The Colonial Legacy in France

Alexis Pernsteiner

Description

Debates about the legacy of colonialism in France are not new, but they have taken on new urgency in the wake of recent terrorist attacks. Responding to acts of religious and racial violence in 2005, 2010, and 2015 and beyond, the essays in this volume pit French ideals against government-sponsored revisionist decrees that have exacerbated tensions, complicated the process of establishing and recording national memory, and triggered divisive debates on what it means to identify as French. As they document the checkered legacy of French colonialism, the contributors raise questions about France and the contemporary role of Islam, the banlieues, immigration, race, history, pedagogy, and the future of the Republic. This innovative volume reconsiders the cultural, economic, political, and social realities facing global French citizens today and includes contributions by Achille Mbembe, Benjamin Stora, Françoise Vergès, Alec Hargreaves, Elsa Dorlin, and Alain Mabanckou, among others.

Introduction: A Decade of Postcolonial Crisis: Fracture, Rupture and Apartheid (2005-2015) / Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas

Part I. Colonial Fracture / 2005

1.1 The Emergence of the Colonial

1. The Republican Origins of the Colonial Fracture / Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard
2. When a (War) Memory Hides another (Colonial) / Benjamin Stora
3. A Difficult History: A Brief History of the Colonial and the Postcolonial Situation / Nicolas Bancel
4. Reducing the Republic's Native to the Body / Nacira Guénif-Souilamas
5. Colonization and Immigration: "Blind Spots" in the History Classroom / Sandrine Lemaire
6. Memory Wars: A Study of the Intersection between History and Media / Pascal Blanchard and Isabelle Veyrat-Masson

1.2 The Return of the Colonial

7. The Enemy Within: The Construction of the "Arab" in the Media / Thomas Deltombe and Mathieu Rigouste
8. Islam and the Republic: A Long, Uneasy History / Anna Bozzo
9. The Republic, Colonization. And Beyond / Michel Wieviorka
10. Colonial Natives and Indigents: from the Colonial "Civilizing Mission" to Humanitarian Action / Rony Brauman
11. The Banlieues as a Colonial Theater, or the Colonial Fracture in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods / Didier Lapeyronnie
12. The Pitfalls of Colonial Memory / Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard
13. Overseas France: A Vestige of the Republican Colonial Utopia? / Françoise Vergès

Part II. Postcolonial Ruptures / 2010

2.1 Debating the Colonial Legacy

14. Rethinking Politics in the French Overseas Departments / Jacky Dahomay
15. "Race," Ethnicization, and Discrimination: Is History Repeating Itself or Is this a Postcolonial Peculiarity? / Patrick Simon
16. From the Empire to the Republic: "French Islam" / Valérie Amiraux
17. Immigration: From Métèques to Foreigners / Yvan Gastaut
18. Inequality Between Humans: From "Race Wars" to "Cultural Hierarchy / Pascal Blanchard

2.2 Postcolonial and Critical Gazes

19. The Postcolonial Challenges of Teaching History: Between History and Memory / Benoît Falaize
20. Postcolonial Studies in French Academia / Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch
21. From Slavery to the Postcolonial / Patrick Weil
22. The Great Strip Show: Feminism, Nationalism, and the Burqa in France / Elsa Dorlin
23. From the Red Peril to the Green Peril: The New Enemy Within / Renaud Dély

Part III. Apartheid and the War of Identities in France / 2015

3.1 The end of the "French model"?

24. From the Dakar Speech to the Taubira Affair / Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia 
25. Could Islamophobia be the Start of a New Identy-Based Bond in France? / Rachid Benzine
26. The Black Question and the Exhibit B Controversy / Alain Mabanckou and Dominic Thomas 
27. Cultural Orientalization or Political Occidentalism? / Nicolas Lebourg 
28. Faces of the National Front (1972-2015) / Sylvain Crépon
29. Infiltration of Liquid Populism / Raphaël Liogier 

3.2 Rejet de l'autre, radicalisation identitaire, impensé colonial

30. Nanoracism and the Force of Emptiness / Achille Mbembe
31. Antiracism: A Failed Fight or the End of an Era ? / Emmanuel Debono
32. Closing Borders Against Fear: Europe's Response to the 2015 "Migration Crisis" / Claire Rodier
33. Toward a Real History of French Colonialism / Alain Ruscio
34. Is a Colonial History Museum Politically Impossible? / Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard 
35. After Charlie: A New Era or Unfinished Business?/ Alec Hargreaves

Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Histoire
• History of Europe
• French Revolution
• France
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9780253026514
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE COLONIAL LEGACY IN FRANCE
THE COLONIAL LEGACY IN FRANCE
Fracture, Rupture, and Apartheid
Edited by Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas
Translated by Alexis Pernsteiner
Indiana University Press
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Indiana University Press
The Colonial Legacy in France: Fracture, Rupture, and Apartheid , edited by Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas. Copyright 2017 by Indiana University Press. Originally published as La Fracture coloniale. La soci t fran aise au prisme de l h ritage colonial , edited by Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire. Copyright 2005 by ditions La D couverte, Paris; Ruptures post-coloniales: Les nouveaux visages de la soci t -fran aise , edited by Nicolas Bancel, Florence Bernault, Pascal Blanchard, Ahmed Boubeker, Achille Mbembe, and Fran oise Verg s. Copyright 2010 by ditions La D couverte, Paris; Les ann es 30 sont de retour: Petite le on d histoire pour comprendre les crises du pr sent , by Renaud D ly, Pascal Blanchard, Claude Askolovitch, and Yvan Gastaut. Copyright 2014 by Flammarion, Paris; Vers la guerre des identit s. De la fracture coloniale r volution ultranationale , by Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, and Dominic Thomas. Copyright 2016 by ditions La D couverte, Paris.
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bancel, Nicolas, editor of compilation. | Blanchard, Pascal, editor of compilation. | Thomas, Dominic Richard David, editor of compilation.
Title: The colonial legacy in France : fracture, rupture, and apartheid / edited by Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas ; translated by Alexis Pernsteiner.
Description: Bloomington : Indiana University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017013119 (print) | LCCN 2017011782 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253026514 (eb) | ISBN 9780253026255 (cloth : alkaline paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Postcolonialism-France. | France-Colonies. | Nationalism-France. | Ethnicity-Political aspects-France. | Ethnic conflict-France. | Apartheid-France. | France-Ethnic relations. | France-Race relations. | France-Politics and government-21st century.
Classification: LCC JV1827 (print) | LCC JV1827 .C65 2017 (ebook) | DDC 325/.344-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013119
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
CONTENTS
Note on Translation
Introduction: A Decade of Postcolonial Crisis: Fracture, Rupture, and Apartheid (2005-2015) / Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas
Part I. Colonial Fracture / 2005
1.1. The Emergence of the Colonial
1. The Republican Origins of the Colonial Fracture / Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard
2. When a (War) Memory Hides Another (Colonial) Memory / Benjamin Stora
3. A Difficult History: A Brief Historiography of the Colonial and Postcolonial Situation / Nicolas Bancel
4. Reducing the Republic s Native to the Body / Nacira Gu nif-Souilamas
5. Colonization and Immigration: Blind Spots in the History Classroom / Sandrine Lemaire
6. Memory Wars: A Study of the Intersection between History and Media / Pascal Blanchard and Isabelle Veyrat-Masson
1.2. The Return of the Colonial
7. The Enemy Within: The Construction of the Arab in the Media / Thomas Deltombe and Mathieu Rigouste
8. Islam and the Republic: A Long, Uneasy History / Anna Bozzo
9. The Republic, Colonization, and Beyond / Michel Wieviorka
10. Colonial Natives and Indigents: From the Colonial Civilizing Mission to Humanitarian Action / Rony Brauman
11. The Banlieues as a Colonial Theater, or the Colonial Fracture in Disadvantaged Neighborhoods / Didier Lapeyronnie
12. The Pitfalls of Colonial Memory / Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard
13. Overseas France: A Vestige of the Republican Colonial Utopia? / Fran oise Verg s
Part II. Postcolonial Ruptures / 2010
2.1. Debating the Colonial Legacy
14. Rethinking Politics in the French Overseas Departments / Jacky Dahomay
15. Race, Ethnicization, and Discrimination: Is History Repeating Itself or Is This a Postcolonial Peculiarity? / Patrick Simon
16. From the Empire to the Republic: French Islam / Val rie Amiraux
17. Immigration: From M t ques to Foreigners / Yvan Gastaut
18. Inequality between Humans: From Race Wars to Cultural Hierarchy / Pascal Blanchard
2.2. Postcolonial and Critical Gazes
19. The Postcolonial Challenges of Teaching History: Between History and Memory / Beno t Falaize
20. Postcolonial Studies in French Academia / Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch
21. From Slavery to the Postcolonial / Patrick Weil
22. The Great Strip Show: Feminism, Nationalism, and the Burqa in France / Elsa Dorlin
23. From the Red Peril to the Green Peril: The New Enemy Within / Renaud D ly
Part III. Apartheid and the War of Identities in France / 2015
3.1. The End of the French Model ?
24. From the Dakar Speech to the Taubira Affair / Ariane Chebel d Appollonia
25. Could Islamophobia Be the Start of a New Identity-Based Bond in France? / Rachid Benzine
26. The Black Question and the Exhibit B Controversy / Alain Mabanckou and Dominic Thomas
27. Cultural Orientalization or Political Occidentalism? / Nicolas Lebourg
28. Faces of the Front National (1972-2015) / Sylvain Cr pon
29. Infiltration of Liquid Populism / Rapha l Liogier
3.2. The Rejection of the Other, Identity Radicalization, and the Colonial Unconscious
30. Nanoracism and the Force of Emptiness / Achille Mbembe
31. Antiracism: A Failed Fight or the End of an Era? / Emmanuel Debono
32. Closing Borders against Fear: Europe s Response to the 2015 Migrants Crisis / Claire Rodier
33. Toward a Real History of French Colonialism / Alain Ruscio
34. Is a Colonial History Museum Politically Impossible? / Nicolas Bancel and Pascal Blanchard
35. After Charlie : A New Era or Unfinished Business? / Alec G. Hargreaves
Bibliography
Index
NOTE ON TRANSLATION
The following sections of the book were written in English:
Introduction, A Decade of Postcolonial Crisis: Fracture, Rupture, and Apartheid (2005-2015), by Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas
Chapter 26 , The Black Question and the Exhibit B Controversy, by Alain Mabanckou and Dominic Thomas
Chapter 35 , After Charlie : A New Era or Unfinished Business?, by Alec G. Hargreaves
THE COLONIAL LEGACY IN FRANCE
INTRODUCTION
A DECADE OF POSTCOLONIAL CRISIS: FRACTURE, RUPTURE, AND APARTHEID (2005-2015)
Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, and Dominic Thomas
Who cannot see just how disquieting ideologies of separation have become? Who has not been able to grasp the disastrous consequences of a religious worldview in which everyone is assigned a set identity defined by an innate essence? By drawing attention to the genealogy of the regimen and the art of governing mankind, historians have thrown a harsh light on what remains of modernity.

Patrick Boucheron, Ce que peut l histoire, Inaugual lesson at the Coll ge de France, December 17, 2015. 1
P ARIS , N OVEMBER 13, 2015 one hundred and thirty dead and almost four hundred injured Earlier, in January 2015, French prime minister Manuel Valls had used the word war , a word he has since repeated on multiple occasions along with French president Fran ois Hollande as a way of describing the November attacks: What I want to say to the French people, is that France is at war. What happened was a systematically organized act of war. 2 A few days later, on November 16, speaking in Versailles before a joint session of parliament, Fran ois Hollande declared This was an act of war and went on in the following days to explain the nature of this war. Then, on November 27, at a national ceremony held at the Invalides to honor the civilian victims of the attacks, the president paid homage, stating that We will fight to the end and we will win and also that France will do everything possible to destroy this army of fanatics who committed these crimes. According to the historian Patrick Garcia, the symbolic importance of the Invalides is especially significant because the Invalides has for a very long time been a national monument for those who lost their lives for the nation, for military casualties. It is this symbolic value that is reproduced. The November 13 victims have been elevated to a rank traditionally reserved for military heroes: to that of everyday heroes. This does not mean that they are combatants as such, but there is something of that nature implied: the attacks were an act of war, we are at war, these victims are therefore war victims. 3 But what kind of war is it exactly?
One could very well be mistaken for thinking government officials were talking about a very classic kind of war, a war between tw