French nationalism and the Paris riots

No doubt most of you are aware that Muslim youths have been rioting in Paris, nightly, for nearly two weeks now. A 61-year-old man was beaten to death. A woman in her 50s, on crutches, was doused with a flammable liquid and set on fire. The rioters are burning more than 1,000 cars per night.

I would like to draw a connection between the riots in Paris and an event here in Canada ten years ago.

On October 30, 1995, residents of Quebec nearly voted to separate from Canada. According to Wikipedia, the final vote was 50.58% against to 49.42% in favour of separation. English Canadians watched the returns with our hearts in our throats:  we had no say in the decision as our nation was very nearly torn in two.

But what is the connection between this event and the riots in Paris? The answer is, French nationalism.

Someone who was being interviewed on CBC radio tried to explain the alienation of the Muslim youths who are rioting nightly in Paris. He said that the majority of the population does not regard them as "really" French. Even Muslims who were born in France are up against that prejudice.

When I heard those comments, I thought of the 1995 referendum.

Let me step back and provide a little historical context. There was a time when the Francophone population of Quebec had good reason to resent English Canada. Mordecai Richler explains,

[French Canadians] can recall when they weren't welcome in the higher reaches of Quebec's leading law firms, brokerage houses or banks. In 1961 French Canadians, though they made up something like a third of Canada's then population of nineteen million, held somewhat less than fifteen percent of responsible federal jobs. A survey showed that while four fifths of the directors of 183 major companies in Canada, were Canadian born, less than 7% of these positions were held by French Canadians.

But those days are long past. The sea change began in the early 1960s with the Quiet Revolution, which profoundly redefined the role of Quebec, and Quebeckers, within Confederation. Quebeckers have assumed their rightful place in the boardrooms of the nation and at the highest echelons of government. It is often pointed out that Canada's Prime Minister has come from Quebec for 32 of the past 33 years.

Thus it is hard to understand Francophone Quebeckers' continuing alienation. At a time when the United Nations repeatedly chose Canada as the best nation on earth in which to live, Quebeckers seriously considered leaving Canada to found a separate nation.

The impulse is attributable to French nationalism.

When the result of the 1995 referendum was clear, the leader of the separatist cause offered an infamous explanation of the result. Then Premier Jacques Parizeau said:

Let's stop talking about the francophones of Quebec. Let's talk about us. Sixty per cent of us have voted in favour.

We need to pause here just for a moment. Who is the "us" to whom M. Parizeau refers? The answer is, "real" Quebeckers. These folk sometimes identify themselves as pur laine (pure wool) Quebeckers — those whose ancestors came from France and who settled in Quebec many generations ago.

M. Parizeau was dividing Quebec voters into "us" and "them". They may be francophones insofar as they speak French, but they are not to be mistaken for us. He continued:

… It's true we have been defeated, but basically by what? By money and the ethnic vote. All it means is that in the next round [i.e., the next referendum], instead of us being 60 or 61 per cent in favour, we'll be 63 or 64 per cent.

This notorious phrase, "money and the ethnic vote", continues to resound ten years later. It is true that allophones (those whose first language is neither French nor English) voted against separation en masse (see the Wikipedia article sited above). But all residents of Quebec were entitled to participate in determining their fate. M. Parizeau's remarks suggest that he bitterly resented allophones for scuppering his pet project.

Now let us return to those Muslim youths in Paris — the ones who doubt they are accepted as "really" French. Is this scenario plausible? I think so.

By no means do I condone the rioting in Paris. All around the world, Muslims are responsible for acts of violence and the murder of civilians, just as we are now seeing in France. Evidence continues to mount that there is something in contemporary Muslim culture which lends itself to such acts.

But surely we should still consider whether the Muslim youths of France have just cause to feel alienated. Timothy Smith, described as a specialist in French history, offers this opinion:

Whereas Toronto has small pockets of self-segregated ethnic communities (which tend to disperse over a generation or two), Paris has entire suburbs, with hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in almost complete isolation from the mainstream, decade after decade.

The French government refuses to recognize ethnic communities as legitimate actors — it would prefer that they simply disappear quietly into the mainstream. North Africans are expected to jettison all their cultural and religious baggage at the border, and pretend that their ancestors are the Gauls. Multiculturalism is dismissed as a dangerous Anglo-Saxon import. … The French believe that multiculturalism would only privilege individuals by association with their ethnic, religious or racial roots.

Smith believes that France could learn a thing or two from Canada's example:

There is no such concept as Algerian French. By contrast, one can be Chinese Canadian and still be considered a full citizen. Before immigrants to Canada become equal in the economic sense, their culture is already considered equal in the theoretical sense. The one helps lead to the other. …

Most Canadians see immigrants in a positive light — they add diversity to the cultural scene, they spice up our cuisine, they make important economic contributions, they will help pay for the boomers' pensions. …

Obviously, racism exists in Canada, but where is the equivalent of France's unabashedly xenophobic National Front party, which received 5.5 million votes in 2002? Which political party in Canada is led by a man who plasters city walls with election posters vowing: "When he [this leader] comes, they [the immigrants] are going?"

Even in Quebec, multiculturalism has been embraced as a social good. Jacques Parizeau's offensive remarks on the night of the 1995 referendum marked a high-water mark in bitterness directed toward "ethnics". The new generation of separatist leaders actively courts the allophone vote. They hope to hold another referendum some day, and they want immigrants to feel that there is a place for them in an independent Quebec.

France can, indeed, learn a few lessons from Canada's example. The article by Timothy Smith concludes:

Amazingly, there isn't a single member of the National Assembly from mainland France who is a visible minority, even as 9 per cent to 10 per cent of the population is Muslim. If there were one such politician, perhaps he or she could visit the suburbs and deliver a message of hope.