Catherine Lloyd - Discourses of Antiracism in France

CATHERINE LLOYD

First published 1998 by Ashgate Publishing

Reissued 2018 by Routledge
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Copyright Catherine Lloyd 1998

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A Library of Congress record exists under LC control number: 98070978

ISBN 13:978-1-138-32806-8 (hbk)
ISBN 13:978-1-138-32807-5 (pbk)
ISBN 13:978-0-429-44891-1 (ebk)

I would like to thank many more people than possible here. In France, I would like to thank the MRAP, in particular Mouloud Aounit, Chrifa Benabdessadok, Norbert Haddad, Jean-Jacques Kirkyacharian, Albert Lvy and Charles Palant for giving me access to their materials and discussing their ideas and history with me. All those I have interviewed are listed separately, but I would like to thank them here for their time and help. I would also like to acknowledge my gratitude to all those who helped me intellectually and logistically during field trips over the years, notably Catherine Delaruelle, Franois Poirier, Constance and Andr Ramillon and Catherine Wihtol de Wenden and the CERI. In Britain, I would like to thank my friends at the Institute of Race Relations for their insights, my colleagues at CRER, Gail Stedward at the University of Manchester, Jim House and (especially) Max Silverman at the University of Leeds and Janette Davies at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women at the University of Oxford. Special thanks to Rose Goodwin at CRER for trying to enlighten me in the finer points of formatting.

My friend Momo was a limitless source of information and inspiration, Beckie Marsland my daughter, shared her delight in anthropological theory and much else with me, and above all, Paddy Farrington for everything.

One can only really make sense of the future by engaging in a constant and thorough critique of the past. (Balibar 1992:13)

In the late twentieth century the continuing existence and transformation of racism poses important questions for social scientists. To what extent have the antiracist practices which developed in some countries of Western Europe after 1945 succeeded in halting the development of racism? It is frequently taken for granted that we know what we mean when we refer to antiracism. All but the most superficial glance at the literature reveals this not to be the case. What do we know of the workings of antiracist ideas, and where do these ideas come from? Is antiracism more than simply the straightforward antithesis of racism? At a time when the left and progressive ideas are in crisis, can antiracist organisations maintain successful opposition to racism? What is the relationship between antiracism and modernity? How can research be used to strengthen the antiracist project? This book seeks to explore these questions.

In France there is a complex relationship between the ideas of antiracism and the heritage of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. These ideas are bound up with processes of legitimation of the Republic in France since 1789. Thus the republican settlement is predicated on the liberatory and progressive power of Enlightenment ideas, epitomised for antiracists by the emancipation of the Jews in September 1791 and the ending of slavery in February 1794. These ideas are echoed in contemporary discourses in which they are used to legitimate antiracism. Thus in 1973 after a series of racist murders, President Pompidou claimed that France is profoundly antiracist (Silverman 1992:86), and later in 1990, President Mitterrand led a massive demonstration of outrage at the profanation of the Jewish cemetery at Carpentras. However, such claims to antiracism on behalf of a whole society and state also serve to confuse the political and social manifestations of racism and antiracism (Balibar 1992:87).

France is also a unique example of a European country with longstanding, national, antiracist organisations. The Ligue des Droits de lHomme (LDH) was formed in 1898, the Ligue Contre lAntismitisme et le Racisme (LICRA) in 1928 and the Mouvement Contre le Racisme et pour LAmiti entre les Peuples (MRAP) in 1949. France, then, offers an opportunity to examine how antiracist practices and ideas develop and change over time. This book focuses particularly, though not exclusively, on the MRAP, through which these developments may be traced over almost half a century. Thus the study of antiracism in France enables the researcher to consider the history of antiracist ideas from the period of the Enlightenment, in a political context in which they play a central legitimating role, through well-established organisations.