MIME

Abstract

France has a long history of immigration. The nation is conceived as a community of equal citizens whose origins, life stories, and memories are diverse, and at times even conflicting (Vichy, the Algerian War). Since the model of citizenship is at once individualistic, universalist, and secular, it recognizes only individuals who are universally equal in law, and not specific groups; and the state guarantees freedom of conscience and worship, with religion falling within the private sphere. Thus, unlike immigrant societies such as Canada or the United States, which value the melting pot and promote the development of hybrid identities through recognition policies, France is both a nation-state (historically with a dominant group) and an immigrant society in which migrant populations can claim a place in the national narrative.

In this context, under what conditions can a model of citizenship that recognizes only individuals reconcile the heterogeneity of origins and memories with a political project rooted in the principles of the nation-state and the universalist republic—principles established in the 19th century and constantly reaffirmed ever since? The question remains urgent at a time when some elites are diagnosing a “crisis” of the “republican model of citizenship” on the one hand, and the explosion of “cultural diversity” and demands for recognition on the other. We would like to approach this from two angles, which could serve the objectives of establishing a museum of the history of France and Algeria in Montpellier: first, through ethnographic surveys of targeted populations in Montpellier (young people of North African descent), and second, through research seminars involving Algerian colleagues from the CRASC (Oran), to incorporate their perspectives on the shared history of the two countries.

Overview

France is a country of immigration, conquest, and a land of asylum (Temime, 1999). These ambiguities have shaped its history: as early as the French Revolution, citizenship was granted to Jews, but slavery was not abolished in its colonies until 1848 (Weil, 2008). Since the 19th century, immigrants have been welcomed from Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Spain, the Maghreb, and sub-Saharan Africa… as well as Germans, Armenians, and Spanish Republicans exiled following political crimes perpetrated by authoritarian regimes, and/or fleeing regions of war and famine. While the transition from labor migration to settlement migration does not occur at the same pace across different populations—for Algerian immigration, the process spans a century (Sayad, 1999)—these migrations give rise to diverse trajectories and plural memories within the populations concerned. At the same time, political and administrative struggles over the designation of these groups reached a peak in the 1990s, leading to conflation and confusion; thus, parallels were drawn between foreigners and immigrants… accompanied by the dichotomy between “us” and “them,” “established” and “outsiders” (Elias & Scotson, 2003). Relational poles (Weber, 1995) have emerged that are today very much alive and normatively organized around the universal and the particular, the virtuous and the dangerous, etc. Thus, the association between “immigrant” and “North African” and its normative dimension can be identified through discourse analysis within the media sphere (Bonnafous, 1991). However, when observed over time, “migration policies”—immigration and asylum (Fischer, Hamidi, 2016)—which are developed using two tools (naturalization and the management of flows through border control)—have regularly been used to regulate the labor market on the one hand, and demographic crises on the other (Weil, 1995). And at a time when freedom of movement has become a principle tending toward universality, constrained by the dual pressures of nation-state categories and economic and demographic needs (Noiriel, 1988), the issue of “migration crises” appears to be firmly entrenched on the political agenda. Finally, with the end of what was called “Greater France,” the “repatriation” of French citizens from Algeria and other protectorates and colonies took place; various groups, whose existence was tied to decolonization (“pieds-noirs,” harkis), were forced to continue their lives in the former metropolis, which gave rise to conflicts over memory and political mobilizations that helped reshape French political life (Savarese, 2014).

Thus, France is often portrayed as a community of citizens (Schnapper, 1994) whose origins, life stories, and memories are diverse, and even conflicting, as in the case of Vichy (Rousso, 1987) or the Algerian War (Stora, 1991; Stora, Harbi, 2004); citizens defined as equal individuals, regardless of their histories, life paths, memories, or personal and religious affiliations. Indeed, the republican model of citizenship, established under the Third Republic (Nicolet, 1982), is at once individualistic (it recognizes only individuals as rights-holders), universalist (these individuals are universally equal in rights), and secular (religion belongs to the private sphere, and the state must guarantee freedom of conscience and worship). But while immigration societies (Canada, Australia, the United States) promote the development of layered identities (recognition of the contributions of Italian Americans in the United States alongside their allegiance to the Stars and Stripes) through recognition policies (Taylor, 1994; Kymlicka, 2001), France is both a nation-state with a historically dominant “Catholic” group and an immigrant society where minority migrant populations are likely to “integrate” and claim a place in the national narrative (Walzer, 1998): the establishment in 2007 of the National Museum of the History of Immigration in the Palais de la Porte Dorée (Paris) can be understood as an attempt to address this tension.

Hence the question—central regardless of the model of citizenship (republican, multicultural, consociational)—of the relationship between the universal and the particular (Martiniello, 1991), addressed here in France from the perspective of the plurality of collective memories (Halbwachs, 1994): how can individuals with diverse histories and memories form a society (Donzelot, 2003) and participate in a collective project of living together, within the framework of the republican model of citizenship? Under what conditions can a model of citizenship that recognizes only individuals and not particularized groups of individuals (minorities have no legal existence) reconcile the heterogeneity of origins and memories with a political project rooted in the principles—established in the 19th century and constantly reaffirmed since—of the nation-state and the universalist Republic?

The issue is urgent: in recent years, the diagnosis of a crisis in the “integration model” has resurfaced, driven on the one hand by challenges to the status quo (the “Indigenous People of the Republic”) and on the other by the rise of “cultural diversity” (identity or regionalist movements). In response to this situation, which gives rise to numerous conflicts over memory—surrounding slavery, the baptism of Clovis, the link between the Catholic religion and “national identity,” the definition of mass crimes, Vichy, or the Algerian War… several responses can be offered:
– the first, sometimes associated with a rhetorical device, aims to make the Republic the unshakable foundation of a solution to the “identity malaise” asserted within the framework of the demands for recognition that have been made;
– the second consists of making citizenship a status that “must be earned”: in most European Union countries, measures aimed at restricting access to citizenship through naturalization illustrate that, without being truly ethnicized, citizenship has become both harder to obtain and easier to lose (Joppke, 2010), despite certain liberalization trends such as the introduction of jus soli in Germany (Weil, 2005);
– the third involves drafting memory laws (the Gayssot Act, the Taubira Act, the law recognizing the term “Algerian War,” the law recognizing the Armenian genocide, the law of February 23, 2005, on the “positive role of French overseas endeavors,” the law designating March 19 as the day of remembrance for the civilian and military victims of the Algerian War…) intended to satisfy particularist demands without abandoning the republican model of citizenship (Savarese, 2020). Even the effectiveness of memory policies (Michel, 2010) can be called into question (Gensburger, Lefranc, 2017); this profusion of legislation underscores that never before has the legislature engaged so extensively with the issue of memory;
– the last, which is the focus here, aims to examine the diversity of the French population through the expression of articulated memories, to understand to what extent individuals bearing plural memories can form a society; beyond the nation rooted in the past through a “rich store of memories” (to use Renan’s phrase), how can individuals whose memories differ and vary according to more or less imaginary constructs (Boucheron, 2016) recognize themselves as members of the same society? By examining the diversity of memories in France and demonstrating how they evolve, we can demonstrate that the construction of social bonds can take different paths: diversity in memory, culture, and religion is perhaps less an obstacle to republican citizenship than the foundation of a possible coexistence.

To address these issues, the city of Montpellier provides a fertile ground for research, given both national trends and its specific characteristics: over the past 60 years, its population has doubled. This growth cannot be attributed solely to natural increase; it is the result of both internal and external migration. Furthermore, 16% of the population is officially recorded as foreign-born—nearly twice the national average—and the city is home to a large number of young people (more than 70,000 students, or 1 in 4 residents) as well as very high rates of unemployment and poverty compared to that same average. Hence the potential for incorporating this great diversity of origins into a project aimed at examining the history of migration and the civic sharing of memories. Based on qualitative research (observation, interviews), this study draws not only on its core social sciences (history, sociology, anthropology, political science) but also on a multidisciplinary approach: law, urban geography, linguistics… The aim is to reconstruct these trajectories based on the conditions in which Montpellier’s new residents found themselves upon arrival, and how they were able to articulate a unique history, a construction of memory, and participation in the city’s affairs. In addition to discussions during research seminars with French and Algerian colleagues, this work will result in a scholarly publication (book, journal issue) and an exhibition presenting the research materials through biographical profiles and photographs. It may also serve as a precursor to a study on how citizens of Maghreb origin would receive a potential museum on the history of Algeria and France in Montpellier.