French elections 2017: completing the hat-trick?

ime british people generally have a grudge against france so their perspectives on french politics are clouded by their prejudices. ime.

reading the dumb takes on race & the world cup team this week in english-language media has me a bit grumpy on brits/usa-ers toward france I confess

English people, not British. Get it right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Alliance

floddengate

https://www.mccaskiebutcher.co.uk/ashet-pie-serves-1

lots of the English centre right/centrist types think Macron is c'est marvelous, even if they hold grudges against the French.

the most embarrassing example was Tristam Hunt, who recently seemed to lose all sense of decorum when waxing lyrical about Manu.

They love the centrist bad boy. The resistance of the French to the doctrine of the Blessed Margaret irritates them more than any historical rivalry.

sorry yes it’s the English not the British.

Feels like a lot of people here forget that there is a larger context of police brutality in France that has been going on at least since Hollande and that the Benalla scandal is the final straw for lots of people. It's not just Benalla himself punching an innocent protester.

Also absolutely loved how Trevor Noah just schooled Araud on multiculturalism and the cultural identity of the french national football team.

Our minister of Foreign Affairs could do with some schooling of his own too

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/07/18/the-dutch-foreign-minister-says-multicultural-societies-breed-violence/

The Trevor Noah thing yes, that’s one of the horrible shit things my American friends were sharing this week. Typical American drivel (yes I read that the guy is South African, another great place from which to be lectured on race).

Well as someone who was born in Canada from Périgord parents, am I not french? Would you be bold as to cancel my french heritage?

You know what it is to be French, then. It’s these Americans who want to deny our players their French identities, like the FN.

So wait, am I not Canadian then?

Trevor Noah has not denied anyone anything, you can celebrate both a heritage and a citizenship, where you are and where you come from. This is what Noah is saying. This is what Araud and countless of french don't understand. There shouldn't be any need for Pogba to erase his africanité to be a french citizen, just like I was never asked to shed my french heritage to be a 100% Canadian.

These aren’t metaphysical questions. You tell me, are you Canadian?

Pogba knows his heritage. It’s just that, a heritage. You never lose your bled. If you want to be French, join the République. We don’t erase our histories in doing so. Being French is a political act, nothing more.

Well if you don't erase the history then there should be no problem celebrating Kanté's african origins.

Why should we, with the FN, draw attention to it? If Kanté wants to do so, he can. But why should we do what the FN does?

Because fuck what the FN does, let's not let them determine what we do at all in any way?

What the FN does is so obviously different I don't know where to start.

On one side you have a group of xenophobic numbskulls who want to deny Kanté's frenchness, while constantly reminding us of their africanité.

On the other you have a bunch of black people from all over the world who want to celebrate Kanté's africanité, without ever denying his frenchness.

If you can't extract one ideology from the other than perhaps yeah, the FN has won the cultural battle in France.

Plus the idea that Noah's heritage as a South African wouldn't give him any authority to discuss race relations is a serious wtf. I don't want that to go unnnoticed.

Why is Kanté’s heritage in Africa anyone else’s to celebrate, if he’s not doing it? Or Mendy’s? These are private things. What is public is that they are French. They can choose to make their heritages public, but it is their choice. Your motivation might be different from the FN’s, but the effect is the same: to rob them of their choice on how to relate their heritage and their nationality, for your own purposes.

These questions are ones we can, and should, disagree about. There are a variety of perspectives at play here. A South African perspective will carry baggage that may obscure the French situation—-just as my French immigrant’s perspective does. I am denying privilege here to any perspective; Noah and others I read judged their perspective sovereign. Let us listen to individuals rather proclaim authoritatively which read on identity is “correct”. Let’s engage this politically then, not metaphysically.

rather THAN proclaim

Pointing out someone's background, including one's own, is not necessarily a violent gesture. It depends on the context. Conversely, refusing to acknowledge someone's background, including one's own, is not necessarily an inclusive gesture. It depends on the context. There is nothing specifically 'metaphysical' about this.

I ain't denying them anything, I'm just saying that 1. they can be whatever they want to be, to identify as african, as french, as both, as neither, it's up to them and that 2. people can celebrate whatever they want to celebrate and how they see their realities in the french players is up to them as well. A white kid from Lyon might just see the french team, which is great, an Ethiopian kid can see the africans who made it in France and are allowed to be fully both on the field and celebrate that, which is great too. As an immigrant from one privileged country from another I absolutely celebrate the fact that like me they are second (or first) generation immigrants. The problem is when you start denying stuff that you have no idea about, may that be that frenchness (like the FN does) or their africanité (like some french centrists, liberals and softer right wing are doing). Just the idea is disgusting: french people get to dictate how black americans should see their french black brothers.

Pointing out someone's background, including one's own, is not necessarily a violent gesture. It depends on the context. Conversely, refusing to acknowledge someone's background, including one's own, is not necessarily an inclusive gesture. It depends on the context. There is nothing specifically 'metaphysical' about this.

― pomenitul, Saturday, July 21, 2018 5:37 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah and Noah went at length to discuss how context is everything, Araud ignored that. Perhaps a portion of the french people never understood context, some of them really do believe the ideals of their republic is universal.

Noah doesn’t understand the French context very well then, more just his own.

He does. He explained it. He is just not going to extract himself from his context for the sake of an arrogant ambassador or out of date ideals written 200 years ago. Plus, it seems that in the situation, it is north american's view on multiculturalism that french don't understand the context of: the proof is that some french are dumb enough to link freaking Trevor Noah to the FN's ideology.

Disagreeing with rigourist assimilationism, i.e. l'intégration à la française, does not mean you don't understand the French context.

xp

They can choose to make their heritages public, but it is their choice.

lol

good luck with france guys

it's ironic that Paris is so much more segregated than London - on a surface level you'd think it would be the opposite, that London's out-and-proud "multiculturalism", the public celebration of heritage and maintenance of ways of life, religion, language for diaspora communities would lead to people being all hived off, and this great French capital where heritage is a private matter and everyone is drilled from youth on how to be French would lead to a kind of common cheek-by-jowl living - but it's the other way round

There's no choice in London to do anything other than live cheek-by-jowl.

yeah it’s better to say Noah disagrees with the French perspective. The ambassador doesn’t agree with Noah’s perspective. Disagreement isn’t “owning”. These are political questions, and it’s good to have different states embodying different political ideals. I am happy in France after dealing with American racism (as a Latino) for 30+ years. I’m going to argue from my perspective and I urge others to do so too: otherwise we’re trying to make politics for other people who aren’t asking for your “help”, your cultural imperialism.

The owning part is when the ambassador tweeted that Noah was doing the exact same thing as the FN and Noah clearly explains how this is bonkers and obviously false.

as habermas might say, trying to wish away blackness isn't enough to make it so

This isn’t about “wishing away blackness”, it’s about whether these men should think of themselves as African or as French or as a hybrid of the two. I have dealt with the hybrid treatment in the USA as a person of color, and I think the French way is better. Your perspectives, as people of color or not, might be different. Of course my color, my heritage, will be evident to people. Why is it so important to you to hybridize these men, who haven’t asked for such a thing?

The statement that English people have a grudge against the French is not useful. Some English people might do. Many English people, like me, love France. Some others may be indifferent.

Euler because i think difference is great and interesting and worth celebrating and finding out about and learning from! Somehow i feel this answer is not going to satisfy you though!

Most English ILXors are Francophiles to some extent really.

I think polite society should permit some level of grudging against former colonial powers, but I don't see the point in any intra-grudging between them over shit from the Napoleonic age, that's just taking it too far!

I'm thinking there's an element of resentment that we in a live in a shit, getting shittier, country where we're treated like shit because we allow ourselves to be treated like shit and the French haven't "reformed" yet and are still going on strike and standing up for themselves and inconvenient stuff like that.

grr! Macron better hurry up + decimate those pockets of trade union power.. can't be having countries without a defeated workforce on shit money and zero hour contracts!

I suppose it's like when UK people hate on public sector workers, on the notion of them having decent wages, pension schemes, and paid holidays etc..

I was going to mention that exact example - I've given up my pension, how dare you not give up yours.

But Tracer we are going to learn about the differences! Come to the 18th sometime! These discussions are part of daily life, for my kids & their immigrant friends who go back to the bled every summer, but they don’t want to be further stigmatized here by having to hyphenate themselves as Egyptian-French, Congolese-French, etc. Here they can just be publicly French, if we’ll just let them. On the ground this makes a difference. Of course the UK and the USA have different approaches, and we can see the different societies that result, and how harmony among diversity emerges. I’ve lived two of those and I’m happy with this one for now and I want to oppose attempts to nullify the French approach from the outside.

are latinos otherised in europe/france in a way which is comparable to the treatment of ppl of african descent?

I don't think it's reasonable to expect anyone to accept the suggestion that the french nation is such a successful colourblind project that identity functions completely differently there to the rest of the world