du sol is the legal term jus soli meaning “tie of land”, which immediately brings to mind the French model of nationality as opposed to the German one, which is based on ties of blood and ethnicity. Under the title we see the drawing of a black pregnant woman, in what appears to be African garments, kneeling on sand and looking in the distance, her back at the ocean. The image of undocumented migrants, especially pregnant women from Comoros, trying to reach the French Department of Mayotte to give birth there so that their babies can gain French citizenship, is thus conjured. The four islands of the Comoros Archipelago—Grande Comore, Moheli, Anjouan and Mayotte, formerly French territories—united in a four-island vote in 1975 and thereby gained independence from France. Nonetheless, in a move still considered controversial, the island of Mayotte organised a unilateral referendum and chose to remain under French administration as an overseas department or DOM (Département d’outre mer). Mayotte’s overall standard of living has improved since, while the independent Union of Comoros (consisting of the other three islands) has been plagued by poverty and no fewer than 20 attempted or successful military coups. In 1995 visa requirements were introduced restricting travel between the Union’s three islands and Mayotte, and many Comorians already in Mayotte found themselves labelled as illegal or clandestine immigrants. This move encouraged human trafficking from the other islands on unstable kwassa-kwassa, basic wooden boats, with a large number of pregnant women attempting to cross. Mayotte’s medical centre is now France’s largest maternity clinic, which in 2017 registered 9674 live births, surpassing its previous record of 9514 births in 2016. In 2018 the Minister of French Overseas Territories suggested changing the maternity clinic’s status to that of an ‘international zone’, so that the newborn would be registered under their parents’ nationality. While many French officials are shocked by such an initiative,10

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which would clearly violate the jus soli principle, it is worth noting that in order for a child to acquire French nationality, if born of foreign parents on French soil, he or she can only do so at the age of 18 and only if they have resided in France for the last five years without interruption. Thus, a baby born in Mayotte of Comorian parents will still be a Comorian citizen if they do not reside continuously in Mayotte after turning 13. What this new measure would achieve is a more precise targeting of undocumented female migrants and their families who could be more easily identified and deported. For its part, Clandestino’s cover tries to capture the main themes of the album in two images. First, the title references, according to Aurel himself, musician Manu Chao’s 1998 title track, which quickly became a political statement around Latin America. Born in France of Spanish immigrant parents, the singer was struck at the end of the 1990s by the increasingly strict immigration requirements and expressed his frustration during an interview for BBC news in 2010: “It’s stupid, just because I was born with a French passport, I have the right to travel all around the world, but if I was born in Mali, or Venezuela or Bolivia I couldn’t. That’s just crazy.”11 In Aurel’s work, the title Clandestino is presented in a big, bold font and separates two images. In one we can see an overcrowded patera in the middle of the sea, while in the other we can read, in Spanish, an inscription on a wall, stating that “immigrants are also part of the working class”. The two images announce the big issues that animate the album, clandestine migration and the subsequent work as well as social integration challenges faced by the migrants. The graffiti on the wall is very similar to the chants voice by the undocumented immigrants in the US back in 2006, when millions of people gathered in Chicago and Los Angeles to protest House of Representatives Bill HR4437, sponsored by Wisconsin Congressman James Sensenbrenner12: “Somos la clase obrera de EEUU / We Are The Working Class of the United States.” Despite its title, Droit du sol lets us see early on that most of the characters, especially the European ones, equate nationality with ethnicity, and citizenship rights with religious choices, since Mayotte’s population is 95% Muslim. Masson’s graphic novel was published in 2008, one year after the creation of the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development of France by then President Nicolas Sarkozy, who, in doing so, kept a promise he had made during his campaign. Two years later, the government initiated the “Great Debate on the National Identity”, which included hundreds of public meetings as well as a

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­ edicated website inviting answers to the question “For you, what does it d mean to be French?” A research study commissioned by the Transatlantic Council on Migration found that instead of trying to “foster social cohesion around a unified collective identity, the ‘great debate’ has indeed revealed the shadow of doubt constantly cast on the loyalty of immigrants and their descendants” (Patrick Simon 2012, 2). In the first pages of Droit du sol, the reader is introduced to one of the main characters, the young Malagasy Anissa, who dreams of arriving in ‘paradise’ and speaks of Mayotte using the name ‘France’: “I’m only dreaming of having a cellphone to call my mother and tell her I have arrived in France” (DS, 7).13 Although she has received a higher education certificate, she was not able to find work in her home country but is now hoping to get a job in Mayotte. During their crossing, Anissa gleans some ‘real-life’ facts from her crossing companions, who are not novices like her. In their introduction to the edited volume Media and Migration (2001), Russell King and Nancy Wood state that “images transmitted by the destination countries may be a key source of information for potential migrants, and therefore act as an important factor stimulating migrants to move” (vii). Anissa has obviously heard about the French social security system as she joyously exclaims: “It’s amazing, in France one can get paid even when one does not work” (DS, 7).14 The illusion-shattering response to this belief is provided by a group of veiled women, whose faces we see less and less up to the last one in line, whose face is no longer visible: “In the mainland perhaps, but don’t get your hopes up! This is Mayotte!” They are joined by other women, who have crossed before and have been deported: “No gifts for us! We are only left with dreams and hard work!” (DS, 7).15 The conclusion to this exchange is brought by the guide’s barking order, written in big font capitals: “Shut the hell up!” (DS, 7).16 His name is Ahmed and according to the same women he is worse than the Devil, because he is a born-Mahorais. This announces another theme Masson will exploit, the mistreatment of the clandestine migrants by the Mahorais citizens who no longer see themselves as inhabitants of the Indian Ocean, and have internalised the metropolis’ discourse on the evils of immigration. In stark contrast to this perilous voyage described in only two pages, we follow up with the French mid-wife Danièle disembarking from her flight and her first impressions relayed on no less than 21 pages which supports Véronique Bragard’s assertion that “Masson’s text as a whole echoes the fleeting attention the plight of these immigrants receives in the press and also the invisibility of a community whose identity is hard

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for a writer to identify with”(2013, 195). The reader must not forget that every panel is an image filtered through Danièle’s eyes, hence all the smiling faces. Her first words are “how beautiful it is!” (DS, 11)17 Although Danièle notices that people seem very poor, she naively resorts to old colonialist myths such as the need to “bring civilization”. While she is admiring her new neighbourhood, commenting on the fact that she will love living in such ‘disorder’, she tells herself that at least the roads are good, it’s not the Third World: “It makes you think of Madagascar, but with decent infrastructures. No roads full of potholes! Here, everything works. Vive la France! What a delight!” (DS, 25).18 There is a large number of French expatriates living in Mayotte’s capital city, Mamoudzou, and their detailed psychology supports critic Mustapha Harzoune’s belief that “the interest of this instructive album lies in its characters, their fragility and the movement of lives created by Charles Masson” (2009, 201).19 The characters are both witnesses and actors in the socio-political game played on the island and as such their daily lives and assertions acquire documentary value. Jacques is a former heroin addict, who came to the island as there were no job prospects for him in France and who married a local woman and had two daughters. Despite being one of the more likeable characters, empathising with the locals and touched by the immigrants’ suffering, Jacques admits that had it not been for his addiction he would have made a better life for himself in France and would have only come to Mayotte for holidays, like any other good Frenchman. The French view of the island as a tourist destination and illicit sex paradise is best illustrated by Pierre and Anissa’s storyline. Pierre is a doctor who, feeling suffocated by his wife, Berline, leaves France on the grounds of performing humanitarian work. He engages in a relationship with young Anissa, whom he uses to fulfil his sexual fantasies in return for his money and protection while he is on the island. While Pierre does not force the relationship on Anissa, and even thinks at some point that he could marry her in order to help her with her papers, he never even takes the time to accompany her to City Hall, where the clerks refuse to speak to her and Anissa is too frightened to return for fear of being arrested. His ‘protection’ is actually hindering Anissa’s efforts to become documented, since Pierre’s careless behaviour maintains her in a vulnerable position, dependent on his whims, as Didier Bigo suggests in his discussion of territory and security: “The protection model functions very often as a process of victimisation where the protected is either a victim or a criminal. In any case, the protected has difficulty overcoming the relation to regain

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voice and the capacity of acting politically” (2006, 92). When they first meet, Anissa is insulted by Pierre’s casual question “so, you are an illegal?” retorting that she is in fact Malagasy. At that point Anissa is still certain about her identity and her rights but after a few weeks on the island she has obviously internalised society’s accusatory attitude. She is afraid to walk past a policeman and when Pierre tells her to just play cool and forget that she is an illegal immigrant, she cries back in rage: “But I am only an illegal immigrant!” (DS, 259).20 Anissa knows only too well that the only reason the policeman is pretending to not notice her is because Pierre is possessively holding her shoulder but does not know how to function without him. Although not a very developed character in the story, Richard, the on-­ call pediatrist, can be seen as Masson’s, the doctor, alter ego. In a scene at the clinic where one of the women who travelled with Anissa is giving birth to a baby boy, his speech counteracts Danièle’s naïve optimism, their remarks becoming premonitory when we reach the last panel of the album. Danièle likes to think that their presence in Mayotte helping irregular immigrants means that France is willing to open the door to a better world for all the poor people of the region. When she delights in the fact that maternity clinics work around the clock, Richard reminds her that race still plays an important part when it comes to integration, despite France’s ‘colour-blind’ republican principles: “In an ideal world, yes. Except that the kids born here are black. Ask the 60 million guys up there if they want to have black neighbours” (DS, 215). Richard also confesses his pessimism when an elated Danièle coos over the newborn: “There you are, my little Brice Saïd! You were born on French territory. If you want, you could one day be France’s President!” (DS, 219)21 The smaller panel in the same frame contains a warning sentence which echoes Richard’s concerns: “Provided you are given the chance and the necessary time!” (DS, 219).22 While Droit du sol opens with Anissa’s hopes and dreams, even during a dangerous crossing, Clandestino offers a bleak beginning, a panel with two dead bodies, one of which is holding a cardboard sign which reads, in Spanish, “Two for the price of one” (C, 5). The blood-stained sign will make a reappearance towards the end of the album, at the bottom of a white page, in what looks like a police investigation scene, with the yellow ‘Do not cross’ tape and a number ticket on the sign. We learn that the two murdered men were from Mali and that they were brutally hit with a shovel by another clandestine migrant who seems to have lost his mind. According to Aurel this was a true murder case he had researched in Spain,

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where two immigrants who were trying to offer their services and accept just one pay were murdered by other immigrants who feared the impossibility of ever finding work individually. The explicit crime scene on a mostly white page is paralleled with a panel on the next page, in which one-character comments on the high cost that European grocery stores, and implicitly their customers are willing to pay in order to be able to eat cheap out of season vegetables all year long. The idea that everyone is a more or less willing accomplice to these tragedies is supported by the discoveries Hubert Paris makes in Spain. A former editorial secretary, fed up with the fact that his unacknowledged work is what contributes to the rise of the journalistic stars (another wink at the meaning of clandestine), Hubert decides to pursue a reporter career. While hiking in the Cevennes Mountains in France he receives a call from his new employer, the US magazine Struggle, who sends him to Algeria, to report on a double bomb-attack in the capital city. Hubert ends the conversation assuring his boss that they will have a great special issue on the clandestine migrants all around the world. However, once in Algeria, talking to different sources, the focus of his investigation changes to a more economic angle, namely the exploitation of clandestine migrants by European countries. After securing an interview with the director of the Algerian National Employment Agency, Hubert is surprised to be escorted inside the French embassy by the French vice-consul and introduced to the director of Morocco’s National Employment Promotion Agency. While Hubert receives permission to record the discussion, he is asked by the three men not to reveal the place of the meeting. According to the Moroccan director, as twenty-first-century Europe is becoming more reluctant to perform physical agricultural tasks, it still finds itself in need of an unskilled labour force. This is why European countries, which want to control their migratory influx without losing this work force, have decided to create a partnership concerning strawberry picking in Andalusia. Lots of surrealistic details emerge during this conversation which Hubert’s friend and colleague summarises as “the description of this neo-slavery legalized by Europe made by one of its authorized signatories” (C, 19).23 After meeting with two prospective harragas, a name given to North-African clandestine migrants who burn their identity documents in the hope of delaying their deportation, Rachid, an unemployed engineering graduate, and Magyd, a poor illiterate shepherd, Hubert decides to travel ahead to Spain and wait for them. The dark panels show views of a harbour, with the migrants hiding while Hubert is being sea-sick in his cabin. This scene

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can be read as an inscription of the reporter as a ‘real’ witness in the story, with a suffering body, comparable to the news coverage sequences in which anchor people are being rained on, or broadcasting with bombing sounds in the background; at the same time it also marks the difference between those who can choose their means of transportation and suffer minor inconveniences and those who risk their lives in perilous and uncertain journeys. Once in Almeria, Hubert finds out that Rachid has probably drowned and Magyd is arrested for the murder of the two Malian immigrants. The disregard for human life is the last story plot in Droit du sol as well. We see Brice Saïd again on a kwassa-kwassa with his mother, who has been deported in the meantime, but is crossing again in an attempt to get her baby to a doctor in Mayotte for an ear infection. The baby is crying and everyone urges the mother to throw him in the water for fear of being exposed. Right after she does so, the guide announces that it was a false alarm. Both authors illustrate in their panels how easy it is to discard human and ethical issues when one throws in concepts such as immigrants and national security. When the government announces the introduction of Social Security on the island of Mayotte one of the French expatriates rant about excluding migrants from welfare is foretelling of baby Brice’s death: “Imagine that! The undesirables will have to leave! Or else we will throw them into the sea!” (DS, 278). At the same time, these are key moments in comics journalism where the drawing is able to show a moment which a camera would not have been able to capture, or would have not been allowed. Such disturbing panels are ironically juxtaposed with glimpses of the French lives on the island in Masson’s novel, in order to further underline France’s lack of acknowledgement of the tragedies, as Bragard notes: Thus, whilst the story of the French expatriates ends with New Year festivities, Masson’s Droit du sol as a whole end with a scene of terror and sacrifice in which a mother throws her child overboard, thereby foregrounding the desperate struggle of subalterns; this horrific sacrifice is followed by a blank page inscribed simply with the word ‘Brice’, seemingly in an attempt to reassert via the process of naming the migrants’ humanity. (2013, 198)

Hubert also visits a shanty-town where he meets with more Algerian immigrants, who live in unspeakable conditions yet have to pay rent to those who own the lands they are working on. This episode echoes a story published by The Guardian whose findings raised the “spectre of de facto

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state sanctioning of slavery in 21st century Europe” (Felicity Lawrence 2011, online). The article quotes several migrants and local Red Cross coordinators whose remarks all point to the lack of support from society at large: “This is being hidden, people are not interested in making this public. I am not referring to only politicians. Sometimes it’s the society itself—the people—who don’t stand up” (Lawrence 2011). In the end Hubert decides that the only thing he can do is relate the stories he has heard, and not let the migrants’ narratives be taken over and misconstrued by sensational media.

Conclusion Masson and Aurel’s texts can be viewed as pertaining to a hybrid genre, close to what Rosalia Baena calls ‘forms of life writing’ in the subtitle of her edited volume Transculturing Auto/Biography (2014). They mix the genres of travel writing with the graphic novel, combining the investigative journalism with biofiction to produce a pertinent artistic form serving the ideological issues and concerns they want to present. In doing so, they confirm Rocio G. Davis’ theory according to which “writers sensitive to how differences in cultural contexts and paradigms create specific responses revise established genres to destabilize ideology and conventional strategies of meaning in order to enact distinct sociocultural situations. Readers who encounter these revisionary texts are thus obliged to re-examine their expectations and critical perspectives” (2014, 48). Moreover, readers are exposed to authentic stories of real people’s suffering through a more enjoyable medium, but this approach does not alter the informative part. On the contrary, the intermediality quality specific to graphic novels which combine text and image makes them “an appropriate vehicle for an analysis of the marginal status of many migrants” (Bragard 2013, 193). By obtaining a closer look at the people involved in the current mass migration, which is often being presented as a ‘natural disaster’ (Francesca Falk 2012, 89) instead of being assumed as a political consequence of the actions of the countries that have shaped the phenomenon, Masson and Aurel fight against abstract stereotypes which obliterate the real person whose “life is forbidden, according to authorities” (Manu Chao et al. 1998).24

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Notes 1. Translation belongs to Valérie Amiraux who quotes it in her article “Crisis and New Challenges? French Republicanism Featuring Multiculturalism”, in Alessandro Silj (dir.), European Multiculturalism Revisited (London: Zed Books, 2010, p. 94): “Le citoyen n’est pas un individu concret, on ne rencontre pas le citoyen, c’est un sujet de droit”. 2. According to the same study by Düvell, each aspect can be regular or irregular and various combinations are possible, for example, either a person has clandestinely and without authorisation crossed the border of a nation state and is or is not working; or a person who has legally stayed in a given country fails to depart in accordance with the time limit set in his or her visa, overstays, and is or is not working; or a person who is staying in a given country legally is taking up employment in breach of visa regulations and is thereby jeopardising their immigration status; or a person is born to illegal immigrants and becomes an illegal immigrant him or herself by birth without ever having crossed an international border (Social Science Information, 47, no. 4, Dec 2008, p. 487). 3. “Les mots ne servent pas seulement à nommer, qualifier, ou décrire. Ils permettent aussi de fonder les actions et d’orienter les politiques. En désignant comme ‘clandestins’ les étrangers en situation irrégulière sur le territoire français, on les classe dans une catégorie qui mobilise des images—le travailleur entre illégalement dans le pays et justifie des mesures—pour prévenir et réprimer cet état de fait—images et mesures qui sont en quelque sorte incluses dans la façon même de dire les choses” (Didier Fassin, quoted by Mireille Rosello, p. 137). 4. “C’est donc à partir des années 1880 que la figure du reporter, issue de la rubrique des faits divers, commence d’agréger également la figure du correspondant—de guerre ou spécial—celle d’un journaliste qui explore différentes dimensions du monde social et revendique une posture d’écrivain, un style littéraire.” 5. In the French administration, a department is a government level below the national one. Ninety-six departments are in metropolitan France while 5 others, including Mayotte, are overseas departments. Mayotte’s department status is still very recent (2011) and the region remains by far the poorest in France. 6. “Ce livre est dédié à Patrice qui nous a quittés au milieu de ce travail, un matin, sur son canapé à Tsingoni, dans le centre de Mayotte. Au même instant, sur une autre île. Je dessinais son personnage. Il nous manque.” N.A. All translations from the graphic novels in this text are mine.

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7. “Si les mises en scène sont fictives, les situations rapportées ainsi que la plupart des personnages de la BD sont inspirés de faits avérés et de personnes réelles, dont les propos sont ici retranscrits” (Clandestino). 8. Since 1996, French-language writer Régine Robin has adjudicated the term biofiction with the publication of her collections of stories L’immense fatigue des pierres. Biofictions, with each story featuring a fact or event drawn from daily life. Robin, noticing that cultural and geographical boundaries were becoming less distinct, starts pondering, according to Martha Broom, on what the twenty-first-century identity challenges will be: “In each biofiction she traces indistinct, individual quests where one seeks to reclaim their identity from behind the paralyzing silence of History. As the genre ‘biofiction’ indicates, Robin unites both history and imagination in the reconstruction of identities for only the powers of imagination can break down the [sic] History’s walls of silence” (“Constructing an Identity of Relation”, p. 335). 9. “The presence of migrants on the European continent is a European political crisis, not a refugee and migrant crisis” (“Europe Risks Failure on Migration”, Aug 20th, 2018). https://www.ft.com/content/ e45c4b5e-9fcc-11e8-85da-eeb7a9ce36e4 10. France’s National Assembly voted for restricting the territorial principle in Mayotte on July 26, 2018, with a majority of 47 votes for and 19 against. Tunisian-born deputy, Sonia Krimi, spoke after the vote about this measure’s potential of worsening the debate over “those horrible foreigners, of which I am one, who come only to take advantage”. https://www. france24.com/fr/20180726-france-afrique-mayotte-comores-voteassemblee-deputes-droit-sol-limite-immigration 11. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-11058132 12. On Dec. 16, 2005, the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (H.R. 4437) passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 239 to 182. This legislation, sponsored by Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Homeland Security Chairman Peter King(R-NY), seeks to address illegal immigration by strengthening interior enforcement of immigration laws and enacting additional border security measures. Provisions to establish a guest worker programme are not included in this legislation. 13. “Moi, je rêve simplement d’avoir un téléphone portable pour appeler ma mère et lui dire que je suis arrivée en France” (Droit du sol, 7). 14. “Dire qu’en France tu peux être payé même quand tu travailles pas…” (Droit du sol, 7). 15. “En métropole oui, mais rêve pas! Ici c’est Mayotte. Les cadeaux c’est pas pour nous! À nous, il nous reste les rêves et le travail” (Droit du sol, 7). 16. “Vos gueules!” (id.).

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17. “Que c’est beau!” (ibid.). 18. “Et les routes sont bonnes, c’est pas le Tiers-Monde. Ça fait penser à Madagascar, mais avec des infrastructures correctes: pas de routes défoncées. Ici tout fonctionne. Vive la France! Quel bonheur!” (Droit du sol, 25). 19. “L’intérêt de cet album instructif tient à ses personnages, à leur fragilité et au mouvement des existences croquées par Charles Masson” (Harzoune 2009, p. 201). 20. “MAIS JE SUIS UNE CLANDESTINE!” capital letters in original text, DS, 259. 21. “Voilà, mon petit Brice Saïd, tu es né sur le sol français. Si tu veux, tu pourras être Président de la République française!” (Droit du sol, 219). 22. “Si on t’en laisse la possibilité et le temps” (id.). 23. “La description de ce néo-esclavagisme légalisé par l’Europe par l’un de ses signataires” (Clandestino, 19). 24. “Soy una raya en el mar / Fantasma en la ciudad / M i vida va prohibida / Dice la autoridad.”

References Amiraux, Valérie. 2010. Crisis and New Challenges? French Republicanism Featuring Multiculturalism. In European Multiculturalism Revisited, ed. Alessandro Silj, 65–104. London: Zed Books. Aurel. 2014. Clandestino. Un reportage d’Hubert Paris—envoyé spécial. Glénat: Grenoble. Baena, Rosalia, ed. 2014. Transculturing Auto/Biography: Forms of Life Writing. London: Routledge. Barber, Thomas. 2018. Europe Risks Failure on Migration. Financial Times, August 20. https://www.ft.com/content/e45c4b5e-9fcc-11e8-85daeeb7a9ce36e4. Accessed 14 Jan 2019. Bigo, Didier. 2006. Protection: Security, Territory and Population. In The Politics of Protection, Sites of Insecurity and Political Agency, ed. Jeff Huysmans, Andrew Dobson, and Raia Prokhovnik, 84–100. London: Routledge. Bragard, Véronique. 2013. Shipwrecking the World’s ‘Wretched Refuse’: Spectres of Neocolonial Exclusion in Carl de Souza’s Ceux qu’on jette à la mer and Charles Masson’s Droit du sol. In Shipwreck in Art and Literature: Images and Interpretations from Antiquity to the Present Day, ed. Thompson Carl and Josiah Blackmore, 187–203. London: Routledge. Broom, Martha. 2008. Constructing an Identity of ‘Relation’ in Régine Robin’s L’immense fatigue des pierres. Romance Notes 48 (3): 335–343. Chao, Manu, Angelo Mancini, Jeff Cahours, Antoine Chao, Awa Touty Wade, and Anouk. 1998. Clandestino. Virgin Music, Canada.

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Dabitch, Christophe, Étienne Davodeau, Christian Durieux, Benjamin Flao, Manuele Fior, Christophe Gaultier, Simon Hureau, et  al., eds. 2010. Immigrants. Paris: Futuropolis. Davis, G.  Rocio. 2014. A Graphic Self. Comics as Autobiography in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. In Transculturing Auto/Biography: Forms of Life Writing, ed. Rosalia Baena, 47–63. London: Routledge. Düvell, Franck. 2008. Clandestine Migration in Europe. Social Science Information 47 (4): 479–497. Esses, Victoria, Stelian Medianu, and Andrea S.  Lawson. 2013. Uncertainty, Threat, and the Role of the Media in Promoting the Dehumanization of Immigrants and Refugees. Journal of Social Issues 69 (3): 518–536. Falk, Francesca. 2012. Invasion, Infection, Invisibility: An Iconology of Illegalized Immigration. In Images of Illegalized Immigration: Towards a Critical Iconology of Politics, ed. Christine Bischoff, Francesca Falk, and Sylvia Kafehsy, 83–99. Bielefeld: Transcript-Verlag. Fassin, Didier. 1996. Clandestins ou ‘exclus’? Quand les mots font des politiques. Politix 34 (2): 77–86. Filippi, Laurent. 2014. Clandestino, un reportage d’Hubert Paris, dessiné par Aurel. Franceinfo.fr. https://www.francetvinfo.fr/monde/europe/clandestino-un-reportage-dhubert-paris-dessine-par-aurel_3069235.html. Accessed 25 Sep 2018. Harzoune, Mustapha. 2009. Charles Masson, Droit du sol. Hommes & Migrations 1279: 200–201. Howell, Jennifer. 2016. Comics and the Demystification of France’s Immigration ‘Problem’: Reading Christophe Dabitch’s Immigrants. Modern & Contemporary France 24 (1): 15–34. Lawrence, Felicity. 2011. Spain’s Salad Growers are Modern-day Slaves, Say Charities. The Guardian, 7, 2. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/ feb/07/spain-salad-growers-slaves-charities. Accessed 15 Mar 2019. Masson, Charles. 2009. Droit du sol. Tournai: Casterman. Rosello, Mireille. 1998. Representing Illegal Immigrants in France: From clandestins to l’affaire des sans-papiers de Saint-Bernard. Journal of European Studies 28 (1): 137–151. Russell, King, and Nancy Wood. 2001. Media and Migration: Constructions of Mobility and Difference. London: Routledge. Schnapper, Dominique. 2004. Guide Républicain. Paris: La documentation française. Simard-Houde, Mélodie. 2017. Le Reporter et ses fictions. Poétique historique d’un imaginaire. Limoges: Pulim. Simon, Patrick. 2012. French National Identity and Integration: Who Belongs to the National Community, 1–7. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Truc, Jean-Laurent. 2014. Rencontre avec Aurel pour Clandestino, du dessin politique au reportage dessiné. Ligne Claire, 25 fevrier 2014. https://www.ligneclaire.info/hubert-paris-envoye-special-12753.html. Accessed 16 Oct 2018.

CHAPTER 13

Navigating Diversity: Multiculturalism as a Heuristic Christopher G. Anderson

Introduction Multiculturalism has been a prominent, controversial and unfolding political issue in liberal-democratic states since at least the 1990s. For some, it provides a means to promote social, economic and political integration within diverse societies. This outlook, of course, has been central to Canadian national politics and has been elaborated most extensively perhaps by political philosopher Will Kymlicka. For others, multiculturalism constitutes a failed approach that fosters fragmentation by reinforcing cultural differences over national unity. This has led many politicians, commentators and academics—particularly in Europe—to pronounce “the death of multiculturalism.” A central feature of the debate produced through these and other contrasting views stems—as highlighted by Mielusel and Pruteanu in their introductory chapter—from ambiguity and eclecticism concerning the actual meaning of multiculturalism, which is nonetheless often discussed as though it is a bounded, stable and portable set of concepts and practices, with readably discernable and predictable C. G. Anderson (*) Department of Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3_13

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consequences. As a result, critics and supporters alike frequently expect both too much and too little of multiculturalism. Alongside their distinct contributions, the chapters collected here provide a welcome opportunity to reflect on this ambiguity and eclecticism. In the process, the utility of the concept and practice across disciplines can be explored in the face of the considerable political opposition it faces today, even as liberal democracies struggle in formulating effective responses to the challenges they perceive to arise from cultural diversity. As will be seen, recognition of multiculturalism’s malleable and political dimensions is a requisite feature of (re)positioning it as a particular kind of analytic tool—a heuristic—for navigating cultural diversity.1 Derived from a Greek word (εὑρίσκω) that translates as “to discover” or “to find,” a heuristic provides an “approach to problem solving … that employs a practical method, not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, logical, or rational, but instead sufficient for reaching an immediate goal” (Wikipedia 2019). While it may not solve a given problem, a heuristic can be used fruitfully to model issues that arise, for example, from cultural diversity in a given context (social, economic and political). And as with any model that represents but is not the thing for which it stands, it can assist in developing important lines of inquiry and insight into how such issues can better be understood and navigated. This chapter begins by underscoring the need for such a tool in the face of continued and pressing debates about cultural diversity in Canada, Quebec and France. These debates are not just academic but have profound implications for the security and well-being of citizens and non-­ citizens in liberal democracies as well as for social cohesion and political stability. Next, the chapter considers multiculturalism’s origins within the Canadian context, which shed light on its intrinsic malleable and political characteristics. At its core, multiculturalism entails an effort to “provide some level of public recognition, support or accommodation to non-­ dominant ethnocultural groups” in a given political community (Kymlicka 2007, 16). As such, it constitutes a necessarily limited tool, and while some limitations are inherent to its operation within states that are liberal and democratic, others are more a matter of political choice. On this foundation the chapter then explores multiculturalism’s uses as a framework for analysis and a set of policies, drawing on the arguments and findings presented in the preceding chapters. In the final section, multiculturalism’s symbolic use is examined, and a case is made for its continued relevance as a heuristic for understanding and navigating cultural diversity.

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The Political Challenges of Cultural Diversity In the coming decades, liberal democracies will experience increasing cultural diversity, and a growing percentage of the national citizenry will originate from non-majority cultural groups through international migration, naturalization and birth. Although assimilationist approaches such as those adopted in France in the name of republicanism/secularism are claimed to provide solutions to the challenges perceived to arise from such diversity, their ability to do so remains very much in doubt. By definition, such approaches strictly delineate and underscore markers of difference through the promotion of a culturally exclusive interpretation of national identity. This further marginalizes minority populations (socially, economically and politically) while validating a majoritarian politics of resentment and exclusion. In addition, there are concerns of growing organized political extremism alongside acts of violence (planned or executed) on the part of majority as well as minority population actors. In the face of such developments, an assimilationist approach provides few obvious tools with which to respond apart from those that continue to emphasize and exclude difference. Thus, while not all challenges associated with cultural diversity can be assigned to assimilationist approaches, the political rejection of multiculturalism has serious implications for a liberal-democratic state’s ability to navigate them. This can be seen, to varying degrees, across the three cases profiled in this book. For its part, Canada has an incredibly and increasingly diverse citizenry and immigrant population (Statistics Canada 2016a, 2017) yet displays strong public support for multiculturalism. Indeed, studies find consistently high levels of support for immigration and cultural diversity as well as religious diversity (Bloemraad 2012; Gonzales-Barrera and Connor 2019; Hiebert 2016; Soroka and Roberton 2010). In addition, the vast majority of immigrant Canadians (93 percent) express a “very strong or strong sense of belonging to Canada,” including those (69 percent) with significant continued source country attachment (Statistics Canada 2016b). These outcomes are neither accidental nor inevitable but can be traced to political intent.2 For example, Banting (2010, 814) finds that state-led promotion of an “incorporation regime has nurtured these attitudes and conditioned the ways in which public attitudes are mobilized politically,” including planned immigration alongside “a multicultural conception of the country.” Although comparatively modest, opposition to multiculturalism and to people of non-European origins nonetheless

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exists. In fact, 2019 polling finds growth in public concern over the number of “visible minorities” settling in Canada (still well below levels expressed in the 1990s; Ekos 2019), and 2017 saw a sharp increase in reported hate crimes against black, Jewish and Muslim populations (Statistics Canada 2018). Thus, while support for multiculturalism remains strong in Canada, there are indications of a potential anti-immigrant populist turn as race comes to play a more prominent part in public concerns over immigration and the cultural diversity it produces (Glavin 2019). The potential for such a populist turn is already indicated in Quebec, where the recently elected Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) government forced closure on the legislative debate over its “secularism law.” This new legislation “makes it illegal to wear religious symbols at work if you’re a public school teacher, a police officer, a judge, a prison guard, a wildlife officer, a Crown prosecutor or if you work as a lawyer for the government,” and authorizes the creation of an agency (soon dubbed the “secularism police”) to monitor compliance (Shingler and Montpetit 2019). The law also sets out requirements for uncovered faces when requesting public services. While the CAQ promotes the legislation as embodying what most Quebecers want, opposition parties maintain that human rights should not be subject to the will of the majority. The law will, critics predict, further marginalize racial minorities (especially women) in the province socially, economically and politically, and increase discrimination and violence against Muslims in particular. Even as reports emerged of a rise in such acts after the legislation was introduced (Montpetit 2019), polling revealed that “[a]nti-Muslim sentiment appears to be the main motivation for those who support a ban on religious symbols” (Magder 2019). In addition, the continued privileging of the majority Catholic faith could be seen in the government’s decision to retain a large crucifix in the provincial legislature on the basis that it embodies Quebec cultural rather than Catholic religious symbolism (Riga 2019). While the law immediately faced a court challenge and has been criticized by Canada’s three main national political parties, it generated support (albeit less than in Quebec) across the country (Magder 2019). As in Quebec, secularism in France has also been a selective political construct, as evidenced by the French government’s language in its concern to see the Notre Dame cathedral rebuilt following its partial destruction by fire in 2019.3 Indeed, observers have noted a curious alignment of the Catholic Church and secular state advocates in the promotion of secularism in France, as the more traditional political parties have sought to

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stave off the electoral success of the far right in politicizing Islamic signs such as the veil (Laxer 2019). More generally, in France and beyond in Europe, concerns have been raised that the prominence of the far right has facilitated the rise of “Christian-nativist populism” against cultural diversity (Erasmus 2019). Thus, the debate over secularism in France, and the practices that have limited the scope of religious freedom for Muslims in particular as a result, have never simply been about the separation of church and state. In the name of secularism, however, Muslims in France— citizens and non-citizens, already living lives of relative social, economic and political precarity—face increasing acts of discrimination, especially women (European Agency for Fundamental Rights 2019). In addition, there are concerns over the spread of white extremist violence against Muslims and Jews in France and other European liberal democracies (Cai and Landon 2019). At the same time, there is every reason to expect that cultural diversity—driven by such factors as immigration, the arrival of refugees and in-country births among non-majority populations—will continue to increase in coming years. Multiculturalism has played out differently in each of the three political settings surveyed in this book: celebrated in Canada, neutralized in Quebec and rejected in France. In the French case, it is not clear that the assimilationist alternative pursued during the past few decades has provided state or society with the tools to respond to perceived threats to social cohesion and national identity. Indeed, the politics of assimilation almost invariably assigns blame for such threats to groups already marginalized socially, economically and politically, which results in policies likely to further entrench their precarity. Those who support assimilationist policies, however, are reluctant to make this connection,4 which deepens the mark of an evident vicious circle. In such a context, the need for a tool that is able to understand and navigate cultural diversity better becomes obvious and pressing.

Multiculturalism and Political Intent in Canada Although multiculturalism is global in significance and application (Kymlicka 2007), it is Canadian in origin. An examination of its roots helps in recognizing its intrinsic malleable and political characteristics and thus in (re)positioning its conceptual and practical relevance today. In the process, it is important to approach it as a tool with limitations, some inherent to its operation within states that are liberal and democratic,

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­ thers more a matter of political choice. It nonetheless fosters an outlook o and approach that ensures that minority population identities and interests are kept closer to the center of analysis and policy. It does not provide a specific content or endpoint as much as facilitate a process for public recognition and discourse. It offers a means to navigate over time, rather than settle in advance, issues of cultural diversity. Multiculturalism does not, then, promise a simple resolution to what are understood to be complex issues but rather seeks to establish clearer foundations for informed political intent. While cultural diversity has deep pre-Confederation and pre-colonial roots in Canada, an official commitment to cultural diversity as opposed to cultural assimilation, exclusion or even destruction only emerged well after the Second World War (Day 2000; Iacovetta 2006; Pal 1993). It was produced by the politics surrounding demands from Quebec in the 1960s for greater recognition and autonomy. Thus, the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism formed in 1963 was to “inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution” (Canada 1967, 173; emphasis added). The Commission’s work generated significant mobilization by non-majority European-origin groups seeking to ensure their cultural identity and interests were not ignored in efforts to address English-­ French political tensions (Kobayashi 2008). Although the Commission advanced a positive view of the contribution of non-majority groups to Canada and made recommendations to provide support and decrease discrimination, it nonetheless privileged a bicultural approach to Canadian identity (Canada 1969). Soon thereafter, however, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau unveiled an official policy of “multiculturalism within a bilingualism framework,” establishing core principles that still inform Canada’s approach to cultural diversity. It is worth quoting at length. The government, Trudeau said (Canada 1971, 8545), took the position that there cannot be one cultural policy for Canadians of British and French origin, another for the original [Indigenous] peoples and yet a third for all others. For although there are two official languages, there is no official

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culture, nor does any ethnic group take precedence over any other. No citizen or group of citizens is other than Canadian, and all should be treated fairly… [Thus, a] policy of multiculturalism within a bilingual framework commends itself to the government as the most suitable means of assuring the cultural freedom of Canadians. Such a policy should help to break down discriminatory attitudes and cultural jealousies. National unity if it is to mean anything in the deeply personal sense, must be founded on confidence in one’s own individual identity; out of this can grow respect for that of others and a willingness to share ideas, attitudes and assumptions. A vigorous policy of multiculturalism will help create this initial confidence. It can form the base of a society which is based on fair play for all.

More specifically, the new policy would (a) provide financial support to cultural groups so that they could “continue to develop a capacity to grow and contribute to Canada,” (b) “assist members of all cultural groups to overcome cultural barriers to full participation in Canadian society,” (c) “promote creative encounters and interchange among all Canadian cultural groups in the interest of national unity” and (d) help newcomers learn English or French (ibid. 8546).5 At the same time, Trudeau stressed that “[t]he individual’s freedom would be hampered if he [sic] were locked for life within a particular cultural compartment” (ibid., 8545). Thus, against a status quo anchored in—primarily—British-origin dominance, the government felt that multiculturalism would provide “a unifying force to build a strong Canadian identity” (Cabinet documents from 1971, in Uberoi 2008, 809). Multiculturalism in Canada was, then, from the outset a liberal idea aimed at increasing freedom and equality among and within cultural groups and—as a result—within the national political community. It did not establish a specific content to cultural freedom and equality but initiated a process for public recognition and discourse. In short, it provided a means to navigate over time, rather than settle in advance, issues of cultural diversity. Moreover, this process was to unfold within a majoritarian context, defined, for example, by the rule of law and the two dominant languages—English and French (later, greater emphasis would be placed on the distinctive place of Indigenous cultures and rights as well). It did not establish an absolute equality among cultures but rather anticipated greater equality circumscribed and mediated by the country’s political foundations (themselves subject to change over time).6

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In other words, multiculturalism emerged within the confines of the state as a state and conditioned by its liberal and democratic characteristics. It therefore necessarily operates within a political context of unequal power relations—not least of which because “the process of nation-­ building inescapably privileges members of the [dominant] culture” (Kymlicka 1998, 29). In the Canadian case, this extends from the country’s existence as a settler society, wherein the imposition and then maintenance of British (and to some degree French) identity and interests established basic parameters for contemporary Canadian political life (Stasiulis and Yuval-Davis 1995).7 Multiculturalism is further “guided and constrained by a foundational commitment to principles of individual freedom and equality” (Kymlicka 2007, 7). Thus, recognition and accommodation of cultural diversity is but one dimension of a more extensive national political project. Not only does this political context place multiculturalism in an inherently unstable position, but “[f]ar from guaranteeing the protection of the traditional ways of life of either the majority or minorities, [it] poses multiple challenges to them” (Kymlicka 2007, 100). This indeterminate condition with constrained opportunities for change fits comfortably within recent work on the illiberal liberalism of liberal-­ democratic states. Although inconsistencies and ambiguities—even contradictions—have long been understood to exist within liberal political systems, the notion of illiberal liberalism has recently been used to understand state responses to diversity stemming from international migration (Bauböck and Joppke 2010; Bigo and Anastassia 2008). The fact that an “illiberal” approach is taken toward different groups is not, therefore, an aberration or perversion of liberal-democratic politics; rather, “illiberal policies [are] intrinsic” to liberal democracies because such systems are open to (democratic) public contestation and therefore practices that meet a wide range of perceived political interests (King 1999, 26).8 In lieu of utopic outcomes where all tensions are resolved, political choices are made that variably combine the ideals of the liberal and democratic features of the state within shifting but unequal power relations anchored in the state as a state. Thus, while “liberals have certainly been concerned to promote some kinds of liberty…, they have generally located these concerns within the broader task of governing populations,” which involves both liberal and illiberal principles and techniques (Hindess 2004, 33). For its part, multiculturalism serves as a tool both to define and question illiberal practices with respect to cultural diversity, and to envision and promote alternatives. It does not do so, however, as a bounded, stable and portable set

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of concepts and practices, with readably discernable and predictable consequences. Rather, it necessarily embodies an ambiguity and eclecticism reflective of its intrinsic malleable and political characteristics. These intrinsic aspects can be seen as the focus and purposes of multiculturalism in Canada  have been adjusted over time.9 At first, during a period of “ethnicity multiculturalism,” it was directed toward promoting cultural understanding between groups. As immigration patterns shifted toward non-European countries in the 1970s, however, it moved to combating racial discrimination and inequality in the 1980s, bringing about a period of “equity multiculturalism.” This increasingly rights-based approach was underscored by the incorporation of multiculturalism within the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms10 and the passage of the 1988 Canadian Multiculturalism Act.11 During the 1990s, a less interventionist approach took hold reflecting the rise of neo-liberal governance practices, leading to a new emphasis on “selling diversity” both at home and abroad as a distinctive advantage in and trait of Canada (Abu-Laban and Gabriel 2002). While the celebration of cultural difference and efforts to overcome discrimination continued, multiculturalism was now promoted as a basic feature of Canadian national identity, captured in the notion of “civic multiculturalism.” This status was seen in the Liberal government’s 2002 decision by Royal Proclamation to designate June 27 of each year as Canadian Multiculturalism Day. For its part, when the Conservative government issued an official guide to the rights and responsibilities of Canadian citizenship in 2009, multiculturalism was identified as “[a] fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity” (Citizenship and Immigration Canada 2009, 8). Such an approach was nonetheless amenable to a more exclusive interpretation of the values said to define Canadian national identity (Tonon and Raney 2013). The malleable and political characteristics of multiculturalism can also be seen in the shifting criticisms made against it (for an overview, see Ryan 2010). From the beginning, multiculturalism was perceived by some as a threat to Quebecois and Indigenous identities and interests to the extent that it rendered their cultures and rights, and thus political status, merely equivalent to more recent immigrant groups. It was also held to fix non-­ majority communities in a subservient position by distracting them from their predominantly working-class interests or by pigeon-holing them within cultural communities. With the intensification of globalization came growing concerns over whether “[e]thnicity has now become the principle challenge to our citizenship” by promoting difference over

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national unity (Gwyn 1995, 233; see also Bissoondath 1994). After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States, focus shifted to whether Muslims in particular constituted threats to public order or even national security, which produced highly racialized and gendered discourses and practices around their purported willingness or even ability to conform to Canadian norms and values (Gregg 2006; Valpy 2005). This carried forward into more generalized worries that by worshiping “the deity of multiculturalism we risk losing our center of gravity and our fragile sense of place” (Cohen 2007, 163), which produced calls to counter diversity with “a one-size fits-all national culture” based on “the immutable beliefs about the nature and purpose of Canadian society that our forebears fought to establish over generations” (Griffiths 2009, 32, 96). Such criticisms bear closely on the recent prominence of populist politics in Canada and beyond. Multiculturalism as a concept and practice is, contrary to what is expressed in much public and political discourse, a tool with limitations, empowered and constrained by the political context of the state as a state that is liberal and democratic. It does not provide a singular solution to and cannot be held singularly responsible for all challenges perceived to arise from cultural diversity. It does, however, foster an outlook and approach that ensures that minority population identities and interests are kept closer to the center of analysis and policy while recognizing deeply embedded features of the majority culture. As Pierre Trudeau phrased it in 1971, it promotes an understanding of culture that “promotes respect for that of others and a willingness to share ideas, attitudes and assumptions” as part of a process toward greater equality. As such, it can be used as a tool of analysis and policy to establish more transparent political intent.

Multiculturalism as a Heuristic There are many ways multiculturalism can be used to understand and respond to cultural diversity (Fleras 2010, 291–300). The least controversial, perhaps, is multiculturalism as fact: an empirical determination of the relative presence of different cultural groups within a given political community and their salient characteristics.12 For example, Statistics Canada (2017) reports that there are over 250 different ethnic groups in Canada, and on this foundation, it is possible to consider a range of actual and potential implications and policies. In this section, the focus is on multi-

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culturalism’s uses as a framework for analysis and a set of policies, exploring features relative to an assimilationist approach by drawing on arguments and findings presented in the preceding chapters before turning in the final section to consider multiculturalism’s symbolic use. Although this review is of necessity far from comprehensive in breadth and depth, it is indicative of the continued utility of the concept and practice across disciplines. As a framework for analysis, multiculturalism signals what to focus on and privilege in studying cultural diversity. In contrast to an assimilationist approach, which looks at social cohesion and national identity while singularly foregrounding the majority culture, multiculturalism challenges “imagined homogeneity” (Gaine 2008) as a source of social cohesion and national identity and provides legitimacy to cultural diversity. As with any such analytic construct (e.g., “democracy”) it has—alongside its limitations—a transformative even radical potential that stems from its intrinsic malleable and political characteristics. Thus, while multiculturalism is often criticized for presenting cultures as bounded and stable, those who work closely with the concept (see, e.g., Imbert’s contribution) view them as permeable and dynamic, both internally complex and externally interdependent. This applies to the conceptualization of minority and majority cultures, as seen in Samers’ chapter, where he contests the idea of a singular (and exclusive) “French model” and calls for a more inclusive understanding of the factors and actors that inform the country’s approach to cultural diversity. For his part, Koussens traces the emergence of a new “nationalist secularism” in Quebec that, as a reaction against perceived threats to the separation of Church and State embodied by visible religious signs (especially those worn by Muslim women), promotes “a symbolic reinvestment of the religious signs (Christian) associated with the majority group.” Indeed, Samers proposes a shift away from methodological nationalism to study existing policies and practices within local contexts and to understand cultural diversity on the ground. While multiculturalism can be applied to developments at the national level, it is also sensitive to lived/shared experiences at the sub-national and even personal level. This is essential for developing an improved ability to navigate the ambiguities, complexities and uncertainties that arise in relationships between minority and majority populations as circumscribed and mediated by a country’s political foundations. Similarly, multiculturalism provides tools to challenge powerful concepts such as Islamophobia, which—as Beggar

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­emonstrates—reproduce colonial and oppressive relations between d majority and minority populations. Such conceptualizations not only distort the lived/shared experiences of the targeted population but displace and project rather than recognize and address the anxieties, faults and fears of the majority population. As a result, rather than generating the “third space” that Beggar discusses to foster dialogue and understanding, such language serves generally illiberal political ends that perpetuate division and violence. In a similar vein, numerous chapters demonstrate the interdisciplinary relevance of multiculturalism as a framework for analysis beyond state documents and actions to media such as comics journalism, films, novels and plays. The study of the stories of actual experiences of cultural diversity that they communicate allows for an appreciation, as Blanchard phrases it, of “the complex aesthetic specificities of these narratives alongside their often-implicit political dimensions.” These works provide insights through their ability to render the audience as witness by privileging, as Pruteanu shows in her treatment of comics journalism, personal and subjective perspectives to reveal how marginalized people come up against systemic barriers as well as those perpetrated by individuals. Through such narratives, she proposes, dominant stereotypes are challenged and the reader/spectator is confronted with the complexity of cultural identities and realities. Such works not only provide windows into “what is” but offer alternatives of “what could be.” For example, Blanchard reveals in her study of Ryam’s novels set in the French banlieues how such works “challenge traditional notions of Frenchness by incorporating diverse postcolonial and diasporic identities within a single narrative, thereby questioning the idea that multiculturalism is incompatible with French republican values.” From the national level to the personal, a multiculturalism framework is also amenable to intersectional analysis, and several chapters underscore the highly racialized and gendered nature of cultural diversity debates and practices. For example, multiculturalism can be used to challenge not only how men and women are framed in public and policy discourse but also in terms of whose stories are told and who tells them. Thus, Ardizzoni explores how Benyamina’s Divines moves beyond the predominant masculinist approach seen in banlieues films not only in terms of “its protagonists, its issues, and its language” but also with respect to the actual means of the its production. In the process, the film presents the banlieues as places not just defined by “a daily routine characterized by poverty, strug-

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gles, injustice, but also laughter, determination, and strength.” This serves to reframe how the audience considers the choices made by women given the constraints they experience, while situating such agency within ­concerns (such as the escape from poverty as a path to freedom) traced as common threads across marginalized communities. In such ways, a much richer understanding of the lived/shared experiences of cultural diversity is gained, which challenges the distortions (and power relations) inherent within an assimilationist approach’s promotion of a culturally exclusive interpretation of national identity. As a set of policies, multiculturalism can be pursued as “a course of action or inaction chosen by public authorities to address a given problem or interrelated set of problems” (Pal 2014, 2)—in this case revolving around cultural diversity. At the outset, it is worth reiterating a point made by Mielusel and Pruteanu—that despite declarations of “the death of multiculturalism” in Europe, very few countries actually implemented a multiculturalism policy in the first place. Multiculturalism is often used, therefore, as a scapegoat for the political and policy failures (often reflective of an assimilationist approach) of the state to develop more effective responses to the challenges perceived to arise from cultural diversity. In addition, McNeil’s warning as to the conservative orientation of Canadian multiculturalism—seen in what he calls a “shy elitism” in which limited access rather than a challenge to cultural privilege is pursued—needs to be kept in mind. The extent to which multiculturalism policy promotes a project of political liberation is, of course, not a reflection on its potential but (as proposed earlier in this chapter) more a matter of political intent. Multiculturalism policy can be put to a variety of purposes, and while some such as McNeil seek a more radical transformation, others such as Imbert encourage a more modest expansion beyond questions of accommodation, rights and national identity to challenges and opportunities that extend through to economic participation. Several chapters highlight the unexpected effects that are produced through the French state’s republicanism/secularism approach, especially within the banlieues. For example, in her study of Faucon’s La Desintégration, Mielusel traces how the discriminatory forces created and validated against minority populations through assimilationist policies combine with extant social, economic and political barriers to foster forms of communal solidarity and organizational behavior within the banlieues that run counter to the state’s purported unity goals. As she emphasizes, this is not simply a matter of opposition but often of dignity and survival,

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which reveals again the limitations of assimilationist policies. At its most extreme, this response can (in conjunction with powerful external communal and political forces) radicalize members of marginalized ­communities and produce violence against state and society. Thus, Mielusel reveals how through its own actions “a nation can be disciplined and punished from within.” At the same time, as Blanchard’s shows in her study of novels set in the banlieues, assimilationist policies can also unintentionally expand “cultural pluralism, solidarity, creativity, social mobility and collective memory.” The potential for such developments to contribute to social cohesion and national identity, however, very much depends upon the “willingness to share ideas, attitudes and assumptions” noted earlier on the part of the majority population and the state. Although the degree of minority population social, economic and political marginalization is not as severe, and while a national policy of multiculturalism serves to validate aspects of identity that might otherwise be rendered more problematic by the province, similar dynamics exist in Quebec. Indeed, Leservot reveals through her study of Bensaddek’s play, Montréal la Blanche, how Quebec policies toward Maghrebi immigrants extend not only from exclusive features of Quebec nationalism as conditioned by a rights-based context including the concept of reasonable accommodation but also have a transnational aspect as “the ghost-like presence of France’s own problematic approach” shapes a more assimilationist Quebec political discourse and policy. This serves as an important reminder that multiculturalism policy is highly contingent on the political context. At the same time, Leservot’s study proposes that the same polyphonic approach which embedded diversity in artistic representations of the French banlieues not only helps in unpacking the daily struggles of Maghrebi in Quebec in their relationships with the state and majority population, but also their efforts to dissociate from the past and thereby to realize their “agency…to reframe and destabilize” the present. Indeed, she proposes that it is through such engagements that “the feasibility of an intercultural relationship based on exchange and mutual respect” emerges. This theme of hope (albeit not without challenges and costs) arises in Cooke’s interview with Aloisio about her documentary film on Quebec language policy. While Aloisio can now see benefits of the language law she rejects its strict application, which stemmed more from a desire to force immigrants to change rather than to foster an environment in which learning and communication—and thus positive civic engagement—could develop. As a result, the policy’s potential as a tool to build bridges across

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communities through language was limited and many within the allophone community were left with deep scars. This was, not, however, an inevitable outcome: “Immigrants are always going to shake up the status quo a bit, but they also create richness, in terms of the culture and expertise they bring with them. We’ve got to open these gifts … we must not ignore them.” Much depends, however, on how such diversity is approached and understood. For example, as Koussens shows in his chapter on the law and politics behind the emergence of a nationalist secularism in Quebec, when expressions of difference are viewed a priori not as gifts but as threats to social cohesion stemming from the promotion of multiculturalism itself, validation is given to the promotion of alternative assimilationist and reactionary approaches that, although popular within the majority population, exact a heavy price from the minorities whose rights and opportunities are thereby restricted and denied. Thus, while a multiculturalism policy does not guarantee that the gifts of diversity will be opened or ultimately appreciated, it can increase the chances that they will at least be recognized. Although multiculturalism is not intended to produce an absolute equality among cultures, it nonetheless can generate greater equality, and while this is circumscribed and mediated by the country’s political foundations, these very foundations are thereby continually subject to contestation and—over time—change.

Multiculturalism and Hope As Mielusel and Pruteanu observe in their introductory chapter, alternative formulations of the relationship between national identity and cultural diversity in France (and elsewhere) are possible, which underscores the centrality of political intent as liberal democracies seek to navigate connections between the two. A core message of this chapter and throughout this book is that multiculturalism as a concept and practice continues to be a useful tool because it is not a fixed entity but rather one that reflects and embodies degrees of indeterminacy. As such, as Imbert observes, “[m]ulticulturalism leads people and institutions to go beyond their limits.” In order to do so, however, it requires an acceptance that the past sets the stage but does not predetermine the future. This idea of the symbolic hope of multiculturalism is explored by author Cecil Foster, who holds that the concept and practice is directed more to the future than the past: memory is crucial to social cohesion and national identity but it must not obscure the injustices embedded through to the

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present. The pursuit of a multicultural approach to national identity, he proposes, requires encouraging “citizens to think of themselves as a single people – a people noted more for their pluralism, diversity, and difference than for their uniformity” (2005, 55). Multiculturalism is therefore a process, a “practised attempt to survive, rather than solve once and for all, the contradictions of life” (ibid., 155). In this day and age, liberal democracies will need to accept the profound challenge that increasing cultural diversity presents: that “the immigrant who is a … citizen of one day’s standing would have the same rights and privileges as any other citizen. This would include the right to negotiate a change in the existing social relations” (ibid., 171). If state and society intend to forge a path forward to greater social cohesion and political stability in a manner that is liberal and democratic, then multiculturalism provides one tool with which to navigate extant and oncoming divergence and uncertainty.

Notes 1. In a similar vein, Maclure and Taylor (2010, 56) develop the concept of la laïcité as a heuristic: “…la conceptualisation proposée peut s’avérer un bon guide ou une heuristique féconde lorsque les sociétés sont confrontées à des dilemmes mettant en cause la place de la religion dans l’espace public ou la liberté de conscience des citoyens.” 2. There are also circumstantial factors that have likely facilitated support for multiculturalism in Canada, including the timing of its introduction (just as non-European immigration began to increase) and the country’s relative geographic isolation from major irregular migration movements (see Kymlicka 2004). 3. For example, French President Emmanuel Macron (quoted in Donadio 2019) went so far as to embed this religious institution within French national identity: “Notre-Dame is our history, our literature, our imagination, the place where we lived all our great moments—our plagues, our wars, our liberation. It’s the epicenter of our life. It’s a cathedral that belongs to all French women and men even if they’ve never seen it.” 4. For example, the minister responsible for Quebec’s “secularism law” addressed claims that it would increase discrimination and violence against Muslims by simply asserting that: “The secularism bill encourages better living together. The Quebec government decries, without nuance, all acts of discrimination” (quoted in Montpetit 2019). 5. Since 1971 Canada’s official multiculturalism policy has been a modest undertaking in terms of state expenditure and commitment. In recent years, for example, it has accounted “for less than one-fiftieth of a percent of federal spending” (Adams 2009, 12).

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6. There is no room to address it more fully here, but while multiculturalism and interculturalism are often contrasted, it is not always clear that the differences between them are so great. For example, the central culture that is emphasized in Quebec interculturalism often extends little past the preservation of language and political autonomy before drawing on more general liberal values that are not distinctly Quebecois. 7. An important feature of Canada as a settler society is the fact that the state renders immigrants, by allowing them to resettle in the country, complicit in the continued displacement and marginalization of Indigenous peoples, which creates an especially complex additional dynamic within Canadian multiculturalism. 8. Illiberal liberalism has also been traced to the imperatives of capitalism; see De Genova (2002). 9. For the periods presented in this paragraph, see Fleras and Elliott (2007, 281–85). 10. Alongside a clear commitment in Section 15.1 to non-discrimination on the basis of “race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability” (with protections for affirmative action policies in Section 15.2), the Charter states in Section 27 that it “shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.” 11. The Preamble firmly anchors multiculturalism within the (liberal) rule of law, stating that “the Constitution of Canada provides that every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination and that everyone has the freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion, expression, peaceful assembly and association and guarantees those rights and freedoms equally to male and female persons,” and the Act highlights the distinct importance of Indigenous rights as well as Canada’s two official languages. 12. There are nonetheless important debates concerning the definitions employed in assigning cultural boundaries, for example, and the dangers in interpreting behavior and designing policies according to these categories.

References Abu-Laban, Yasmeen, and Christina Gabriel. 2002. Selling Diversity: Immigration, Multiculturalism, Employment Equity, and Globalization. Peterborough: Broadview Press. Adams, Michael. 2009. Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism. Toronto: Viking Canada. Banting, Keith G. 2010. Is There a Progressive’s Dilemma in Canada? Immigration, Multiculturalism and the Welfare State. Canadian Journal of Political Science 43 (4): 797–820.

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Bauböck, Rainer, and Christian Joppke, eds. 2010. How Liberal Are Citizenship Tests? EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2010/41. Florence: Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies [European University Institute]. Bigo, Didier, and Tsoukala Anastassia, eds. 2008. Terror, Insecurity and Liberty. Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes After 9/11. London: Routledge. Bissoondath, Neil. 1994. Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada. Toronto: Penguin Books. Bloemraad, Irene. 2012. Understanding “Canadian Exceptionalism” in Immigration and Pluralism Policy. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Cai, Weiti and Simone Landon. 2019. Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections. The New York Times, April 2. Canada. 1967. Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Book I. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. ———. 1969. Report of the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Book IV. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. ———. 1971. House of Commons Debates, October 8. 28th Parliament, 3rd Session, vol. 8. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer. Citizenship and Immigration Canada. 2009. Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. Ottawa: Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Cohen, Andrew. 2007. The Unfinished Canadian: The People We Are. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Day, Richard J.F. 2000. Multiculturalism and the History of Canadian Diversity. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. De Genova, Nicholas P. 2002. Migrant ‘Illegality’ and Deportability in Everyday Life. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 419–447. Donadio, Rachel. 2019. France’s Paradoxes, Embodied in a Cathedral. The Atlantic, April 16. Ekos. 2019. Increased Polarization on Attitudes to Immigration Reshaping the Political Landscape in Canada. April 15. Available at http://www.ekospolitics.ca Erasmus. 2019. Europe’s Secularists Worry About the Rise of Christian-Nativist Populism. The Economist, June 11. European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. 2019. Fundamental Rights Report 2019. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Fleras, Augie. 2010. Unequal Relations: An Introduction to Race, Ethnic, and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada. 6th ed. Toronto: Pearson Canada. Fleras, Augie, and Jean Leonard Elliott. 2007. Unequal Relations: An Introduction to Race, Ethnic and Aboriginal Dynamics in Canada. 5th ed. Toronto: Pearson/Prentice Hall. Foster, Cecil. 2005. Where Race Does Not Matter: The New Spirit of Modernity. Toronto: Penguin Books.

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Gaine, Chris. 2008. Race, Ethnicity and Difference Versus Imagined Homogeneity Within the European Union. European Educational Research Journal 7 (1): 23–38. Glavin, Terry. 2019. Why Race and Immigration Are a Gathering Storm in Canadian Politics. Maclean’s, April 23. Gonzales-Barrera and Philip Connor. 2019. Around the World, More Say Immigrants Are a Strength Than a Burden. Pew Research Center, March 14. Gregg, Allan. 2006. Identity Crisis. The Walrus, March: 38–47. Griffiths, Rudyard. 2009. Who We Are: A Citizen’s Manifesto. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. Gwyn, Richard. 1995. Nationalism Without Walls: The Unbearable Lightness of Being Canadian. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Hiebert, Daniel. 2016. What’s So Special About Canada? Understanding the Resilience of Immigration and Multiculturalism. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute. Hindess, Barry. 2004. Liberalism – What’s in a Name? In Global Governmentality: Governing International Spaces, ed. W.  Larner and W.  Walters. New  York: Routledge. Iacovetta, Franca. 2006. Gatekeepers: Reshaping Immigrant Lives in Cold War Canada. Toronto: Between the Lines Press. King, Desmond. 1999. In the Name of Liberalism: Illiberal Social Policy in the United States and Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kobayashi, Audrey. 2008. Ethnocultural Political Mobilization, Multiculturalism, and Human Rights in Canada. In Group Politics and Social Movements in Canada, ed. M. Smith, 131–157. Peterborough: Broadview Press. Kymlicka, Will. 1998. Finding Our Way: Rethinking Ethnocultural Relations in Canada. Toronto: Oxford University Press. ———. 2004. Marketing Canadian Pluralism in the International Arena. International Journal 59 (4): 829–852. ———. 2007. Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity. New York: Oxford University Press. Laxer, Emily. 2019. Unveiling the Nation: The Politics of Secularism in France and Quebec. Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press. Maclure, Jocelyn and Charles Taylor. 2010. Laïcité et liberté de conscience. Montréal: Les Éditions Boréal. Magder, Jason. 2019. A New Poll Shows Support for Bill 21 Is Built on Anti-Islam Sentiment. The Montreal Gazette, May 30. Montpetit, Jonathan. 2019. Muslim Women Report Spike in Harassment, Discrimination Since Bill 21 Tabled. CBC News, May 14. https://www.cbc. ca/news/canada/montreal/muslim-women-report-spike-in-harassmentdiscrimination-since-bill-21-tabled-1.5134539

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Pal, Leslie A. 1993. Interests of State: The Politics of Language, Multiculturalism, and Feminism in Canada. Kingston/Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press. ———. 2014. Beyond Policy Analysis: Public Issue Management in Turbulent Times. 5th ed. Toronto: Nelson Education. Riga, Andy. 2019. The Crucifix in Quebec’s National Assembly: Why Its Symbolism Matters. The Montreal Gazette, February 7. Ryan, Phil. 2010. Multicultiphobia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Shingler, Benjamin and Jonathan Montpetit. 2019. A Guide to Quebec’s New Immigration and Religious Symbols Laws: How We Got Here and What’s Next. CBC News, June 18. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ quebec-religious-symbols-immigration-faq-1.5178694 Soroka, Stuart, and Sarah Roberton. 2010. A Literature Review of Public Opinion Research on Canadian Attitudes Towards Multiculturalism and Immigration, 2006–2009. Ottawa: Citizenship and Immigration Canada. Stasiulis, Daiva, and Nira Yuval-Davis, eds. 1995. Unsettling Settler Societies: Articulations of Gender, Race, Ethnicity and Class. London: Sage. Statistics Canada. 2016a. 150 Years of Immigration in Canada (June 29). Catalogue No. 11-630-X. ———. 2016b. Patterns and Determinants of Immigrants’ Sense of Belonging to Canada and Their Source Country (October 18). Catalogue no. 11F0019M – No. 383. ———. 2017. Ethnic and Cultural Origins of Canadians: Portrait of a Rich Heritage (October 25). Catalogue no. 98-200-X2016016. ———. 2018. Police-Reported Hate Crime, 2017 (November 29). Catalogue no. 11-001-X. Tonon, Laura, and Tracey Raney. 2013. Building a Conservative Nation: An Examination of Canada’s New Citizenship Guide, Discover Canada. International Journal of Canadian Studies 47: 201–219. Uberoi, Varun. 2008. Multiculturalism and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Political Studies 57 (4): 805–827. Valpy, Michael. 2005. Could It Happen Here? The Globe and Mail, November 12: A1. Wikipedia. 2019. Heuristic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

Index1

A “Accommodements raisonnables,” 43 See also Reasonable accommodations Albou, Karin, 137 Allophones, 152, 153, 156 Aloisio, Anita, 151–165 Alterity, 104 Anglophones, 152, 154–156, 160–163, 165 Anti-racism, 172, 176, 185 Assimilation, 2, 4–6, 128, 129, 239, 240 Augé, Marc, 137, 143 See also Non-places Aurel, 218, 220, 221, 223, 226, 229 Autobiography, 102, 103 Ayouch, Nabil, 139 B Baena, Rosalia, 229 See also Life writings Banks, Azealia, 141, 142 Banlieue Noire, 99–112

Banlieues, 78, 80, 82–85, 87, 88, 92n7, 95n24, 99–101, 103, 104, 106, 108, 111, 112, 135–147 See also Banlieues; Marginality; Minorities; Poverty; Riots; Suburbs Battaini-Dragoni, Gabriella, 42 Benyamina, Houda, 135–147 See also Divines Bertossi, Christophe, 6, 7 Beur, 204, 207 Biculturalism, 240 Bilingual, 1 See also Bilingualism Bilingualism, 1, 240 See also Biculturalism; Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism Bill 21 (Quebec), 121, 129 Bill 60 (Quebec), 121 Bill 62 (Quebec), 121 Bill 101, 151–156, 164, 165 Biofiction, 218, 221, 229, 231n8

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) 2020 R. Mielusel, S. E. Pruteanu (eds.), Citizenship and Belonging in France and North America, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30158-3

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INDEX

Blacks, 205 Borovoy, Alan, 179, 180, 188 Bouchard, Gérard, 43, 44, 50n14 See also Bouchard-Taylor Commission Bouchard-Taylor Commission, 2, 9, 22, 43–45, 121 Bourassa, Robert, 1 Burkini, 117 Burqa, 120 See also Veil C Camus, Renaud, 7 Canadian Human Rights Act, 49n5 Canadian multiculturalism, 17–29 Canadian multicultural model, 22 Carnivalesque, 107, 111 Children, 151, 152, 154, 155, 157–159, 161–164 Citizenship, 3, 4, 7–11, 55–57, 59–62, 64, 67, 217, 220, 222, 223 visa, 220 See also Citoyen; Citoyenneté; Nationality Citoyen, 3 Citoyenneté, 3 Civilization, 200 Cjazka, Isabelle, 137 Clandestine migration, 218, 219, 223 Clandestino, 218, 220–223, 226, 231n7, 232n23 Colonialism, 200, 201, 204, 210 Concept, 201–204, 207, 211, 212, 213n4 Conspiracy, 202, 209 Contemporary liberalism, 37 Critical multiculturalism studies, 171–190 Cultural diversity, 1, 236–242, 244–247, 249, 250

Cultural studies, 186 Culture, 200, 202, 209–211, 213n7 and economy, 45, 48 D Demusmaker, 141, 142 Diasporic, 101, 109 Dit violent, 100, 102–105 Diversity, 1, 3, 4, 235–250 See also Cultural diversity Divines, 135–147 Droit du sol, 218, 220–224, 226, 228, 231n13–15, 232n18, 232n21 E Education, 160 Engagement, 141 Epistemological, 202, 204 Estrougo, Audrey, 137 Ethnic communities, 77, 78, 80, 81, 84, 92n7 F Faucon, Philippe, 77–91 See also La Désintegration Fear, 199, 202–206, 208, 211, 212 FEDCA, 140 Feminism, 135–147 Film, 151–156, 158, 159, 161–165 Finkielkraut, Alain, 200, 206, 210 Fleras, Augie, 244 Foucault, Michel, 78, 83, 84 France, 55–70 Franco-Maghrebi, 78, 83, 93n12 Francophones, 151–155, 157, 160, 163, 164 French, 151–158, 161–165 French national discourse, 77 Frenchness, 77, 91n1, 99–112

 INDEX 

Front National (FN), 65–67 Full-face veil, 117, 120, 130n5 G Generations, 151, 152, 156, 157, 159, 161, 165 H Hall, Stuart, 186, 188, 189 Hamdi, Nora, 137 Headscarf, 117, 121, 126 Henry, Frances, 174, 181–188 Heuristic, 235–250 Hijab, 117 Hill, Daniel, 179 Hollande, François, 57, 61–68, 70 Human Rights, 33, 35–37, 41, 45 See also Canadian Human Rights Act I Illiberalism, 242, 246, 251n8 Immigrants, 151, 152, 154–164 Immigration, 2, 7, 9–11, 57, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 68, 69, 167n7, 237–239, 243, 250n2 See also Assimilation; Integration; Migration Imperialism, 204, 212 Integration, 2–6, 9, 11, 12n4, 55–70, 77–84, 86, 88, 90, 91n4, 92n6, 94n13, 115–129, 147, 171, 172, 176, 183 Interculturalism, 33–48, 118, 119, 121, 128, 129, 251n6 interculturalism in Quebec, 33–48 See also Interculturalism in Europe Interculturalism in Europe, 33–48 Interdiscursive, 106

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Islam, 4, 6–8, 10, 117–119, 124, 202–207, 211, 212 See also Islamic States; Islamism; Islamist; Islamophobia; Muslim(s); Muslim Brotherhood Islamic radicalization, 78 Islamic States, 208 Islamism, 57, 84, 207 Islamist, 204, 206–209, 211, 212 Islamophobia, 9, 11, 57, 60, 70, 122, 199–204, 206–213 Iyer, Pico, 34, 48n3 J Jones, Rocky, 180, 181 Joppke, Christian, 40–41 Journalism, 11, 217–232, 246 K Kassovitz, Mathieu, 136, 137, 139 See also La Haine Kymlicka, Will, 35–42, 235, 236, 239, 242, 250n2 See also Contemporary liberalism L La Désintegration, 77–91 La Haine, 136–137, 139, 141, 143, 145 Laïcité, 4, 6, 9, 17, 22, 29n1, 56, 60, 61, 63–65, 67, 70, 121, 143 See also Secularism Language, 151–155, 157, 159–161, 163–165 Law, 151, 152, 155–157, 162, 164, 165 Lee, Spike, 139 Le poids d’une âme, 100, 107–110 Les Enfants de la Loi 101, 151, 155, 156, 158, 161, 163

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INDEX

Liberalism, 35, 37, 41, 242, 251n8 See also Illiberalism; Liberal political systems; Liberal practices Liberal political systems, 242 Liberal practices, 242 Life writings, 229 M Macron, Emmanuel, 57, 61, 67–70 Malaise, 78–81 Marginality, 142 Martel, Yann, 38, 48n3 Masson, Charles, 218, 220, 221, 223–226, 228, 229 Mayotte, 221–226, 228, 230n5, 230n6, 231n10 Media, 217–220, 229 comics journalism, 218, 228 See also Journalism Methodological nationalism, 56, 61 Micropenalties, 84 Micro-power, 83, 84 Migration, 55–70, 217–219, 223, 229 illegal migration, 218 integration, 218, 223 irregular migrant, 220, 221 migration crisis, 217–229 undocumented immigrants, 218–220, 223 See also Clandestine migration Minorities, 136, 139, 141, 237, 238, 240, 242, 244–249 See also Visible minorities Modernity, 144 Modood, Tariq, 35, 38–40, 49n6, 50n10 Moorphobia, 202, 212 Moors, 203, 204 See also Blacks; Saracens Mulroney, Brian, 174, 183 Multani, 21, 22

Multiculturalism, 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11, 12n3, 12n5, 17–29, 55–70, 118, 128, 129, 171–190, 235–250 multicultural citizenship, 40 multiculturalism and economy, 45, 48, 51n22 multiculturalism and religion, 37–39 multiculturalism in Canada, 33–48 multiculturalism in the UK, 35, 39–40 official and corporate multiculturalism, 174, 175, 184, 189 as viewed in Quebec, 153, 165 See also Canadian multiculturalism; Canadian multicultural model; Critical multiculturalism studies; Culture, and economy Multilingual, 165 Munro, John, 177, 178, 180 Muslim(s), 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13n15, 78, 80, 81, 84–90, 93n11, 93n12, 94n21, 143, 144, 200–202, 204–206, 208, 209, 211–213 Muslim Brotherhood, 80 Muslimphobia, 212 N Nation, 199, 207–210, 212, 213n5 See also Vietnam; West Africa National identity, 77, 78, 81, 91 Nationalism, 18, 22–28 Nationalist secularism, 17–29 Nationality, 9, 10, 13n7, 217, 222, 223 Non-places, 137, 143 O Omma, 208 Orlikow, David, 181 Other, 142, 156, 212

 INDEX 

P Paralyzing, 231n8 Paranoia, 201, 204, 208 Performative, 102, 111 Personal diary, 103 Phobia, 203–206, 208, 211, 212 Politics of recognition, 173 Polyphony, 101, 106–112 Populism, 239 See also Populist politics Populist politics, 244 Poverty, 34, 65, 80, 82, 90, 100, 135, 141–145, 160, 222, 246, 247 Prolophobia, 212 Q Quellien, Alain, 201, 202, 204–206 See also Epistemological; Fear; Moorphobia; Muslimphobia; Paralysis; Paranoia; Prolophobia R Race, 201, 202, 209, 212, 213n3 Race relations, 172–174, 179, 181–188 Racial, 1, 7, 82, 88, 172, 178, 179, 183–186, 238, 243 Racism, 200, 201, 203, 212 See also Race; Racial; Othering; Scientific racism Radical Islam, 81, 84, 92n9 Radicalization, 78–81, 91n2, 93n11 See also Islamic radicalization; Radical Islam; Religious radicalization Rapports de forces, 83 See also Micropenalties; Micro-power Rassemblement National, 58, 71n4 Razane, Mohamed, 100, 104, 105 See also Dit violent

259

Reasonable accommodations, 9, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 29n2, 43, 120, 121, 128 See also “Accommodements raisonnables” Religion, 18–23, 25, 27, 28 See also Religious rights Religious radicalization, 78 Religious rights, 24 Remplacement, 199, 201 See also Renaud, Camus Renaud, Camus, 199, 213n1 Reporter, 218, 220–229, 230n4 Republicanism, 4, 6, 56, 60, 64, 118 See also Republican model of integration; Republican values Republican model, 78, 79, 81–90 Republican model of integration, 3, 6 Republican principles, 77 See also Republican model; Republican values Republican values, 4, 28, 63, 65, 99, 101, 210, 246 Riots, 88, 105, 123, 136, 138, 140, 141, 185 Roma, 141, 142, 144 Rosello, Mireille, 219, 220, 230n3 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, 240 Ryam, Thomté, 99–112 En attendant que le bus explose, 99 See also Banlieue Noire S Saracens, 205 Saunders, Doug, 35, 37, 45 Schiff, Marvin, 180, 181, 189 Scientific racism, 201 Secular, 8, 18, 29, 44, 45, 59, 66, 118, 119, 206, 238

260 

INDEX

Secularism, 3, 4, 9, 17–29, 56, 77, 86, 118–121, 124, 129, 237–239, 247, 249, 250n4 See also Bill 21 (Quebec); Bill 60 (Quebec); Bill 62 (Quebec); Laïcité; Secular; 2004 Law (France); 2010 Law (France) Shy elitism, 171–190 Signage, 152, 164 Silj, Alessandro, 5 Suburbs, 82, 92n9, 93n10, 94n20 T Tator, Carol, 185–187 Teenagers, 138, 142–146 Terrorism, 78, 80, 91n2, 95n26 Testimony, 101–106 1000 Visages Production, 139, 140, 146 Trudeau, Pierre Eliott, 1, 174, 176, 240, 241, 244 Turner, John, 183 2004 law (France), 117 2010 law (France), 130n5

U Universal citizen(ship), 77 Universalism, 3, 4, 77 See also Universal citizen(ship) Urban peripheries, 106–112 V Veil, 116, 117, 119, 120, 130n5 See also Full-face veil; Headscarf; Hijab Vietnam, 204 Viry-Châtillon, 138, 139, 141 Visible minorities, 238 W Wealth, 143, 144, 147 Wedderburn, Gus, 180 West Africa, 206 Winks, Robin, 178, 179, 188 Witnessing, 105, 106 Z Zemmour, Éric, 8, 200, 207, 210