The labyrinth to blackness: On naming and leadership in the black associative space in France

Abstract

This article seeks to tease out the composite set of narratives and actions displayed in the frame of the organisational dynamic of the black population in France, with a special focus on the issue of blackness. The objective is to lay out a comprehensive theoretical framework capable of making sense of the competing and sometimes divergent discourses and actions within the black French associative space. Neither generation nor class nor education will be sufficient to explain this divergence. A structural approach-based framework seems the most adequate to do so as it replaces the creation of these divergences and dissonances in a relational perspective. The stories of these associations and their efforts help to frame the historical context of racial advocacy and the role of immigrant and French organisations in shaping the debate about integration, republicanism, identity and belonging in contemporary France.

Keywords

black French blackness naming organisation structural approach

The dynamics within the black population in France have known three consecutive stages within French scholarship. The first stage consisted of a total denial of the existence of a black identity and issues of blackness. It was expressed in more or less subtle ways including the disparagement of any reference to race or ethnicity in the public discourse by scholars of reputable standing in French academia (Blum, 1998; Stavo-Debauge, 2003; Simon, 2008). Numerous authors have already stressed the concomitance of this attitude with the Republican principle that prevents any segmentation of the French nation on the basis of religion, race and ethnicity (Chapman and Frader, 2004; Sabbagh and Peer, 2008; Calvès, 2004).

The second stage was the legitimation of blackness as a research subject. Not without opposition in the academic mainstream, it followed the successful propaganda of black organisations from the late 1990s, the editorial success of works such as Gaston Kelman’s Je suis noir et je n’aime pas le manioc (2003), the entry of young and novice black political figures into the limelight, and the extensive media coverage of the urban violence in 2005 that partially involved black youth. The legitimation of this research subject is indebted to the promotion of the field of race relations in France, to which Didier and Éric Fassin’s edited volume De la question sociale à la question raciale: représenter la société française (2006) has decisively contributed. However, studies dealing systematically with blackness, such as Pap Ndiaye’s La Condition noire: essai sur une minorité ethnique française (2008), have been instrumental in the inscription of this research on the academic agenda. The legitimation of black studies reinforced a dominant approach that I qualify as monolithic, consisting in presenting a black demographic standing undividedly in contrast to a white referential mode, and speaking in a single voice. The pervasiveness of this approach is probably owing to the fact that the early scholars of black studies in France were also activists of colour-consciousness, and sometimes even active members of black organisations. This involvement is by no means a reason to invalidate their scholarship, but it begs the question as to whether their analysis of the black dynamic is not fundamentally the analysis of the world-view of an imperial fragment of this dynamic to which they were exposed or in which they were situated.¹

Likewise, the history of the French nation was for a long time written from the view of the dominant fraction. The suspicion and criticism of the existence of a black France has played a role in the pervasiveness of the monolithic approach. Students of black France have consequently been compelled to highlight and exhibit the dominant trends within this population at the risk of silencing dissonant or divergent voices and positions. The predominance of the monolithic approach is also in keeping with the mode of production of academic knowledge. Indeed, it falls into this procedure of which synecdoche is a commonly mobilised component. Pars pro toto, synecdoche is actually a limited but appropriate way of rendering the meaning of an entity through the expression or dynamic of only a fragment of it. Consisting in ‘elevating the particular to the universal’ (Vanderbeke, 2004), synecdoche was already under discussion among the philosophers of ancient Greece (Harte, 2002), and is still questioned by some social scientists who suspect it to ‘intrude on our own perception or concepts of the world’ (Vanderbeke, 2004). Prevalence of the use of synecdoche in the literature on black France has remained almost unnoticed until recently.

The third stage consists in the birth of new scholarship that approaches France’s black population as a site of diverging and conflicting views. This event is salutary in many regards. It departs from any representation of the black demographic as exceptional and exotic, focusing instead on an ordinary group concerned with bridging divisions and enhancing the commonalities of its own members. This stage owes much to the historical context. Indeed, discourse on the existence of a black French demographic entity and a black identity are no longer taboo in the twenty-first century (Tin, 2008), as evidenced by shifting positions of some mainstream academics, including Dominique Schnapper who now cautiously subscribes to the idea of revising the official terminology for the classification of the French population in order to include race and/or ethnicity as classificatory categories (Schnapper, 2008). More to the point, through one of the most symbolic and federative identity markers of contemporary black France, i.e. slavery (Gueye, 2010a), black studies has secured an institutional status in the academic sphere following the foundation in January 2008 of the CNRS-sponsored and homologated Centre international de recherche sur les esclavages (CIRESC) funded with public monies. Fred Constant’s article in Black France/France noire (2012) is a pioneering contribution to the birth of this third stage. The French political scientist takes aim at, and even deplores, ‘the uni-dimensional view of black France’ (2012: 128): that is, the absence of representation of the competing visions among black French about issues pertaining to their life experiences and identities within French literature. Looking at the diversity of opinion specifically within the black French component of individuals of Caribbean descent, with regard to the issues of racial prejudice, affirmative action and the free generation of race data, Constant pinpoints those factors that explain these conflicting views. As he indeed clarifies, 20 out of the 30 interviewees he met were ‘primarily … representative individuals who are associated with what has been identified as a Black elite in France’ (2012: 131). Constant isolates several sets of factors to explain these conflicts: education, generation, class, and opinion:

interview data show strong evidence of the impact of class and education on the perception of racial prejudice among Black French. Further, the generation of the interviewees also played an important role in the significance such individuals placed on the influence of ‘race’ or ‘class’ in their lived experiences. (2012: 133)

To account for the significance of opinion, the single component in the second set of factors, Constant writes:

At one end of the spectrum, one finds a certain ‘nationalist’ positioning, where individuals self-assert more as Black than as French. At the other end, one finds those who could be characterized as ‘integrationist’ (or nationalist in reverse), who see themselves foremost as French and secondarily as Black. (2012: 138)

Constant’s article has many limitations but it is worthy of consideration. First, though perhaps less important, it can be faulted for its methodology. The selection of his sample of interviews begs the question all the more, so that he keeps asserting the representativeness of the sample. As many studies have shown (Marie, 2002a; 2002b), the lower class and the less educated are far more predominant in the Caribbean population of mainland France; hence their voices should have gained more or at least an equal presence in this article. Second, the article manipulates problematic categories. The ‘nationalist’ category in particular is the most questionable one. Provided that this nationalism is neither economic nor political, in which range does it then fall?² Furthermore, the article fails to provide even tentative theories for the explanation of the dissonance of opinions among interviewees of the same class and generation, or even as expressed by the same interviewee. Had social class and generation been decisive, it is very likely that interviewees of the same class or generation would defend the same opinion and mobilise for the same cause. Owing in large part to the methodological individualism he endorses, Constant loses sight of the influence of structure in understanding the diversity and conflicts of views within France’s black population and even in the mind of each black French person.

This article therefore fits into what I have described as the new stage of French literature on the question. It seeks to tease out the composite set of narratives and actions displayed in the frame of the organisational dynamic of France’s black population by various organisational entrepreneurs, with a special focus on the issue of blackness. By delving into a diverse body of data consisting of interviews with, and public statements and actions by, these organisational entrepreneurs, my aim is to lay out a comprehensive theoretical framework capable of making sense of the competing and sometimes divergent discourses and actions within the black French associative space. A structural approach-based framework borrowed from Bourdieu (2001) seems the most adequate as it offers a relational perspective. Black organisational entrepreneurs act and make statements that are in stark contrast with those formulated by other groups. But they are also occasionally at odds with their own previous statements, while also expressing ideas and positions that contradict their previous actions or previously held positions. Neither generation, class nor education will be sufficient to explain these disparities, all the more so given that these organisations are all founded and managed by highly educated activists, of the same social class, and almost all of the same generation.

Black organisational entrepreneurs initiate actions and weave discourses within a micro-universe of relations that is permanently being reconfigured. This micro-universe is the black French organisational space. In this micro-universe, which has been in constant expansion since the beginning of the twenty-first century, many organisational entrepreneurs operate according to a number of common goals: (a) promoting the interests of all or segments of the population made up by people sharing African heritage; and (b) recognition of the organisations’ voices and initiatives based on their success in charting the direction of the collective dynamic within this micro-universe, as well as their visibility and reception in other micro-spaces including the domain of politics and the media, independent of, yet decisively acting upon the black associative sphere. Existence in the latter implies strategic adjustments in the systematic opposition to initiatives or ideas coming from other organisations and sometimes even the disavowal of previously held views. The dissenting or conflicting views within the black demographic fraction of France are therefore expressions of a development dictated by the dynamic of a micro-sphere in which actors distributed in different, and sometimes unequal, positions vie for leadership and prominence bolstered by the resources generated and managed in other connective spaces.

Structure of the black organisational space

The black associative space is invested by a multitude of agents congregating in collective organisations. In the last ten years the number of these organisations has been growing steadily, as the polarising issues of multiculturalism and racial discrimination pervade the French public sphere. My own perusal of the black associative space led to the identification in February 2012 of 19 organisations self-labelled black, or qualified as such in academic research, operating from different cities in France, but mostly in the Paris region. As a sociological field in its own right, the black associative space is made up of a network of organisations. The complexity of this network is indicated by the intertwined coexistence of at least two approaches, one that could be designated universalist and the other as sectorial. These sometimes polarising approaches are in force in the process of identifying which population to target and in the selection of the issues to champion and in which to invest. At first glance, there are two types of organisations with regard to the identification of the population target. The first, which I label the ‘ubiquitous’ type, of course targets the entire black fraction of France’s population irrespective of class, gender, ethnic origin and administrative status as beneficiaries of the mobilisational efforts. The second type, which I designate ‘segment-focused’, addresses the interests and needs of a given segment of the black population, although by effect of contamination blacks who are external to this segment could ultimately benefit from its intervention. With regard to which issues should be addressed, there are also at least two identifiable categories of organisations. The first category in this case can be labelled ‘polychrest’. Embracing the universalist approach, it adapts to the development of the black French dynamic, and thus self-assigns the responsibility to make itself useful unconditionally by grappling with any issue faced by the black French. The second category of organisations can be characterised as ‘monocentric’, in the sense that they strive to focus on and tackle specific issues.

The complexity of the black associative space is such that the identification of a population target and the selection of an issue are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, as an organisation decides which population to serve, it also invariably deals with a particular issue. Theoretically, four ideal-types of black organisation coexist within the black associative space: (a) the ubiquitous/polychrest organisation which considers the entire black French population as its addressee and grapples with every single issue faced by black French people; (b) the segment-focused/polychrest which deals with the various issues faced by a given segment of blacks; (c) the ubiquitous/monocentric which is concerned with a specific issue that concerns the entire black population; and (d) the segment-focused/monocentric organisation which only tackles a specific issue faced by a given segment of the black population. Empirically, each ideal-type is identifiable within the black associative space. The Conseil Représentatif des Associations Noires (CRAN), for instance, epitomises the first ideal-type. This organisation was founded in 2005, in the aftermath of that year’s uprisings that disrupted the relative calm around the French capital in particular, as well as in other parts of mainland France (Gueye, 2010a; 2010b). Self-assigning the responsibility to federate the energies and initiatives of the various associations that strive to improve the social existence of any sub-group of African heritage, the CRAN devotes time and effort to any inequality-based or inequality-generating social problem facing any sub-group of the black population. These social issues range from the institutionalisation of the commemoration of the abolition of slavery and the under-representation of blacks in the political sphere to their quasi-absence in senior positions in French firms, not to mention the over-concentration of black youth in impoverished schools, and the lack of inclusion of black subjects in the terminology of the public health system.

The segment-focused/polychrest ideal-type is well symbolised by the Collectif DOM. This association was founded in Paris in 2003. It is entirely dedicated to framing and championing the grievances of the citizens who hail from France’s overseas departments and their descendants. Among the various grievances defended by the Collectif DOM are what is jargonised in national political discourse as ‘territorial continuity’, meaning the extension of benefits enjoyed by residents of mainland France to the inhabitants of these departments, including a discount on national airlines for the benefit of Caribbean people returning home for special occasions including funerals, and the enactment of a national day for the commemoration of the abolition of slavery. The most emblematic organisation of the ubiquitous/monocentric ideal-type is most likely the Collectif des Fils et Filles d’Africains Déportés (COFFAD), assigning itself the function of spokesperson for the entire black citizenry of France on the specific issue of the slave trade.

Finally, the segment-focused/monocentric ideal-type includes Collectif Égalité and the Association pour Favoriser l’Intégration Professionnelle (AFIP) among its best representatives. Founded in 1998, Collectif Égalité was the first black organisation to be brought into the public limelight – partially because of the somewhat controversial notoriety of its founder, the activist, radio and television personality, and writer Calixthe Beyala (condemned by a French court in 1996 for plagiarism). Collectif Egalité pressed charges against both the French state and the media industry for discrimination in order to open up this sector to black media professionals. In a non-confrontational approach, AFIP, on the other hand, devised a range of soft strategies aimed at sensitising public opinion and decision-makers in the French business industry to the predicament of young black university graduates who are often excluded from the job market or confined to unskilled positions that in no way correlate with their competence and expertise.

The structure of the black French associative space predisposes organisational entrepreneurs to compete for the same resources and leadership as a result of their common intervention either to the benefit of the same population or on analogous issues. Although there exist possibilities of cooperation between organisations, the configuration of the space offers none of these organisations any protection from what could be perceived as an intrusion of the other. In addition to class, education and generation, the relational dynamic within the structure of the black French associative space ought to be included in the analytical framework of the dissenting and conflicting opinions that surface within the black population. In this way, we are more likely to achieve a more rigorous and complete understanding of this reality.

Fluctuating opinions on blackness

Conflicting and opposing views are as much a reality characterising the relations between black organisations as they are perceptible in the development of individual organisations. In many respects the endorsement of blackness as an identity for the mobilisation and classification of the various fragments of France’s population of African heritage is almost taken for granted today by most of these organisations. Yet it is worth noting that this has not always been an obvious position, even for some of the most visible and restless champions of black French causes. To begin with, the overt self-identification as a black citizens’ organisation primarily for black citizens was repelled by many of the black organisations themselves. Identification is of course accompanied by the ascription of identity, namely a process in which naming is one basic and fundamental step. Many social scientists have consensually admitted that social existence is in many regards dependent on naming (Lévi-Strauss, 2010; Zonabend, 2010; Lapierre, 2006; Bourdieu, 1996). More to the point, naming inscribes any social body (human or otherwise) in a social space that has a network of relations, and assigns it a specific position that translates into access to, or exclusion from, a range of privileges or rights. As Nicole Lapierre deftly underscores, names are important in establishing a position in a lineage, a space of relations; a function that the French expression ‘se faire un nom’ subtly and ambivalently suggests (2006: 14). Through the name we receive, and especially through the name we give ourselves, we strive to render explicit our conception of ourselves while also determining the way(s) in which others perceive or see us in the course of interaction. Françoise Zonabend goes even further by pointing out that not only can a name serve as a marker of geographical origin and a predictor of one’s destiny (2010: 261–2), but it also functions as a mark of distinction in a given set of relations (2010: 268). These questions are of course relevant to the context of black organisations whose names serve as indicators of their objective mission of self-representation and attitudes towards blackness, while also highlighting the ways in which black organisations today experience a degree of unease with regard to blackness and racial self-identification.

Lessons from the past

The current black organisational dynamic did not emerge ab nihilo but rather inscribes itself in a long line of collective endeavours. Indeed, from the early 1920s, young activists cognisant of the absence of a specifically black organisational space took up the challenge to remedy this void and a handful of organisations came to life. The Ligue Universelle de Défense de la Race Nègre is one symbolic example. Founded in 1924 in Paris and managed by René Maran (a colonial administrator and 1921 Goncourt Prize winner) and Kojo Tovalou Houénou, the organisation leaned on its independently owned publication, Les Continents, to unveil its black identity and display its black-focused agenda. In 1926 the Communist Party-educated black ideologue and First World War veteran, Lamine Senghor, and several other activists including Joseph Gothon-Lunion, Tiemoko Garan Kouyaté, Félicien Manlius and Masse Ndiaye, who hailed from Africa, the French Caribbean possessions and the English Caribbean islands, founded the Comité de Défense de la race nègre (Dewitte, 2007; Shachtman, 2003). The seemingly simple act of selecting a name was in this instance a deliberate effort to emphasise its identity as a primarily black organisation operating on French territory and on behalf of a black citizenry. Cautious not to underscore its international scope, it highlights in its subscription form the following goals:

Offer each Negro member of the Committee intellectual, moral and material benefits. To open for our members a museum dedicated to Negro Art, a library with a stock of books on colonial studies, novels, periodicals, political newspapers, literary journals and miscellaneous collections … Build a home to host all Negro transiting in Paris, on the one hand, and to shelter our needy sisters and brothers on the other hand. Create a publication in Paris to denounce the injustice done to the Negro anywhere on the globe. (Dewitte, 2007: 133; my translation)

Of the same generation as Le Comité de Défense de la race nègre were organisational initiatives such as the working-class-centred association L’Union des Travailleurs Nègres, and the intellectual-driven and managed La Revue du Monde Noir, Le Cri des Nègres, as well as the aborted Le Monde Nègre, all of which emphasised clearly their race-based identity (Dewitte, 2007; Edwards, 2003).

A similar self-ascription of identity would be adopted by subsequent generations. The journal L’Étudiant noir, brought to the fore in 1928 in Paris by a cluster of young students who hailed from the African, Martinican, Guadeloupean and Guyanese territories, would eventually forge the influential Negritude movement (Kesteloot, 1991; Irele, 2011; Edwards, 2003). Like the organisations previously mentioned, L’Étudiant noir proclaimed its black identity and black-centred mission by way of its name. As one of the founding members, Léopold Sédar Senghor recalled in 1960: ‘L’Étudiant noir … aimed to put an end to the tribalization and clan feeling that were strong in the Latin Quarter. One ceased to be a student from Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guiana, Africa, Madagascar, and became merely a black student’ (Kesteloot, 1991: 83–4).

Averting blackness in race-blind France

Compared with the interwar generation of organisations, twenty-first-century associations are striking by their avoidance of racial categories in the composition of their names, dodging the option of racial designation. Indeed, until the creation of the CRAN in 2005, not a single organisation concerned with the promotion and defence of the interests of French people of African heritage had inscribed into its official name the term black or its outdated and disparaged equivalent, negro. Indeed, this is confirmed through a cursory overview of the most active, visible and influential organisations in the French public sphere today: Collectif Égalité, Collectif DOM, AFIP, Africagora, Cercle d’action pour la Promotion de la diversité (CAPDIV) and COFFAD. At best, geographical and anthropological references only are included in the nomination, as exemplified by COFFAD, Collectif DOM and Africagora. The other organisations do not hint in any way at the racial identity of its founders and are effectively race-neutral. More to the point, although non-secretive about their dedication to framing and defending the claims of black French people or about the black identity at the core of their executive directorship, most of these organisations during their early existence and in their founding public statement fell short of straightforwardly designating their target population. Circumlocutions built around geographical and anthropological categories were still often preferred to overt racial(ising) terminologies. This convergent approach regarding naming may lead some to adopt a monolithic view of the black organisational dynamic. Yet the important questions that ought to be addressed are: Why did this consensus form in the first place? And why did the CRAN ultimately break with this consensus and elevate race to such a central function and status?

Collective censorship

In attempting to answer these questions, the historical background needs to be considered, as does the fact that the black associative space is a relational field given that the different organisations are mutually constitutive and the options and decisions of a given organisation take into account precursors. Organisations operate by navigating and negotiating the frame of audibility, the ‘voice-ibility’ and feasibility that other spaces outside the black organisational one strive to impose upon the latter. In other words, they are technically bound to a sort of prescriptive notice that indicates what can be said, what can be heard, and what can be done within the boundaries of French society.

Early twentieth-century black organisations developed in a historical context, which made the inscription of racial terminologies in their name socially appropriate. During the interwar period, French society was not race-blind and the designation of French citizens and subjects by racial terminologies was a common option (Noiriel, 2006; Saada, 2006). More to the point, the state machine was openly race-conscious, and police memos, bureaucrats’ reports and public statements made by politicians were full of evidence to support this. African soldiers enrolled in the First World War were labelled the ‘force noire’. The President of the Conseil des ministres and later President of the French Republic (1913–20), Raymond Poincaré, not only intervened personally but announced during a parliamentary session that the licence of the Montmartre bar from which the black activist Kojo Tovalou Houénou was violently expelled by a group of American tourists, aided by the bar owner, would be revoked, and that his government would discuss appropriate sanctions to be taken against ‘public bar owners who would not welcome coloured patrons on equal terms with whites’ (Dewitte, 2007: 75; my translation). In an environment in which the authorities did not shy away from racial designation, black organisations were in safe waters when they inscribed racial signifiers such as black or Negro to their organisations’ names.

Twenty-first-century policies therefore stand in opposition to those that prevailed in the early twentieth century and it may seem paradoxical that the state has been committed implicitly to a philosophy of racial equality inherited from the Revolution, while at the same time denying the existence of race itself, thus making France the fascinating and maybe only society where there existed an anti-racist stance without race itself (Bleich, 2004). However, black organisations have acted upon this hegemonic discourse of Republican egalitarianism and race-denial and skilfully fashioned their identity within permissible boundaries. Respect for the boundaries has been all the more predictable given that black organisations have tied their existence to the French state from which they not only solicit recognition but also compete for resources in view of the sustainability of their cause. CAPDIV is an excellent example of this relationship and of black organisations’ abiding by this hegemonic discourse (with all its implications) on the orientation of an organisation with regard to race. It offers, moreover, a stark illustration of how competing positions can take place within the same organisation. In 2004, during the early stages of the creation of the association, a discussion took place within the small circle of activists involved in the project as to whether the organisation’s population target should not simply be designated as ‘black’. The organisation’s primary purpose was to address discrimination based on skin colour, to reflect on ‘la situation et la place des citoyens français et résidents du territoire français originaires d’Afrique subsaharienne et de l’Outremer’, but in so doing CAPDIV decided to privilege neutral terms and names, stating that its objective was to:

améliorer la connaissance ou la reconnaissance des citoyens français et résidents du territoire français passibles de discriminations, qu’elles soient fondées sur l’apparence physique, l’origine géographique ou sociale, le sexe, l’âge, l’état de santé, ou encore les convictions politiques, religieuses, etc. (see www.capdiv.org/VN/a-propos/)

This decision of course sheds light on CAPDIV’s internalisation of the hegemonic discourse of Republican colour-blindness and its unwillingness to challenge it.

Collectif Égalité’s case is also of significance owing to its pioneering role in the formation of the black French population. During the second of a series of three interviews I conducted with a spokesperson from the organisation, I pointed to the absence of any mention of race in the name in the organisation: ‘It’s not Collectif noir pour l’Égalité. The black dimension of your organisation is not obviously audible. Why is that?’ In response, the spokesperson argued as follows, and members of the organisation who were present nodded:

That’s exactly the point. As you can see, as anybody who knows our organisation well, Collectif is … I mean Collectif Egalité is an organisation founded, run and funded by people whose negritude is unquestionable, anybody who knows us knows that we are aware of our black identity and committed to black causes. But we operate in France and as French people, you know, we know how to say things in a way that will be heard, in such a way that people won’t call into question our French identity. Our genius is to have been able to fight for a specific group but through a universal discourse, which our name reflects. We too are Cartesians. And how could we not be, since we are products of this culture?

As mentioned earlier, in the early stages of their development, black organisations have had to carve the framework of their own discourses of grievances and existence into Republican ideology, due to their need for the Republic’s recognition and solicitude as well as its developmental resources. CAPDIV was thus clearly conceived with the material and institutional support of the Haut Conseil à l’Intégration (HCI). Finally, AFIP’s evolution offers the ultimate illustration of the instrumental logic present during the early development of black organisations. Initially named Afrique Insertion Professionelle in view of its commitment to the promotion of university graduates of African heritage to skilled positions in the job market, the organisation finally changed its name while retaining the same four letters of its acronym. The inclusion of Africa turned out to be counterproductive, and as a result AFIP concealed its core identity in favour of a less differentialist self-designation. When asked why there was an absence of reference to blacks, a member of the organisation explained that this was ‘Because in France, it’s very complicated, you can’t call things by their name. Of immigrant descent was one possibility, then we opted for “members of visible minorities”’.

The first black organisation, Collectif Égalité, conformed to Republican discourse. Opting for race-neutral naming while defending the cause of a particular group in French society can yield some benefits and has prompted other organisations to reproduce this approach. Although rejection was the first reaction of many Republican gatekeepers to the claims of Collectif Égalité, eventually acknowledgement and recognition did follow when, during the summer of 1999, France’s audiovisual legislative board, the Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel (CSA) took note of the legitimacy of Collectif Égalité’s struggle and agreed to meet its delegates. In fact, they later implemented a policy of diversity and pledged to make the audiovisual professional body more representative of the ‘cultural diversity of the nation’ – a proxy expression for racially inclusivity. In a similar spirit, television managers finally worked with Collectif Égalité to think through ways of making the programmes aired on their channels better mirror French society, and how to integrate ‘more French of foreign origin’ in their firms.

Breaking ground: the CRAN and the label ‘black’

The foundation of the CRAN introduced a rupture in the conformity of black organisations with the Republican discourse of race-blindness. For the first time, a post-war black organisation operating on French soil inscribed the term black into its name and has sought to coerce the French polity into introducing race as a classificatory category in the state statistical nomenclature. This novel decision needs to be analysed from a strategic angle. The CRAN appeared in a black organisational space that was already saturated with actions, discourses and initiatives intended to benefit the black population. As a consequence, it needed to be distinctive if it hoped to survive as a newcomer, reconfigure the relational dynamic, and eventually exercise its own leadership. Reclaiming blackness and inscribing it at the heart of its name and then advocating for the generation of official racial statistics have proved to be groundbreaking moves, all the more so given the high potential for controversy in the public sphere and the polarising effect on French society. Let us not forget that only a few years earlier the CSA, eager to demonstrate its willingness to address the issue of ‘diversity on French TV’, entrusted a young communications and journalism student, Marie-France Malonga, with the task of measuring this diversity. To do so, Malonga surveyed the people shown on the programmes broadcast by the five non-pay-per-view TV channels during an entire week and built a methodology based on their classification in racial terms: ‘white’, ‘visibly Arab’, ‘visibly black’, ‘visibly Asian’ (Malonga, 2000a; 2000b). Most columnists criticised the findings of this study, accusing it of undermining the Republican consensus on race-blindness, and forced the CSA to disown the report and suspend its publication. Capitalising on Collectif Égalité’s failure and the indignation of these opinion-makers, the CRAN was able to carve out a new space for itself within the framework of Republican discourse, with a clear awareness of course that it was gambling with its very existence within the black organisational space.

The CRAN’s strategy stands, arguably, among the most successful ones in the history of black collective organisations in France (Tin, 2008). Indeed, the CRAN would soon emerge as the frontrunner on the black racial advocacy landscape and its discourse and positions would eventually shape the entire dynamic within this space. Three major developments are indicative of its key role. Firstly, during the twentieth century no black organisation garnered as many entries in the French newspapers as the CRAN has achieved since 2005 (articles about black organisations published between 1998 and 2009 in major French newspapers rank the CRAN at the top of the list with 66 entries between 2005 and 2009, whereas Collectif Egalité scored 25 between 1999 and 2007, and Collectif DOM 34 between 2003 and 2009). Secondly, in spite of its challenging approach regarding race, the CRAN has imposed itself as the principal interlocutor with public institutions. Rival organisations, specifically Collectif Égalité and Collectif DOM, have sought to disparage and to undercut its legitimacy and viability by labelling it ‘a media creation of and the equivalent of SOS Racisme with no presence in the black community’. Finally, precursor associations like Collectif Égalité and Collectif DOM have now been relegated to the role of reactive organisations confined to the role of mere commentators and critics of the discourses and initiatives emanating from the CRAN.

Conclusion

Although class, education and generation are relevant variables in the process of improving our understanding of the conflicting positions on blackness within the black population of France, their decisive contribution to this divergence should be examined in the light of the development of the black associative space largely controlled by highly educated middle-class men of roughly the same generation. The development of this space suggests that conflicting views on blackness originate from a more structural dynamic. There is a need to take into account the changing relational configuration of the black associative space as well as the larger space – the French public sphere more specifically – whose influence on the latter is critical and capable of shaping both its public stance and discourse. For a significant period the hegemony of the Republican discourse on race-blindness coupled with the black elite’s need for the state’s recognition and resources restrained the black French from uttering and endorsing race-based discourse and action. Quite interestingly, the word ‘black’ – in English – as a term of self-designation was already in use among native black French youth of the suburbs during the 1980s as Mar Fall (1986) has shown. The fact that it took about 20 years for black organisational entrepreneurs to appropriate and eventually theorise and promote the label is of significance. Recognition of this dimension should lead analysts to a deeper level of reflection that will only facilitate our appreciation of the dissonance that exists in the black population in France. Operating outside this space in which the stakes of using the term black were defined, black youth in France have increasingly elected to use the label. When it comes to twenty-first-century black organisations, their prospects are likely to be shaped by their attitude to this designation.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

My gratitude to Yuusuf Caruso for his input: always present, always efficient.

Notes

Author biography

Abdoulaye Gueye is Professor of Sociology at the University of Ottawa. He is the author of Les Intellectuels africains en France (2001) and Aux Nègres de France la patrie non reconnaissante (2010), and co-editor of Figures croisées d’intellectuels (2007), Figures et expériences diasporiques (a special issue of the Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales), and Africa Confronts Development (a special issue of the Canadian Journal of Development Studies).

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