French Debates over Frenchness
In France, for many years now, there has been a debate on the essence of Frenchness, seeking to answer the question of what it means to be French. If Zygmunt Bauman (2001, 8) was correct, the question itself may point to a certain crisis over French identity. In those debates, attention is often centred on the presence in France of immigrants and their children, particularly on those originating from North Africa, and especially Algeria. The variety of answers given by the majority population to the question of Frenchnessâas to who may identify themselves with France and the Frenchâhave been widely discussed, so it would seem to be of particular interest to examine what those answers do not contain. Thus, the idea arose of conducting research into how these issues are dealt with by those people who are often the subject of the public debate, but not always participants in it.
In wanting to get to knowâand transmitâthe opinions of those French people who are descendants of Algerian immigrants,1 I posed a question concerning their French identification. If we take into account such elements as citizenship and the degree of rootedness within French society of French people of Algerian origin, they are objectively âFrench,â yet they encounter situations where they do not perceive themselves as being so. The problem of a clear majority of such persons, then, is not their valence (most often French valence or a bivalence including elements of the culture of the country of origin) as defined by Antonina KĆoskowska (2005, 110â112)âthat is, the degree to which they have absorbed a given culture. Rather, the problem is the identifications they themselves make. While I was aware that the context of migration naturally raises a multitude of questions about the national affiliation of both migrating parents and their children, I also wanted to find out whether other contexts, apart from that of migration, might affect the occurrence of one identification at the expense of another. I wanted to look at members of the community selected from the angle of their affiliation to numerous social categories, and not restrict myself to considering their identifications only in light of the fact that they, their parents, or their grandparents were born in Algeria. Not only are they descendants of immigrants, they are also citizens of France, fathers, mothers, grandchildren, and children; they work at particular jobs, vote for different political parties, live in city centres or in the suburbs, and have various attitudes toward religious practice and the shared colonial past of France and Algeria. Their identity, then, consists not only of national identifications, but also of identifications with migrants, family, particular classes, or particular places.
Who are the French of Algerian origin? For the purposes of the research project, I have assumed that they were born and live in France, or were born in Algeria but have been socialised in France since their arrival (before the age of 15), and are the direct descendants of the first generation of Algerian immigrants. Thus, FAOs may be defined as the second generation of Algerian immigrants (see Attias-Donfut and Wolff 2009, 23â24), since they themselves did not make the decision to live in the Hexagon2âtheir parents did. I decided to use the term âFrench of Algerian originâ rather than âsecond-generation Algerian immigrantsâ in order to emphasise thatâas various sociological studies showâthey are people of French valence (or a bivalence combining French culture with elements of the culture of the country from which their parents emigrated) who speak the language of MoliĂšre fluently and function within various circles, layers, or factions of French society (not outside its structure). For these reasons, I call them âFAOsâ, though not all members of this category, especially those born in Algeria, hold a French identity card (though it is a fact that, among those born in France, aged 18â50, and at least one of whose parents was an Algerian immigrant, 65 percent have only French citizenship, and 34 percent French and other citizenship; see INSEE 2012, 115). By the first generation of Algerian immigrants, I mean those people who became socialised in Algeria, within Arab or Berber culture, and moved to France after having reached the age of 15. In practice, one can assume that they are persons who were defined in colonial France as Français Musulmans dâAlgĂ©rie (if they were born before the end of the Algerian War), or are the descendants of such people (if they were born after Algeria became independent). Consequently, when speaking of Algerians (unless otherwise stated herein) I have in mind Algerian Arabs or Berbers. This definition of Algerians, though, does not encompass other communities that also have the right to consider Algeria as their homeland. These mainly include those who possessed French citizenship (citoyennetĂ©) in Algeria before 1962, i.e. indigenous Algerian Jews and the population known as Pieds-Noirs (literally âBlack Feetâ)âpeople of European origin. Jacques Derrida belonged to the first of these two groups, Albert Camus to the second. Like the Arab and Berber peoples, they treated Algeria as their natural home. The Algerian War (1954â1962) and the exodus of most of the Pieds-Noirs to France, where they were often treated as foreigners, gave rise to dramatic experiences for them and their families (Nora 2012, 71 et seq.). They, however, were a community that differed in many ways from the ArabâBerber majority population of Algeria, and so I have not included their problems with identification in my considerations here.
The goal of my research project was not only to describe the relationships that exist between the identifications of a specific social community. It was also to propose theoretical concepts that make it possibleâto paraphrase a well-known article by Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper (2000)âto go beyond identification: to indicate its components and thereby explain what the relationship between one identification and anothe...