Many friends and family have been writing asking for explanations about the current situation in France. You’ve probably heard all the facts: a policeman shot an unarmed kid and all hell broke loose. Instead of going over the details of this incident, I’d like to broaden the scope and take a look at France’s overarching, “integration” model.
Integration, Assimilation or Multiculturalism ?
Paris and London diverge frequently in their approach to immigration and migrants. In this tale of two cities, London champions a “multicultural” system, whereas France prefers policies focusing on integration (or even assimilation). According to the British model, migrants are to be left alone. They are only required to respect the law, and their religious and idiosyncratic practices are their own business. Britain doesn’t care about “integrating” their minorities: they tout “multiculturalism” as the best way to avoid cultures competing amongst themselves.
France, on the other hand, bet on “integration”. This supposed the creation of ties between “The Republic” and specific communities, where people would end up being French-Venezuelan, or French-Algerian, by sharing certain cultural attributes while keeping their personal identities intact.
Both models vary on an ideological and a practical level. In France, we try not to point at differences to avoid segregation: this means, the State can’t run surveys asking people what their religious beliefs are, for example. We don’t know how many Muslims live in Paris, or how many Jews. They are all French citizens: they have been “integrated to the Republic”.
The promises of integration
When you see kids running around, burning the city and claiming not to be French, our “integration model” comes into question. Where did it go wrong? Here are some of the basic ideological assumptions the French have been weary to tackle, hence the current debacle.
Humanism trumps tribalism. The founding idea of the French Republic is deeply humanistic. “All are equal and free” is a credo supposed to lift people out of their individualities and inscribe them in a larger project. There is an enlightenment ethic attached to this ideal of surpassing human limits by participating in a renaissance project. The de facto assumption was that this was true, that anyone with the possibility of erasing himself in the search for liberty and freedom would prefer that. What happens when people say they want to be unequal and that they find your freedom offensive to their idiosyncratic beliefs (i.e., the freedom to draw Muhammad, etc.)?
Enlightened education frees Man. A core belief in the French system is the objective and universal truth of beauty in art. The idea goes, people may be reduced to slum-living in the outskirts of Paris, but they can emancipate their minds and souls thanks to classic literature. If we make everyone read Balzac in school, they will understand our renaissance ethos and adhere to it automatically. The French system supposes that if you let two competing narratives face each other, the enlightened one will win: who would prefer inequality, slavery and uncivilized discourse to French values?
Assimilation as brute force
On the other side of the ideological aisle, we have the hard-right’s “assimilation” model. This approach concedes nothing: it supposes the French model is better from the get-go, and demands immigrants “assimilate” to the superior cultural framework. There is no reflection or intellectual effort, as you may have when reading Les Misérables and discovering why charity and empathy are important. You either bend the knee and affirm the greatness of French culture, or you get out. Assimilation comes in varying shades and goes all the way to the hard-right’s idea of banning “non-French names” (whatever that is) and deporting French-speaking, French-born kids to some country in Africa their grandfather came from.
Are Nihilism and Neoliberalism to blame?
Our current zeitgeist, of rats making as much money as they can before jumping the capitalist ship, might be one of the causes for the French model’s crumbling. There are socialistic notions (as in being part of a group) at the root of enlightenment values. We are all in it together. We are all the same. I pay taxes to help you when in need, and vice versa. All of that. However, these ideas seem has-been and ridiculous nowadays. Individualistic approaches, make as much money as you can and run away just as fast, have created the current pessimistic, even nihilistic, point of view. There is no search for transcendence or Humanity (capital H): just get followers, make money and buy shiny things. Screw the planet. Screw working hard at school or getting a degree: the kids in the banlieues of Paris want to be either footballers or rappers. What do they want to rap about? About how much they despise France and how they cheated the system and became millionaires, etc.
This is the sad state of affairs we are in: a crumbling, ideologically bankrupt model (enlightenment and integration) that is being substituted by a cynical, winner-takes-all, worldview.
Le judéo-messianisme répand parmi nous son message empoisonné depuis près de deux mille ans. Les universalismes démocratique et communiste sont plus récents, mais ils n’ont fait que renforcer le vieux récit juif . . . Ce sont les mêmes idéaux . . . Les idéaux transnationaux, transraciaux, transsexuels, transculturels que ces idéologies nous prêchent (au-delà des peuples, des races, des cultures) et qui sont le subsistance quotidienne de nos écoles, dans nos médias, dans notre culture populaire, à nos universités, et sur nos rues, ont fini par réduire notre identité biosymbolique et notre fierté ethnique à leur expression minimale.
Les banquiers juifs ont inondé l’Europe de musulmans et l’Amérique de déchets du tiers-monde . . . L'exil comme punition pour ceux qui prêchent la sédition devrait être rétabli dans le cadre juridique de l'Occident . . . Le judaïsme, le christianisme, et l’islam sont des cultes de mort originaires du Moyen-Orient et totalement étrangers à l’Europe et à ses peuples.
On se demande parfois pourquoi la gauche européenne s’entend si bien avec les musulmans. Pourquoi un mouvement souvent ouvertement antireligieux prend-il le parti d’une religiosité farouche qui semble s’opposer à presque tout ce que la gauche a toujours prétendu défendre ? Une partie de l’explication réside dans le fait que l’Islam et le marxisme ont une racine idéologique commune : le judaïsme.
Don Rumsfeld avait raison lorsqu’il disait : «L’Europe s’est décalé sur son axe», c’est le mauvais côté qui a gagné la Seconde Guerre mondiale, et cela devient chaque jour plus clair . . . Qu’a fait l’OTAN pour défendre l’Europe? Absolument rien . . . Mes ennemis ne sont pas à Moscou, à Damas, à Téhéran, à Riyad ou dans quelque croque-mitaine teutonique éthéré, mes ennemis sont à Washington, Bruxelles et Tel Aviv . . . Nous socialistes nationaux est venu à libéré Paris, nous ne l'avons pas détruit..
https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/pardonne-mon-francais-va-te-faire
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