This art icle was downloaded by: [ The Library at Queens] On: 17 May 2012, At : 06: 10 Publisher: Rout ledge I nform a Lt d Regist ered in England and Wales Regist ered Num ber: 1072954 Regist ered office: Mort im er House, 37- 41 Mort im er St reet , London W1T 3JH, UK European Societies Publicat ion det ails, including inst ruct ions for aut hors and subscript ion informat ion: ht t p:/ / www.t andfonline.com/ loi/ reus20 ANTISEMITISM IN FRANCE Véronique Alt glas a a Queen's Universit y Belfast Available online: 01 May 2012 To cite this article: Véronique Alt glas (2012): ANTISEMITISM IN FRANCE, European Societ ies, 14:2, 259-274 To link to this article: ht t p:/ / dx.doi.org/ 10.1080/ 14616696.2012.676450 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTI CLE Full t erm s and condit ions of use: ht t p: / / www.t andfonline.com / page/ t erm sand- condit ions This art icle m ay be used for research, t eaching, and privat e st udy purposes. Any subst ant ial or syst em at ic reproduct ion, redist ribut ion, reselling, loan, sublicensing, syst em at ic supply, or dist ribut ion in any form t o anyone is expressly forbidden. The publisher does not give any warrant y express or im plied or m ake any represent at ion t hat t he cont ent s will be com plet e or accurat e or up t o dat e. The accuracy of any inst ruct ions, form ulae, and drug doses should be independent ly verified wit h prim ary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, act ions, claim s, proceedings, dem and, or cost s or dam ages what soever or howsoever caused arising direct ly or indirect ly in connect ion wit h or arising out of t he use of t his m at erial. European Societies 14(2) 2012: 259
274 – 2012 Taylor & Francis ISSN 1461-6696 print 1469-8307 online ANTISEMITISM IN FRANCE Past and present Véronique Altglas 1 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 Queen’s University Belfast ABSTRACT: This article discusses the so-called newness of today’s antisemitism through the historical and social specificities of antisemitism in French society. It casts light on the continuities of antisemitic discourse in France, but also its transformation in relation to the French colonial heritage and the recent ‘communitarianisation’ of France’s social life. This analysis of antisemitism is furthered by the presentation of two case-studies: the controversial discourses of comedian Dieudonné and Kémi Séba, leader of a black supremacist movement called Tribu KA which stirred controversies in the 2000s. These two examples emphasise the fact that antisemitic discourse is better understood as a narrative about downward social mobility and status, which hardly makes antisemitism new. Key words: antisemitism; France; racism; identity; ethnicity; social mobility 1. Introduction Echoing the second Intifada, intimidations and insults, grave desecrations and synagogues attacks became a growing public concern at the turn of the new millennium in France. It was not only their escalating number that worried the public. While the Far-Right had been the usual suspect for this kind of violation, this time fingers were pointed at unorganised and non-affiliated youth of Muslim origin in suburban areas, although some research emphasised that the perpetrators came from heterogeneous social 1. This article presents some of the findings of a research project funded by the Ford and Hanadiv Foundations’ Grant Programme for the Study and Combating of Racism and Antisemitism in Europe. The research was undertaken with Robert Fine, Department of Sociology, University of Warwick. It aimed at contributing to the sociological understanding of modern antisemitism in relation to forms of political community and their resulting practices of inclusion and exclusion in France and Britain. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616696.2012.676450 259 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES backgrounds with social exclusion as a common experience.2 These violent acts took place in a context in which suspicions, accusations or denunciations of antisemitism and racism began to pervade public debates about the Israeli
Palestinian conflict and France’s cultural diversity as well. The emergence of a ‘new antisemitism’ that would draw on the demonisation of Israel raised concerns. Denouncing an Islamic-left wing axis, Pierre-André Taguieff (2004), for example, insisted on an emerging global ‘Judaeophobia’ as a result of the diffusion of radical anti-Zionism from soviet propaganda to the Muslim world. But if antisemitism has spread transnationally, what are the local factors that can make it relevant on a national level? Is today’s antisemitism really new, and if so, what is new exactly? How is it different from the ‘old antisemitism’? The aim of this article is to address these questions through an exploration of the historical and social specificities of antisemitism in French society. Based on written sources, this article is conceived as a preliminary research on antisemitism in France that we hope to further with empirical investigations in the near future. Here we will point out the continuities of antisemitic discourse in France, as it appears to be a discourse expressing yesterday’s and today’s discontents with the Republic. Nevertheless, France’s colonial heritage and the recent ‘communitarianisation’ of social life transformed antisemitism’s terminology; it now antagonises ‘victims’ on the basis of increasingly reified
ethnic or religious
identities. This analysis of antisemitism in contemporary France will be illustrated by the controversial discourses of the comedian, Dieudonné, and Kémi Séba, leader of a black supremacist movement called Tribu KA (Tribe KA) which stirred controversies in the 2000s. Both share an antisemitic discourse, combining anti-Zionism and a comparison of the Holocaust with Black Slavery. These individuals mobilised very few supporters, mainly from Black and African-Caribbean origin, yet these cases are particularly interesting. They shed light on the fact that antisemitic discourse cannot be reduced to a Jewish
Muslim opposition regarding the Israeli
Palestinian conflict. The fact that French Jewish and Muslim populations do share a conflicted colonial past is relevant; we nonetheless contend that antisemitic discourse is better understood as a narrative about downward social mobility and status. This is precisely the reason why antisemitism can still play an efficient role in mobilising a wide 2. See Rufin (2004), Commission Nationale consultative des droits de l’Homme (2005) and reports published by the Stephen Roth Institute, retrieved 24 February 2009: http://www.tau.ac.il/Antisemitism/CR.htm; and European Commission against Racism and Intolerance. Reports on France. retrieved 24 February 2009: http:// www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/library/publications_en.asp 260 Antisemitism in France Véronique Altglas range of diverse social and political actors, as shown by Dieudonné’s and Tribu KA’s links with radical Islamist groups and the traditional far-right. Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 2. Antisemitism in France: Historical Context Recent upsurges of antisemitic acts have sometimes been associated with France’s darkest episodes
the Dreyfus affair, the collaboration of the Vichy regime with Nazism and the particular development of Holocaust denial
leading some journalists and intellectuals to portray France as a persistent antisemitic society. Yet historically, France’s relations with antisemitism are more contradictory and subtle than it seems. While antisemitism in modern France has probably been more visible than in other Western European countries, France has also been a pioneer in the emancipation of Jews in Europe following the Revolution. It was also the only country in which, as an outcome of the Dreyfus affair, political antisemitism was considered to be contrary to democracy and forbidden as such (Winock 2005). Indeed, antisemitism in France is paradoxically linked to Jews’ emancipation. Emancipation granted Jews citizenship and civil rights and allowed them to enjoy social, intellectual and political advancement. It also bonded them to the revolutionary movement and the Left and nourished their attachment to the Republic’s meritocratic ideals (Nora 2004). Yet Jews have shared the fate of the Republic: its enemies would equally be their enemies (Birnbaum 1992: 20). In the nineteenth century, antisemitism grew in opposition to the emergent industrial, urban and capitalist society, whose increasing secularism and individualism were far from being celebrated by everyone. For the left-outs of this emerging society
anti-revolutionaries, the Old Regime’s aristocracy, Catholic traditionalists opposed to Gambetta’s anticlericalism and little merchants squeezed by the rise of capitalism
Jews were the winners and partners in crime of the Republic, then denounced as the ‘Jewish Republic’. They were seen as accomplices of a decadent modernity. Antisemitic discourse thus operates what Gérard Noiriel (2007: 397, 506) calls a ‘rhetorical reversal’; it expresses the frustration of social actors experiencing downward mobility and identifying themselves as the direct victims of ‘subordinates’ (the Jews) who, in their views, had become unduly dominant and threatening. Antisemitism in modern France united not only the losers in the process of political and economic mutations, but all opponents of parliamentarian republic, thereby significantly contributing to the formation of nationalism (Winock 1990). Drawing on anti-Prussian actualities, antisemitic discourses elaborated equivalences between republicans, Jews and foreigners who threaten the nation from within (Noiriel 261 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES 2007: 207
86)
representations that would shape the Dreyfus affair. In sum, Jews became a crucial factor in the contestation of the republican state and the casualties of France’s quest for national identity, ‘the prime target of anti-modernist resistance’ (Bauman 1993: 46). As we shall see, this will not be different at the turn of the third millennium. The ways in which republicanism responded to religious and cultural diversity is also an important factor in understanding antisemitism in France. French Judaism, advances Pierre Birnbaum (1990, 1992), is the outcome of an emancipation based on an egalitarian universalism that implied the relegation of old particularistic allegiances to the private sphere. The French republic condemned all surviving professional, regional, linguistic and religious specificities and instead aimed to acknowledge citizens without distinction. This political principle is best illustrated by Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre’s discourse at the National Assembly (1789) in support of the emancipation of Jews: ‘We must refuse everything to the Jews as a nation and accord everything to Jews as individuals’. Accordingly, Jews became citizens of Israelite religion and benefited from civic and political equality, at the same time their religious faith and practices became privatised. In other words, the dissolution of the Jewish nation and its distinct institutions that existed before the Revolution was the condition of Jews’ introduction in the French nation. According to Shmuel Trigano (2006: 30
6), this prohibition on Jews acting and mobilising as Jews has resulted in a structural problem for French Judaism, since then torn between universalism and particularism. While most of the time Jews fully embraced their new status offered by republican revolutionary principles, there also has been resistance to privatisation and secularisation as well as an attempt to preserve a specific identity. At the turn of the third millennium this pact between Jews and the republic has been undermined by the reification of ‘religious’ or ‘ethnic’ communities. I mean by this the making of communities through social discourses and practices of designation and self-identification. In this new context the integration of Jews into French society has been questioned, making them more vulnerable to antisemitism. 3. Antisemitism in France today Three important factors help us understand antisemitic discourses in France today: (i) the crisis of the state and its institutions, (ii) the shadow of French colonial heritage, and (iii) the communitarianisation of social life. As we said earlier, French Jews’ integration came from the state and its founding principles, so the failures of the latter would inevitably affect Jews’ integration. ‘The Jewish community’, writes Trigano (2006: 209), ‘is 262 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 Antisemitism in France Véronique Altglas at the very heart of French social, political and identity fracture’. Michel Wieviorka’s analysis of antisemitism in France (2005) emphasises a wide range of challenges faced by French society, from a high level of unemployment and a resulting social exclusion, to a severe crisis of institutions. It is hardly surprising that it is precisely the sector of education which draws Wieviorka’s attention; increasing expressions of racism and antisemitism in schools confront the teaching staff, create unprecedented difficulties for them, and raise public concerns (see in particular Brenner 2004). National Education, the pillar of French Republic that is supposed to enact republican values of equality and meritocracy, cannot conceal its inability to satisfy its promise of social mobility or its re-enforcement of social inequalities. There are indeed stark differences in terms of education and employment between children whose parents are born French and those whose parents were immigrants from non-European countries. The issue is particularly sensitive in a country such as France with an extremely high percentage of unemployed youths. The Maghreb population is particularly affected by inequalities of opportunity: not only are their children more likely to have low qualifications, but with the same level of education and diploma young people of Maghreb origin have between 1.3 and 1.6 more chance to be unemployed than those who are of French origin.3 In addition, a section of the African-Caribbean population from French overseas departments is also affected by downward social mobility and inequalities, as revealed to the public by violent protests in the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe in February 2009. In short, the State does not play the integrative role it once did (Birnbaum in Le Monde, 2007) and produces contradictions; young people with immigrant parents are citizens at the same time they are socially and politically stigmatised (Castel 2007). Antisemitic discourses reflect these failures and contradictions: it is often heard from youngsters of foreign origin who refuse to identify with a society that seemed to have abandoned them and who, by contrast, associate Jews with France. Jews are perceived by France’s outcasts as the ‘established’ ones, the surintégrés supposed to have achieved a successful integration (Wieviorka 2005: 647). By and large, quantitative surveys undertaken by Nonna Mayer and Guy Michelat (2004) have shown that in the French case today’s antisemitism and racism are significantly correlated with a low level of education. It is also a determinant factor in the adhesion to the Far Right for the same reasons
fear of social exclusion and frustration (Mayer and Perrineau 1996). Yet these social inequalities affecting individuals of 3. Analysis of data found in Céreq, Enquêtes Génération 92 et Génération 98, and analysed by the Observatoire des Inégalités, retrieved 24 february 2009: http://www. inegalites.fr/spip.php?article86. 263 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES migrant and African-Carribean origin contribute to the revival of complex and conflicted relations between Muslims and Jews in France, itself a legacy of a former colonial context. Certainly, antisemitic violence perpetrated by youth of North African descent has become more visible in the last decade (Commission Nationale consultative des droits de l’Homme: 2005). But as we shall see in the cases of Dieudonné and Tribu KA, it is the whole colonial heritage that is mobilised in antisemitic discourse, well beyond a Muslim
Jewish polarisation. France has the biggest Jewish minority in Europe (500,000 Jews, representing about 1 percent of the population) as well as the biggest Muslim minority in Europe (3.7 million).4 These Muslims are predominantly from Maghreb and West Africa; among them, Algerian immigration is predominant and structures Islam in France. Interestingly, Jews from Algeria also constitutes the most important group among Sephardic Jews in France and, to a certain extent, also tends to give shape to French Judaism (Stora 2004). While French Jews were mostly Ashkenazi until the middle of the twentieth century, between 1955 and 1965, the Jewish population doubled with migrations mainly from Algeria, followed by Morocco and Tunisia. These migrations profoundly transformed the character of Judaism in France as Sephardic Jews brought with them the characteristics of North African Jewish community life, thus giving to Judaism a new visibility (Cohen 2000). Today, 70 percent of French Jews identify as Sephardic, while 24 percent declare themselves to be Ashkenazi, and 6 percent do not recognise themselves in either of the two categories (Cohen 2004). For Jews, French colonisation of Maghreb meant liberation from the condition of dhimmi,5 whether by being granted French nationality (Algeria) or by the neutralising of Muslim arrangements (Tunisia, Morocco). Jews therefore became equal, or even socially superior, to Muslims in Algeria where the Crémieux decree (1870) gave French nationality to Jews only. This unequal treatment from the French colonial 4. Erik Cohen (2004) evaluates French Jewish population at 500,000 persons. As for Muslims in France, it is commonly said that there are 5 million Muslims in France, however this evaluation was questioned by demographer Michèle Tribalat (2003), asserting that there are probably only 3.7 million Muslims in France. 1.7 million French Muslims are immigrants, 1.7 million children of immigrants and 300,000 immigrants’ grandchildren. ‘L’Islam en chiffre’, L’Express, 4 December 2003. 5. Dhimma is the legal status granted to Jews and Christians in Muslim countries, through which these minorities can benefit from a restricted religious freedom and protection from the authorities, in exchange of the payment of a poll tax. This status implies the superiority of the Muslim population and does not grant full legal capacity to minorities. In practice, the application of these rules has varied in different countries and over time. 264 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 Antisemitism in France Véronique Altglas government promoted Jews socially and enabled them to enter French social life while Muslims were often excluded. This generated conflicted relations between cohabiting Jewish and Muslim populations; jealousy and feeling of betrayal fractured the two universes. At the beginning of decolonisation and rise of Arab nationalism, North African Jews who migrated to France had already been socialised into French culture, were familiar with its institutions, and had had access to French education and public employment. By contrast the less educated more often migrated to Israel. In France, Jews also benefited from a long historical process of integration. In today’s French Jewry 80 percent are professionals of the middle and upper middle classes, cadres or professions libérales according to French nomenclature, and 45 percent went into higher education, which is above the average in France (Liberman 1995: 53; Cohen 2007). This contrasted with the migration of North African Muslims to France. While Jews’ identification with France and the social opportunities it represented explains their migration, most North African Muslim migrants had a rural background and had often been excluded from the modern life brought by colonisation. Furthermore they migrated as a noneducated labour force in the post-war context (Leveau and Schnapper 1987). Although they share the same country of origin, the trajectory of North African Muslims and Jews could not be more different. France’s withdrawal from its colonies implied social regression for Jews who felt abandoned, yet in France they have enjoyed the cultural assimilation and upward social mobility that had begun in their country of origin. By contrast, Muslim migrants from Maghreb had more conflicted relations with France, due to poor work conditions, deprivation and racism. Also in relation to the Algerian war Islam became a driving force for independence (Leveau and Schnapper 1987). Today, hostility toward Jews among North African Muslims is said to affect the least integrated. Jews are viewed by this population as organised and powerful and as an obstacle to their own integration (Nora 2004). Here the concept of ‘rhetorical reversal’ used by Noiriel (2007) is particularly relevant in qualifying this antisemitic sentiment. This is precisely the reason why we do not understand antisemitism in France as an ethnic or religious form of conflict, and even less as a simple projection of the Israeli
Palestinian conflict. The Israeli
Palestinian conflict is undoubtedly meaningful in that it allows identification with Palestinians and their suffering (and similarly Jews with Israelis) in a victim/oppressor opposition. However, antisemitism is better understood as an expression of social frustration and positioning from the less well integrated. Finally, the weakening of the French republic legitimated the revival of religious, regional and ethnic particularisms it has long combated. The ‘communitarianisation’ of French society (Birnbaum 1995) is, with the 265 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES crisis of the republican state and the legacy of France’s colonisation, another crucial factor that contributes to the expression of antisemitism. By and large, an ethnicised language is now pervading all sectors of the public sphere and is imposed on the treatment of social issues (Noiriel 2007: 681
3). Replacing notions of ‘integration’ or ‘citizenship’, the notion of ‘discrimination’ has recently appeared on the political agenda and in state initiatives. It establishes a link between racism and inequality, which was until then concealed beneath the Republic’s universalistic principles, and it questions France’s ability to guarantee equality (Fassin 2002). The political and legal existence of ‘discrimination’ implies that it is now possible and legitimate to have injustices recognised and to ask for reparation. More importantly, the communitarianisation of French social life has fostered new forms of activism and mobilisation and encourages the disadvantaged to use an ethnicised language, drawing on representations of ‘community’ and of specific ethnic groups to address issues of social inequality. One could object that nineteenth-century antisemitism was already a discourse presenting itself as the voice of those who suffer, who are exploited but are silenced or resigned (Noiriel 2007: 223, 228). Yet this new configuration in France intensifies a ‘competition of victims’ (Chaumont 2000) which, in turn, questions the singularity of the Holocaust and antisemitism, now evaluated in the light of other forms of suffering and inequality. As a result, social actors tend to represent themselves as ‘communities’ in order to compete in lobbying activities in relation to the state and horizontal negotiations with other ‘communities’ (Birnbaum 1995). It is therefore hardly surprising that sociologists note a revitalisation of a religious life among French Jews and the desire to claim religious identity beyond the private sphere (Benayoun 1990; Cohen 2004). Political instrumentalisation and comparison continue to foster the representation of ‘communities’: each presidential campaign now revives the issue of the existence of a Jewish or a Muslim vote. More importantly, a reified ‘Jewish community’ is used as a model of integration and is as such instrumentalised in the management of Islam. Instrumentalisation, competition and comparison help us to understand why Arab-Muslim identity claims took the Jewish community as their model, demanding the same ‘privileges’ in the name of equality (Trigano 2006). It probably also explains why, when equality does not come, antisemitism may rise. Trigano argues the recurrent comparison between French Jews and Muslims tends to single Jews out as allochthonous components of French society, as if French society forgot that their integration has been settled by their emancipation more than 200 years ago. It also entails that antisemitism can be perceived by the public as an inter-community conflict on the periphery of mainstream society (Trigano 2006). 266 Antisemitism in France Véronique Altglas Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 4. The Dieudonné affair and Tribu KA The last section of this article aims to illustrate this analysis of antisemitism in modern France with the humorist Dieudonné’s controversial statements and the emergence of a radical black supremacist group, Tribu KA. While their supporters cannot be considered to be significant in number, the case is not ‘anecdotal’: the antisemitic discourses of Dieudonné and the leader of Tribu combine the ‘rhetorical reversal’ of old time antisemitism with a contentious colonial heritage and the recent reification of ethnic and religious identities. In other words, this empirical case sheds light on a certain continuity of antisemitism in France, as a discourse on power, social positioning and social exclusion. At the same time, it also reveals specific challenges to which French society is confronted today, namely its responses to its colonial past, its cultural diversity and its (in)ability to live up to its ideal of equality. Dieudonné (1966
) is a well-known comedian. He began his career by playing a duo with a Jewish comedian, Elie Semoun, as Bokassa the black and Cohen the Jew, in order to tackle themes such as exclusion, racism and the problems of the suburbs. Dieudonné also contributed to songs with Zebda, a left wing band whose members are of Maghreb origin, and with Moroccan Jewish actor Gad Elmaleh, affirming and enacting France’s cultural diversity through his artistic projects. In December 2003 Dieudonné appeared on a TV show, dressed up as an orthodox Jew. This character, shouting ‘Heil Israel’ while making the Nazi salute, was inviting his audience to join the ‘American-Zionist axis’, hence associating Zionism, Judaism and Nazism. The controversy grew rapidly; in the following days he was reprimanded by the show’s director and criticised by many politicians, media and Jewish and antiracist organisations. Dieudonné responded that ‘of course, (he was) not an anti-Semite’; however, many theatres subsequently cancelled his shows, such as the Olympia in Paris February 2004, alleging security matters. Dieudonné mobilised his supporters in front of the Olympia to protest against what he described as an infringement of his freedom of expression. Hundreds of people gathered, shouting ‘Freedom of expression!’, ‘the black people is standing’, ‘400 years of slavery and we don’t have the right to talk about it’.6 Dieudonné claimed he suffered censorship as he was not granted public funding for a movie project on slavery. Consequent upon this event, an African-Caribbean committee was founded to support the comedian and some public personalities, while acknowledging the ‘mistake’ made by Dieudonné, intervened in support of freedom of expression. Dieudonné declared to fight against all forms of communitarianism, which he held 6. Clarisse Fabre, ‘Dieudonné interdit d’Olympia’, Le Monde, 20 February 2004. 267 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES responsible for censuring his shows, but went further. He declared that those who attacked him made fortunes and empires with slavery and that ‘they were all slave traders who have turned their business into banks, entertainment and nowadays terrorist actions and who demonstrate their support for Ariel Sharon’s policies. It’s Israel that financed apartheid and its proposals for a final solution’.7 Dieudonné repeatedly claimed that a powerful Jewish lobby controlling the media was preventing him from producing new films and shows. Increasingly isolated, Dieudonné felt he became the voice and spokesperson of silenced victims and claimed to express their suffering. He repeatedly evoked the slavery, colonialism and racism endured by the black community which, in contrast to the Holocaust were, according to him, completely ignored. This led him to qualify the memory of the Holocaust as ‘memorial pornography’ in a press conference in Algeria in February 2005.8 Dieudonné supported the radical ‘tribe KA’. Tribu KA (KA stands for Kémite and Aton, the Egyptian god) was founded in 2004. Its founder, Stelli Gilles Robert, alias Kémi Séba, was born in Strasbourg in 1981 of parents of Benin origin. He has said he belonged to the French branch of Nation of Islam for a short time: ‘like many of my brothers, I converted to Islam in reaction against the West, but the problem is that Islam is part of the Semite matrix’.9 Tribu KA is a supremacist black movement inspired by Kemetism, a sort of neo-paganism. The main principle is that Egyptian pharaohs were black and therefore a black civilisation founded monotheism through the worship of Akhenaton. Thus Kémi Séba claims the superiority and anteriority of black civilisation over white and aims at reestablishing the kemites (black people) as guides of humanity. Tribu KA rejects integration and race mixing. Whites and Jews especially are said to be responsible for the colonisation, poverty and slavery of black people as the result of a Jewish plot to destroy black civilisation. Tribu KA was dissolved in July 2006 by the President of the Republic who used an exceptional legal measure against dangerous organisations. Yet the influence of this movement seems limited to less than a hundred militants in greater Paris (Camus 2005). These two cases outline antisemitism’s identification with victims of social injustice. Dieudonné distinguishes and compares the suffering of 7. Dieudonné, interviewed by Le Journal du Dimanche, 8 February 2004. We have translated these citations and all the following ones from French into English. 8. Dieudonné attributed this expression to the Israeli Historian Idith Zertal, in her book Israel’s Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood. She denied having used this expression. 9. Kémi Séba cited by Vincent Monnier, ‘Les provocs de la Tribu KA’, Le Nouvel Observateur, 8 June 2006, no. 2170. 268 Antisemitism in France Véronique Altglas ‘Jews’ and ‘Blacks’, insisting on the responsibility of the former for the oppression of the latter: Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 It’s funny to see how far Zionist power in France is prepared to go in depriving a part of the population of its duty of memory. The Jews have suffered less than the Blacks. All the talking is about gas chambers, but Blacks were thrown alive into the sea.10 A similar comparison of victims is to be found in Kémi Séba’s ideology. He combines old-time antisemitic anti-capitalism with a comparison of victimhood when he writes that international institutions such as the World Bank and IMF are ‘controlled by Zionists who impose on Africa and on its diaspora life conditions that are so disgusting that Auschwitz concentration seems paradise on earth’.11 Tribu KA’s demands compensation for slavery on the model of compensation attributed to Holocaust victims must be granted: Let’s not forget that when the Jews asked for compensation in relation to the 6 millions dead during the Second World War, you see the state that was given to them and the amount of compensation that they got. For us, our starting point is one hundred and fifty millions dead, either in cotton fields or thrown out of the boats, and this is a minimum, this is not even a maximum. So if in relation to the Holocaust you have given them a state and wealth so that whatever we say you allow them today to rule the world and even the West, you can imagine what it’s going to be like for us.12 Dieudonné’s and Tribu KA’s discourses took place in the context of increasing mobilisation and political initiatives designed to acknowledge France’s responsibility for colonisation, African slavery and discrimination of Black and African-Caribbean populations today. At the same time, in reaction to the banning of the Muslim veil in schools, various left-wing personalities, Muslim representatives and intellectuals wrote a public statement denouncing France as a colonial state and signed as the ‘indigènes de la République’. A group of celebrities highlighted the stark under-representation of ethnic minorities on French television. During this period academics, anti-racist movements and the media began to 10. Dieudonné, interviewed by the Algerian newspaper L’Echo d’Oran, 20 February 2005. Published on the website of the Association Internationale des Droits de l’Homme, retrieved 15/11/10: http://www.aidh.org/antisem/dieud02.htm. 11. Kémi Séba’s official website, retrieved 01/03/09: www.seba-wsr.com 12. Kémi Séba, interviewed by Novopress (a Far-Right press agency). Retrieved 20/02/ 09: http://fr.novopress.info/?p 5276#more-5276. 269 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES question the prohibition of ‘ethnic statistics’ in France. The collection of these data was considered contradictory to the republican principle of equality (since it would entail a differentiation of citizens on the basis of racial, religious or ethnic categories) but this prohibition also prevents the adequate measuring (and hence acknowledgement) of discrimination, a notion that, as we previously underlined, recently gained political and legal legitimacy in France. Thus the antisemitism of Dieudonné and Kémi Séba needs to be understood in the light of wider debates regarding colonialism, racism and inequality. ‘We all are class B citizens’, claims Dieudonné, ‘We don’t have the same rights as Zionists. Them, in a school, it only takes a kid to be called a dirty Jew for everyone to stand up’.13 Once again, we emphasise the expression of social exclusion and discontentment concealed behind an ethnicised discourse. The social function of this antisemitic discourse in a society that does not fulfil its promises explains the diversity of Dieudonné’s and Tribu Ka’s audience. The ways in which both later developed a network
from ProPalestinian organisations, to Islamist and even Far-Right groups
underline antisemitism’s extraordinary capacity to unify diverse collective and individual actors who otherwise have different or even opposed aims. While Tribu KA only tolerated black members at its start, Kémi Seba now wishes to be the voice of all the ‘oppressed’ and ‘deprived’, and aims more broadly to protect identities against cosmopolitanism.14 During the summer of 2008, Kémi Séba announced his conversion to Islam, a surprising initiative in the light of his previous comments in his antiMuslim speeches and the exclusion of Muslims from the former Tribu KA on the grounds that Muslim countries also participated in the slave trade (Camus 2006: 653). Now expressing admiration for Hamas and Hezbollah, Tribu KA’s leader also developed relations with radical far-right splinters with which he organised marches against Zionism and claimed to support the National Front.15 Similarly, while in the 1990s Dieudonné’s shows were extremely critical of all religions, the comedian now speaks in the name of Blacks and Muslims to make sarcastic jokes targeting Jews. Dieudonné also began to move closer to the pro-Palestinian milieu and organisations such as the controversial Union of Islamist Organisations of France (UOIF), known to be close to the Islamist Society of Muslim Brothers. ‘We are descendants of a colonised people, and the Palestinian 13. Dieudonné, interviewed by the Algerian newspaper L’Expression, 16 February 2005, published on the website of the Association Internationale des Droits de l’Homme, retrieved 15/11/10: http://www.aidh.org/antisem/dieud02.htm 14. Luc Bronner, ‘L’alliance des extrémistes noirs et blancs’, Le Monde, 24 September 2008. 15. L’alliance des extrémistes noirs et blancs, op. cit. 270 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 Antisemitism in France Véronique Altglas people is colonised’, advanced Dieudonné. Joined by the well-known antisemitic writer Alain Soral, Dieudonné become involved in EuroPalestine, a party for the European Elections in 2004 (Mercier 2005). Since the end of 2006, the media have often reported Dieudonné’s visits to National Front meetings and the presence of French nationalists at his shows. Dieudonné expressed publicly his support for Bruno Gollnish, one of the main representatives of the National Front recently sued for Holocaust denial. He also demanded freedom of expression for Robert Faurisson, the leading French holocaust denier.16 On his show of 26 December 2008, in the presence of representatives of the National Front as well as Kémi Séba, Dieudonné invited Faurisson on stage to grant him ‘the prize of infrequentability and insolence’, brought in by a technician wearing a grey-striped costume and a yellow star on the chest. 5. Conclusion The idea of a ‘new’ antisemitism has been increasingly debated in the last decade. For example, Taguieff (2004) argued that under the mask of antiZionist, anti-imperialistic and anti-capitalist claims, antisemitism now binds together the radical left and fundamentalist Islam on a global scale. Yet this assumption of an ideological convergence between the radical left and fundamentalist Islam explains little about antisemitism in twentyfirst-century France
rather, it seems to have very specific local dimensions which may not be totally ‘new’. This article outlines the significance of French history: Jews’ association with the Republic, France’s colonial heritage, the socio-religious characteristics of its population, the contentious debate regarding colonisation, the crisis of institutions and the subsequent ethnicisation of social life. Furthermore, antisemitism in France displays remarkable continuities with its nineteenth-century forebear: hatred against Jews has then and now expressed discontent with the state. For those who use an antisemitic discourse, it has been and still is an implicit and concealed way (maybe even for themselves) of expressing issues about social status and social order. This understanding of antisemitism fits with Robert Miles’ definition of racism as an ideology that is ‘practically adequate’ (1989: 80
82). For particular sections of the population, racist and antisemitic discourses can ‘make sense’ of political and economic changes as they experience them and in relation to their position in society. In other words, Jews are still the ‘agents of chaos and disorder’ (Bauman 1993: 50) for the discontents of 16. Christiane Chombeau, ‘Le FN se rend en delegation au spectacle de Dieudonné’, Le Monde, 19 December 2006. 271 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES modern society. Nineteenth century’s antisemitism found its roots in nostalgia for the Catholic monarchy and its aristocratic hierarchy; today’s antisemitism is triggered by the Republic’s contradiction between its valorisation of meritocracy and reproduction of social inequalities, between its claimed universalism and social exclusion. While Édouard Drumont denounced the control by Jewish families of international finance and deplored France’s decadence, Dieudonné describes the Republic as a racist project led by Zionists17 and Kémi Séba defines France as a ‘concentration camp choking the racial dignity of each people’.18 Today, the controversial colonial legacy and communitarianisation of French society give a new colour to antisemitic discourse. It now uses ethnic and religious categories to oppose victims of the Holocaust and descendants of slaves. More broadly, this discourse contrasts oppressors (French/Whites/Jews/Zionists) and their victims (Africans, AfricanCaribbeans, Muslims, Palestinians, and even Holocaust deniers deprived of their right of expression). It is this polarised representation of the social world, opposing imaginary Jewish oppressors to their victims, that grants antisemitism its extraordinary efficacy in mobilising such a variety of organisations and individuals. Again, this seems hardly new. References Bauman, Z. (1993) Modernity and the Holocaust, Cambridge: Polity Press. Benayoun, C. (1990) ‘La question d’une politique juive aujourd’hui’, in P. Birnbaum (ed.), Histoire politique des Juifs de France. Entre universalisme et particularisme, Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, pp. 258
77. Birnbaum, P. (1990) ‘Introduction’, in P. Birnbaum (ed.), Histoire politique des Juifs de France. Entre universalisme et particularisme, Paris: Presses de la Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, pp. 11
17. Birnbaum, P. (1992) Anti-Semitism in France: A Political History from Léon Blum to the Present, Oxford: Blackwell. Birnbaum, P. (1995) Destins juifs: de la Révolution française à Carpentras, Paris: Calmann-Lévy. Birnbaum, P. (2007) ‘L’Etat ne joue plus son rôle intégrateur’, Le Monde, 15 March. 17. Dieudonné, interviewed by Pierre Tévanian (MRAP, Paris) 14 July 2005, published by Dieudonné’s website, Les Ogres. Retrieved 20/04/07: http://www.lesogres.org/ article.php3?id_article 556 18. Kémi Séba, cited in Philippe Brochen, ‘Un mois de prison requis contre le fondateur de Tribu Ka pour diffamation raciale’, Libe´ration, 3 September 2009. 272 Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 Antisemitism in France Véronique Altglas Brenner, E. (ed.) (2004) Les territoires perdus de la République: antisémitisme, racisme et sexisme en milieu scolaire, Paris: Mille et une nuits. Camus, J.-Y. (2005) ‘Dieudonné a de drôles de fréquentations. Extrémistes, racistes et antisémites aux marges de la communauté noire française’, L’Arche 567
8. Retrieved April 7, 2007: http://www.col.fr/ arche/article.php3?id_article182 Camus, J.-Y. (2006) ‘The commemoration of slavery in france and the emergence of a black political consciousness’, The European Legacy 11(6): 647
55. Castel, R. (2007) La discrimination négative. Citoyens ou indigènes?, Paris: Seuil. Chaumont, J.-M. (2000) ‘Du culte des héros à la concurrence des victimes’, Criminologie 33(1): 167
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Elkana Editions: Paris-Jérusalem. Cohen, M. (2000) ‘Les Juifs de France. Modernité et identité’, Vingtième Siècle 66: 91
106. Commission Nationale Consultative des droits de l’Homme (2005) La lutte contre le racisme et la xénophobie: rapport d’activité 2004, Paris: La Documentation Française. Fassin, D. (2002) ‘L’invention française de la discrimination’, Revue française de science politique 52(44): 403
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90. Liberman, J. (1995) Se Choisir Juif: L’identité Juive Laı̈que D’aujourd’hui, Paris: Syros. Mayer, N. and Michelat, G. (2004) Le racisme en France à l’aune des sondages, Historiens et Géographes, October
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204. Mayer, N. and Perrineau, P. (1996) ‘L’introuvable equation Le Pen’, in N. Mayer and P. Perrineau (eds), Le Front National a` de´couvert, Paris: Presses de Sciences Politiques. Mercier, A.-S. (2005) La vérité sur Dieudonné, Paris: Plon. Miles, R. (1989) Racism, London and New York: Routledge. Noiriel, G. (2007) Immigration, antisémitisme et racisme en France (XIXe
XXe). Discours publics, humiliations privées, Paris: Fayard. Nora, P. (2004) ‘Mémoire et identité juive dans la France contemporaine’, Le De´bat 131: 20
33. Rufin, J.-C. (2004) Chantier sur la lutte contre le racisme et l’antise´mitisme, Paris: La Documentation Française. 273 EUROPEAN SOCIETIES Downloaded by [The Library at Queens] at 06:10 17 May 2012 Stora, B. (2004) ‘Le poids du passé colonial algérien sur les rapports judéomusulmans en France aujourd’hui’, Hommes et Libertés 127: 51
3. Taguieff, P.-A. (2004) Prêcheurs de haine, Paris: Mille et une nuit. Trigano, S. (2006) L’avenir des Juifs de France, Paris: Grasset. Wieviorka, M. (2005) La tentation antisémite. Haine des juifs dans la France d’aujourd’hui, Paris: Robert Laffont. Winock, M. (2005) La France et les Juifs: de 1789 à nos jours, Paris: éditions du Seuil. Winock, M. (1990) Nationalisme, antisémitisme, et fascisme en France, Paris: éditions du Seuil. Véronique Altglas is a lecturer in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast who has conducted research on the globalisation of religion, the management of minority religions in France and Britain, and on antisemitism in France. She is currently pursuing a research interest into the construction of Jewish identities in relation to the popularisation of kabbalah, and is completing a book manuscript on this topic and on broader issues of religious exoticism in contemporary societies. Address for correspondence: Véronique Altglas, School of Sociology, Social Policy and Social Work, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, United Kingdom Email: v.altglas@qub.ac.uk 274