Great Russell - Republic of Islamophobia

The Rise of Respectable Racism in France

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Copyright Jim Wolfreys 2016

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is availableJim Wolfreys

Hidden Power: The Strategic Logic of Organized Crime.

ISBN: 9780190911645

I am very grateful to the editorial team at Hurst for inviting me to write this book and for their professionalism, patience and encouragement throughout the process. Particular thanks to Lara Weisweiller-Wu, who was a meticulous editor, and to Alison Alexanian, Alasdair Craig, Jon de Peyer and Daisy Leitch. My department at Kings College London gave me valuable research leave and a travel grant. Edouard Morena provided detailed help with the manuscript, as did Megan Trudell, whose influence was indelible. Houria Bouteldja, Yasser Louati, Fania Nol, Ndella Paye and Omar Slaouti were very generous with their time and their insights, as were Denis, Meriem, Vanina and especially Selma. Thanks also to Sebastian Budgen, Hannah Dee, Stathis Kouvelakis, Yuri Prasad and James Wood. Throughout, I have benefited enormously from the tireless work of a number of engaged, French-based writers, notably Sad Bouamama, Christine Delphy, Abdellali Hajjat, Marwan Mohammed and Pierre Tevanian, whose collective Les Mots Sont Importants, founded with Sylvie Tissot, has been a constantly useful resource. The book is dedicated to the memory of Julie Waterson.

Emmanuel Macrons emphatic victory over Marine Le Pens Front National (FN) in the 2017 presidential election, under the banner of the centre-right En Marche! movement, demonstrated two things. Firstly, that a majority of voters were not prepared to see an openly Islamophobic party with fascist roots take over the highest office of state; and, secondly, that over 10 million people were. This book examines the dynamic that has put Islamophobia at the heart of Frances political agenda, tracing its origins and touchstones through an assessment of the relationships between the war on terror, authoritarian neoliberalism, republican secularism, inequality and anti-racism.

Across Europe, anti-Muslim prejudice has been reinforced by the global war on terror, its stigmatisation of Islam and demands for vigilance, monitoring and increased security. In this respect, the Islamophobic spiral described here, while marked by specific historical and contingent features, is neither unique nor irrevocable: the myths, premises and constructions it draws upon can be challenged, refuted and reversed.

In country after country the construction of a global Arab/Muslim threat has given rise to the identification of an enemy within at home.

A shift in attitudes towards citizenship has taken place in twenty-first century France. As Vincent Martigny points out, debates about diversity and difference that had surfaced in the 1980s and 1990s have given way to a more accusatory stance that questions the authenticity of certain categories of people when it comes to being truly French, notably those with an immigrant background, and Muslims in particular. This shift has been accelerated by a focus on incidents and episodes that have taken on the status of moral panic. The booing of the Marseillaise at a football match between France and Algeria the month after 9/11, for example, became a symbolic reference point that still endures today, signalling the threat to national identity posed by young people living in the banlieues (working-class neighbourhoods on the urban outskirts, also known as quartiers populaires). Subsequent episodes, notably around the hijab and the terrorist attacks of 201516, have reinforced this narrative and ensured, as Martigny notes, that the political field became dominated by a narrowly nationalistic approach. The paradox here is that French society as a whole was moving towards a recognition and awareness of difference, not reflected in political commentary. Here the FNs ability to exploit equivocation and assert a clearly defined position is a reminder that political actors do not simply reflect society, but attempt to assert an explanatory framework in order to seize the initiative and offer leadership.

Internationally, post-9/11 preparations for war on Iraq saw the intensification of a clash of civilisations narrative targeting Muslims. This depicted Islam as a block, impervious to progressive values, and fostered a climate of suspicion that saw Bin Ladens networks as the symptom of a wider problem.

Domestically, these arguments have been taken up by a number of high-profile intellectuals and political actors and relayed by an enthusiastic media.

This kind of invective has not been the preserve of the right and the FN. Indeed, it has become the hallmark of an influential intellectual current known as neo-republicanism, an important impetus in the reactionary drift of mainstream debate largely driven by figures once associated with the left. Redeker, for example, was on the editorial board of both Les Temps modernes (co-founded by Sartre) and Marianne magazine. Individuals associated with neo-republicanism have managed to dignify essentially backward notions with the illusion that they belong within a progressive republican framework. This is partly because of their background as disillusioned Maoists or, in the case of Rgis Debray, former Guevarists. Their trajectory is similar to that followed by former leftists like Bernard-Henri Lvy and Andr Glucksmann, who became known in the late 1970s as the new philosophers, united by melodramatic anti-totalitarianism and a craving for media attention.

Neo-republicanism, as Chabal argues, has shifted the transformative narrative of French republicanism, characteristically associated with the left, onto right-wing terrain. Once a language of protest that demands change, or exhorts the state to be more faithful to republican values, it is now embraced across the political spectrum, not least by the Front National. Their strident, intolerant, vehemently Islamophobic take on republicanism has also played a part in opening the door of mainstream respectability to Marine Le Pens Front National.