The ethnic stereotype factor complicates the integration process for both parties in the adopter/adopted equation, because of the ignorant racist mentality of the adopter on the one hand and the socio-cultural background of the adopted on the other
By Abdennour Toumi
Paris, France — The ethnic stereotype factor complicates the integration process for both parties in the adopter/adopted equation, because of the ignorant racist mentality of the adopter on the one hand and the socio-cultural background of the adopted on the other.
Sparking French news headlines Nadine Morano is terrifying her party (les Républicains), right-centrists and its President, former-President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is surfing the dangerous tides of the FN for his second presidential bid in 2017. This Euro-congresswoman is like her peer, the President of the National Front, Ms. Marine Le Pen.
Ms. Morano preaches intolerance toward immigrants, particularly the Arabs and Muslims. She wants to keep France purely “white.” Appearing as a guest Saturday night on the late show, “On N’est Pas Couché (France 2), European Parliament member and former Minister Morano reached a new level of idiocy when she declared that France was a “white race.”
“I do not want France to become Muslim,” she added.
“For there to be a national cohesion, we must keep a balance in the country, that is to say, its cultural majority. We are a Judeo-Christian country as General de Gaulle put it, Caucasian, home to strangers. I feel that France remains France…” she then went on to defend the need for immigration quotas “based on the skills the country needs and the continent of origin.”
The phrase attributed to General de Gaulle was mentioned in 1959 after his political comeback. Although he didn’t say it publicly, the remark was made in private to his young confidant, Information Minister Mr. Alain Peyrefitte, who authored the General’s memoirs in 1994.
France’s political context at that time was electric, the Algerian Liberation War was at its shadow, and de Gaulle was trying to eradicate the ALN, the FLN military branch to keep Algeria “white”…
Ms. Morano is known for her political buzz and small phrases. In 2013 she was called a “bitch” and “slut” by Guy Bedos, a “lefty” comedian, at a show in Toul, Meurthe-et-Moselle. His “public insult” of Ms. Morano was taken to the Criminal Court of Nancy and settled last month.
Why is Ms. Morano making these moronic remarks two months before the regional elections? She herself is a candidate in the Meurthe and Moselle region and she knows her party (les Républicains) is challenged by the FN.
The latest polls put the rising French political star Ms. Le Pen on top. She may very well beat President Hollande in the first-round in 2017. Ms. Morano, a long time all-out promoter of Nicolas Sarkozy owed her political ascension to the former President. But her recent killer comments were considered appalling by senior members of their party. Not so much, perhaps, in view of her party’s grassroots and its far-right president’s public declarations.
The immigration agenda does not differ much from Le Pen’s agenda; on the contrary, there has been fishing on the conventional right using the so-called Republicans’ fishing net. Add to that, President Hollande’s promised immigration policy wilted like his tulips because of his incoherent public policies in general.
Today the French media and politicians are worried they will witness a re-make of April, 2002. The difference this time is the sentiment that the conventional right would enter the race, questioning it’s nation’s two-thousand-year old ethnic “race.”
To this point will the Republicans suspend Ms. Morano’s activities from their party’s national bureau and specifically her candidacy in her region?
Ms. Morano is a tenacious politician, a provocateur like Michelle Bachmann in American politics arena, who also surfs on the populist discourse and enjoys the image of demonization by the leftist media and intellectuals. She uses this communication strategy, one in which she is a master, and has added her name to the 2017 list of Presidential Republicans primary candidates.
She knows she will not be selected by the party members and the French voters, but she is delighted to embarrass the moderate right-wing partisans and leaders like Mr. Juppé, who seems to be the natural candidate for the Republicans in 2017.
Does Ms. Morano’s ascension in the French media deserve such close observation? Is she only media bluff? Several factors combine to support this view: socioeconomic issues, growing paranoia over the latest influx of refugees into Europe, and France’s declaration to receive 24,000 refugees in two-years’ time, all serve as alarmist signs for French voters.
In 2007 Ms. Morano’s mentor promised the French people a French dream; and yet it seems they might end up getting a fascist nightmare in the December regional election. Recently French politicians from right to left were acting like Immigration-officers-in- chief. Premier Valls employed a favorite phrase of the neo-cons in Washington, “Islamofascism” and the apartheid term as well.
Referring to the recent influx of refugees, Mr. Devedjian, a congressman Republican, said jokingly, “the Germans took from us our Jews, they are sending us the Arabs.”
On the other hand, Ms. Le Pen, like Ms. Morano, does not hesitate either to alarm her fellow Gaulois regarding the situation in the Arab world. Speaking about Muslims who make Friday prayers on the sidewalks, she compared this religious performance to the Nazi occupation! After her visit to the island of Lampedusa, Sicily, she declared to the Italian media, “the reality is that they don’t want to see that what is happening in Lampedusa is probably the forerunner of a very large-scale immigration.”
Indeed, she and France’s political leaders are raising the question of secularism (laïcité) in France and are pushing forcefully toward ghettoization in their sermons.
The ascension of the far-right ideology has pushed former-President Sarkozy to “think” about a constructive debate within his party and among his Republican 2017 candidates that is not about “race.” Further, he needs a strategy to deal with his sworn political enemies of the far-right, whose political silliness is proving attractive to his party leaders and members, who are dying to joint the “Marine” drive.
Racism has been on the rise for three decades; under President Sarkozy’s term of service (2007-2012) it spread even further, deepening the sense of mono-culturalism in the country.
In 2015 France with a center-left government seems lost in translation, notably after the January 7th tragedy, and the rise of Arab and Muslim anti-sentiment has been steadily increasing. All the serious polls conducted on the immigration question have shown a clear anti-immigrant feeling. As for the refugees’ question, some mayors have made it clear, they welcome and prefer Christian refugees.
There is a vicious circle here. The French mainstream politicians act with hypocrisy , because this is the attitude of the dominator over the dominated. In truth, those people, who left or will leave their native countries do so as a consequence of colonialist policies and the complicity of former colonialist support of corrupt and tyrant regimes, all of which fuels the misery and desperation of young people seeking a better decent life.
Hence the ethnic stereotype factor complicates the integration process for both parties in the adopter/adopted equation, because of the ignorant racist mentality of the adopter on the one hand and the socio-cultural background of the adopted on the other.
There is neither a white, black, yellow, nor red “race,” there is only the human “race.” However come election time in 2017, France’s “white bread” will stay intact, and the exotic ingredients will not reshape the French croissant.
- France correspondent for The Arab Daily News.
- www.bareed-areej.com Editor-in-Chief
رئيس تحرير مجلة بريد الأريج
- Political consultant at IMPR a Think-Tank based in Ankara, Turkey.
- Member at the European Observatory for Arabic Language Teaching based in Paris, France.
- Affiliated with Sociology of Islam Journal and contributor at Middle East Studies / International Studies, Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies Center, Portland State University in Portland, OR.
EDUCATION: Diplôme des Études Approfondies (DEA) in Political Science from Toulouse University I, France. Master’s degree in Law from Algiers University, Algeria.
Email im at: nourhty@gmail.com
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