The (French) Republic Must Take up the American Challenge

So says Yazid Sabeg, child of Algerian immigrants, millionaire and author of a manifesto on "The American Challenge" that appeared in the Paris daily Le journal du dimanche. (Yes, it used to be a Sunday paper but now runs daily.) The United States has one-upped Europe, including France, with the election of Barack Obama. Nowhere in Europe--Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, or any other country--can anyone conceive of a Black person or son/daughter of an immimgrant becoming president or prime minister. This obvious fact has provoked soul-searching by Europeans about why their own countries are so far behind the U.S. in equality of opportunity. They see an America to admire. We have shamed the Europeans by electing a candidate--who happens to be Black--because the public thought he was the better candidate.

Sabeg's manifesto was signed by some political leaders across a range of political groups: socialists, conservatives, Greens, some prominent academics. The major parties are now competing to see which one can best claim to improve opportunity for people from minority backgrounds. Nicolas Sarkozy, a conservative who as Interior Minister (aka national sheriff) was tough on immigrant youth, has been for some time a proponent of affirmative action, which he calls "positive discrimination." So is M. Sabeg. (Sarkozy's Minister for Immigrant Affairs, a woman of North African descent, is against it, however.) Sarkozy's Socialist opponent from 2007, Ségolène Royal, is trying to outdo Sarkozy and claim leadership in the equality movement.

The problem for minorities and immigrants in France, or one problem, is that the principles of the French Republic do not admit the existence of ethnic communities. In the U.S. we speak of Italian-Americans, Polish-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans as a normal reality. In French thinking, there is no such thing as hyphenated-French. There is only one group in France: the French. To recognize subgroups would be to fracture the nation. The French disdain "American" multiculturalism. In their view, their country has one culture. Encouraging a multiplicity of cultures is the road to factionalism and disaster. Immigrants are expected to assimilate and join the one French culture. There is no room for, or reason for, being "different." The census and other official documents do not keep tabs on race or religion. (See above on not "fracturing" the nation.) Such statistics as can be found on percentages of Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, whites, or blacks in France come from polling organizations, not from the government. The government would not consider collecting such information; the nation is not a collection of subgroups.

France is a country of "multiculturalism--nonsense!" and "immigrants--it's your job to learn the national language, become just like us, and then we'll accept you." I have sometimes thought of writing an essay entitled, "U.S. Conservatives are French. They Just Don't Know It."
The fact that differences are not officially recognized does not mean that they are not socially recognized. Famous test cases have been done showing that two identical resumes with two different names and addresses at the top, one "traditional" French and one "Arab" or "African" get completely different responses in the job market. Mohammed from a postal code in Seine-et-Marne, but with the same CV as Jean-Pierre from a "more correct" address does not get called for an interview. Jean-Pierre does.

Another problem, which is not just an obstacle to minorities, is that ladders to success in France are not very flexible. Almost all the people at the top of politics went to the same elite schools and give a leg up to people like themselves.

Yazid Sadeg, author of the manifesto, says, "Parce que l'élection de Barack Obama est un défi, que les républicains doivent relever. La société américaine a mis la diversité au coeur de sa démocratie, quand notre modèle d'intégration, fondé sur l'égalitarisme, ne produit que de la frustration et l'inertie sociale. Nos élites s'abritent derrière le dogme pour préserver leurs situations acquises. La France devrait méditer Aristote: "Il n'y a rien de plus injuste que de traiter de façon égale des situations inégales."

Which I will translate as, "Because the election of Barack Obama is a challenge that the supporters of our Republic must take up. American society has put diversity at the heart of its democracy, while our model of integration, founded on egalitarianism, produces only frustration and social inertia. Our elites take shelter behind dogma to preserve their places. France must meditate on what Artistotle said: 'There is nothing more unjust than to treat unequal situations as equal.'"


NYTimes article from Nov 11 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/world/europe/12europe.html?emc=eta1


manifesto http://www.lejdd.fr/cmc//politique/200845/yazid-sabeg-la-republique-doit-relever-le-defi-americain_163656.html

article about the competition http://www.letelegramme.com/gratuit/generales/france/un-manifeste-pour-legalite-reelle-20081110-4144764_1527941.php

views on the U.S. election

This morning on Radio-Canada Montréal, Marc Laurendeau summarized the opinion pages of the Montreal papers as follows:
1) Do you remember Nov. 22, 1963, the day of the Kennedy assassination? July 20, 1969, the day the first man walked on the moon? Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the World Trade Center attacks? Yesterday, Nov. 4, 2008, is such a day, a day the world changed. (Journal de Montréal)
2) Obama's victory was the victory of young, multicultural, urban America over rural, white, older, and religious, America. It is a new America. (Le Devoir.)
3) 45 years after Martin Luther King enunciated his dream that his children's children would be judged on the content of their character, Obama has realized this dream. Americans voted for the candidate's ideas and character, not for the color of his skin. (André Pratte, La Presse).
4) The election reminds Québécois of their own Révolution Tranquille, or Quiet Revolution, the time of the 1960s and 1970s when Québec society changed in its fundamental attitudes and way of life. (Benoit Aubain, Le Journal de Montréal)
5) Obama is a symbol of the citizen of the world: a mixture of cultures and races, a world that can no longer be seen in manichean terms. You've got a dictionary--look it up. (Yves Boisvert, La Presse)

You can see that the editorialists are familiar with U.S. history and politics. Implicit in some of them, for example, #2 and #5, is a criticism of America's recent trends and a hope for a more outward-looking, international United States. In addition, I am struck by #1, whose author identifies with important "American" days as the key, epoch-making days in his own life, and assumed to have that same importance in the lives of his readers. The great, or horrible days, he remembers most are ones that happened in our country, not his own. Far from "hating America," as some Americans think people in other countries do, he identifies with our great triumphs and tragedies as key markers in his life.