France Burns in the Flames of Identity.

For over two weeks, France has burnt in the flames of its colonial legacy. The violence rocking city centers has awoken ghosts from its colonial past. The pent-up embers which sustained the violence were: little bits of assimilation versus xenophobia; neo-colonialism versus independence; the old versus the new françafrique policy; economic co-optation versus independence and social discontent. France’s pursuit for a solution to the present quagmire is fraught with challenges, which are bound to reemerge, unless the right solutions are sought today. However, there is the need to start off by demystifying the current crisis. The issue at stake is at once simple and complex - IDENTITY!!

Raised on the literature of African literati like Senghor, Sembene Ousmane and Sheikh Hamidou Kane, I endured their painful narratives of protest against the systemic subordination of the assimilé. Their painful prose at once exposed the acculturating elements of assimilation, which amounted to ridding the African of his “African-ness,” and transforming him into Frenchmen- albeit, second class French men. Then their symbolic odes birthed and nurtured the concept of “negritude” which glorified the African’s African-ness. Though separated from me by two generations, their prose and poetry still ring true today as I watch France burn to the pent up frustrations of multi-generational discontent.

To address identity in France today, there is the need to accept the reality of racial discrimination, in spite of its former policy of assimilation. For, assimilation did not attempt to create co-equal lines of communication across France’s racial divide. While at an individual level peaceful coexistence across racial lines is the norm, institutionally, race remains a barrier to education access and thence, job access and mobility. Trapped in a colonial time capsule, the relational dynamics between the white French system and the assimilé, has failed to respond to changing local and global imperatives.

While Paris glitters to the glitz of the Eiffel Tower, the Louvres and the Tuilleries, its outskirts, like most French municipalities, are littered with distinct pockets of African immigrant communities. These communities might be located in Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and Marseilles, but they retain everything African- cuisine, music, community and language. However, these pockets of vibrant discontent evidence the economic unevenness between African immigrant populations and the rest. They reflect an attempt to embrace the other, only to be rebuffed by a cold shoulder. Not even the heterogeneity of France's national soccer team (with its Bolis,Thurams, Ngottys and Makeleles) has proven that African immigrant can perform at the highest levels. If anything, it has fostered a stereotype that “black men can only play ball.”

These communities of discontent have inspired literary protest, which have not attracted policy solutions to their problems, the same solutions which violent protest will most certainly elicit from the French authorities.

In an attempt to deal with this discontent, the dichotomous positions of France’s heirs-apparent exhibit the complexity of the problem. Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has outlined socio-economic policy recommendations to deal with the discontent. Meanwhile, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister has called for the deportation of protesters despite their immigration status. In Sarkozy’s position, is the clear articulation of the discontent being expressed by the assimilé being: “No matter how long we stay in France, regardless of whether we were born here, we really do not belong here.” That is where France needs to begin its identity soul-searching. Where it ends, I am not sure, but am convinced that they would also need to explore the underlying reason behind the ever swelling ranks of immigrants from their former colonies. A foreign policy debate might follow suit, but for now, there is the need to dowse the flames of discontent by kindling flames of equal promise and opportunity.