The Politics of Blackness and Citizenship in Post-1980s France

Abstract

In France, since race is constitutionally and legally not recognized as a category, Blackness and Frenchness remain approached as mutually exclusive categories. The term “Noir,” the linguistic equivalent of the term “Black” in English, is not compatible with the French national identity. It is not as common as a means of identification as the term “Black” is in the United States. The status quo that the French Republican universalism established makes identifying with term “Noir” self-isolating and “communautariste”. Despite the huge Black population in France, “France Noire” or “Black France” is still mentioned with critical interrogation (Mudimbe-Boyi 2012, 27). In this article, I use Sami Tchak’s Place des Fêtes (2001) and Rokhaya Diallo’s activist voice to examine how French-born children of immigrants claim belonging in their land of birth. In doing so, I reflect on their relationship with both Africa (Africanness) and France (Frenchness).