Kalila Jackson-Spieker Spring 2008
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The Right to be Different: Film, French Identity, and the National Space of French North Africans Kalila Jackson-Spieker Spring 2008 1 Acknowledgements......................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 4 French Republicanism .................................................................................................................... 8 An Overview............................................................................................................................... 8 Colonialism as support for Republicanism............................................................................... 11 The Algerian War and its Memory ............................................................................................... 13 The War .................................................................................................................................... 13 Collective Memory- An Overview ........................................................................................... 15 Memory of the War................................................................................................................... 16 The Formation of French North Africans..................................................................................... 19 Immigration and the beginnings of marginalization................................................................. 20 Initial demands for recognition................................................................................................. 22 Banlieues and French North Africans....................................................................................... 28 Methodology................................................................................................................................. 33 French Film as a site of Memory and Contemporary Identity.................................................. 33 French Film Movements and Society ....................................................................................... 35 Rise of Cinéma beur and Cinéma de banlieue.......................................................................... 39 Analysis of the Films .................................................................................................................... 42 Film Overview .......................................................................................................................... 42 Introduction to the Analysis...................................................................................................... 44 Ethnicity as a part of Identity.................................................................................................... 46 Perceptions of North Africans by others................................................................................... 52 Sites of Memory in the Films.................................................................................................... 64 Conclusion to the Analysis ....................................................................................................... 74 Conclusion and Implications......................................................................................................... 75 Appendices.................................................................................................................................... 78 Appendix A :............................................................................................................................. 78 Appendix B:.............................................................................................................................. 79 Appendix C:.............................................................................................................................. 79 Appendix D:.............................................................................................................................. 80 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 82 2 Acknowledgements I would like to thank my advisors for the guidance they have provided during the thesis process, which has helped to completely reshape my approach to research and writing. Deborah Porter helped me get started and conceptualize my topic and argument through numerous re- writes, while Sabine Lang helped me to round out a solid approach to my analysis and discussion of my findings. The skills I have learned from both of them are invaluable. I would also like to thank my family for all of the support and humor they have provided over the past year, particularly Susan for always being just an email away whenever I needed a second opinion. 3 Introduction In October of 2005 in major cities across France, hundreds of riots between youth and the police occurred. In three weeks of violence more than 10,000 cars were set ablaze and 300 buildings firebombed. The riots were conducted predominantly by teens of North African descent from impoverished public housing developments found on the outskirts of many major French cities, known as banlieues. Discontent over inequalities between these areas and the rest of France had been simmering for some time, but the riots were touched off when two boys from the suburb of Clichy-Sous-Bois outside of Paris were electrocuted while trying to hide from the police in an electric sub-station. Zyed Benna and Bouna Traore were of North African and West African descent respectively, and the police chasing them were white. For many of the rioters it was just one more piece of evidence that the French state considered their lives to be worth less than that of majority whites.1 When the riots began, like many other students I was shocked at the level of rage being released. Given that France is one of the most prosperous countries in the world and one that is ostensibly dedicated to the values of liberty, egalitarianism, and brotherhood (liberté, egalité, fraternité is the motto of the nation), the presence of conditions that would lead to this level of discontent in such a wide swathe of the population seemed counterintuitive. Many commentators used the riots as evidence that the predominantly Muslim participants were engaging in a small scale “clash of civilizations”2 but discussions about the situation in my classes served to pique my interest even more, and I began to research the events on my own. In 1 Astier, H. “French Police Probed in Riot Case “ BBC News Online http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6343227.stm (accessed 12/4/2007) 2 ‘Clash of civilizations’ was a term coined by Samuel Huntington in his influential essay “The Clash of Civilizations,” first published in Foreign Affairs in 1993. He argued in this essay that the structure of post-Cold War conflict would be based around cultural divides rather than ideological or economic differences. In particular, he argued that that a clash between the civilizations of the “West” and “Islam” would become particularly strong due to fundamental cultural differences such as the place of secularism, and a longstanding history of conflict from the Crusades on. 4 particular, a professor recommended that I watch the famous film La Haine to gain a more personalized sense of the long-running frustrations within the banlieues. La Haine was made in 1995 in response to the murder of a black banlieue youth while in police custody, and is considered to be one of the most brutal portrayals of the types of social problems in those areas, particularly for the minority populations that lived there. La Haine provided a powerful illustration of the issues I had been reading about in journals, and it became apparent to me that many of the young Muslim men engaging in the riots were not engaging in some grassroots religious war, but were reacting to the fact that they were not considered French ‘citizens’ in the truest sense of the word. Two days before the boys’ deaths, then interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy described residents of the banlieues as “gangrene” and “rabble” and stated that poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods should be "cleaned with a power hose."3 Banlieue residents, rioters and non-participants alike, expressed the sentiment that these riots were not the result of intrinsic lawlessness but a response to poor treatment by the French state, particularly as it manifested through policing.4 This anger and frustration is still occurring today, as is shown by the fact that in November of 2007 similar riots broke out in response to the accidental deaths of two boys of North African descent in a motorcycle crash with a police car (in which a full investigation is still pending). There are few studies in France that provide hard details on discrimination because of a reluctance to collect data that reveals national or ethnic origin.5 However, public polls, first hand accounts, and the success of groups like the National Front consistently reveal that even as the North African community as a whole becomes made up less of immigrants and more of those 3 BBC News Online “Timeline: French Riots.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4413964.stm (accessed 12/4/2007) 4 Astier, H. “France’s city policy in tatters” BBC News Online http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4415018.stm (accessed 12/4/2007) 5J. Freedman Immigration and Insecurity