by Caroline VALENTIN

guests : – Sandra Laugier, philosopher and professor at the Sorbonne- Etienne Girard, journalist at l’Express- Xavier-Laurent Salvador, university professor, founder of the decolonialism observatory- Louise Jussian, research officer in the opinion department at Ifop
Transcription Sandra Laugier.

12'55'' : There are maybe 4-5 gender training courses in France, including one at her university. The courses on race and intersectionality are also very occasional. So we overdo it, we act as if they were invading universities because we want to attack them. 

[SL is not shocked that a Dutch translator gives up on translating the black American poet]

SL : In universities, students are often very interested in these themes that were not always born in the US, on the contrary, feminism was born in France, to say that we are under the influence of the US is very contemptuous of French thought. To say that these ideas will lead to activism... In any case, there are a very large number of researchers, teachers, in social sciences, in France, not only in these disciplines, they are not all activists, they are not all going to transform their students into activists and then in any case a lot of research comes from political struggles. If there had not been the struggles against racism in the US, we would not have studies in social sciences of the fight against racism, if there had not been the feminist struggles, we would not have gender studies. 

While XLS talks about the report by Pap NDiaye and Constance Rivière on diversity at the Paris Opera and the Brown paper bag test, SL comments on the concept of race by saying that it consists of "saying that there are whites and blacks" (snickering). Exchange:

XLS : the concept of reactive race of political imaginaries which endanger or in any case violently challenge the university institution and the school institution. 
SL : I think it is your imaginations that are reactivated in this case.
XLS : because we have political imaginaries built on the imaginary of the Enlightenment and for a long time [inaudible because of the presenter] have been fighting against that.

Discussions on the set between the presenter and Etienne Girard on the fact that these ideologies put universalism in check. 

SL's response : I don't believe at all what I just heard, I believe that all these generations are universalists and they consider that what is called universalist is in reality a hypocritical and completely false model. For example, we will say it is universalist, we do not differentiate between, for example, whites and blacks or people... but in reality there are enormous social differences, they are in very different social situations, exactly like men and women, there are indeed men and women, no one will deny it, 
Journalist : can we generalize? There are black or Maghrebian French people who are very successful in the Republic 
SL : yes but overall, this is where the social sciences are interesting and my colleagues know them very well, it is true that it is much more difficult, the situations of people of foreign origin, we have seen it even with the percentages of deaths from COVID etc. are in reality much less well treated in social positions...
Journalist : but it is for social reasons not simply for reasons of identity, religion or skin color
SL : but yes, but of course, but that's what thinking about race or gender is all about, it's saying that there are differences between men and women, between whites and blacks, but there's no reason - so we're the real universalists - that these differences should lead to so many inequalities. So what these people are asking for is a real universalism where people would really be equal.
XLS : I think the real universalists are us. On white privilege? See Germinal by Zola, the miners who went into the mines to work and die there. "White privilege" reactivates an extraordinarily divisive imagination. [addressing the journalist] you are right to say that it is a social problem, neither ethnic nor racial. We can see that when we address the issue of race, we slide imperceptibly towards the issue of the social, because ultimately it would suit everyone if we stayed on the social, because it is politically correct and admissible, but the problem is that we are not talking about the social but about racial.
SL : because race has social consequences 
XLS : it is a metonymy to say that we go from racial to social, it is a shift in meaning to say that it is from racial to social, and metonymies are sometimes a little complicated 
[resuming the thread of his speech interrupted by SL] and the problem in this configuration is that we are confronted with something which is systematically divisive 
Journalist : metonymy? 
XLS : we use it all the time, it is a figure of shifting meaning. This is what makes us not say a boat but we say the mast, we not say water but we say glass…
Journalist : and from racial to social?
XLS : and from racial to social, it is a metonymy which would consist of saying "I do not speak of race but in fact I speak of social" but in fact I speak of race. And that is a figure of speech which must be denounced. 
SL : nobody makes this figure of speech. We just say that race, which is a critical concept like gender, is to say precisely that racial differences will in fact lead to social inequalities and that's it...
XLS : race is an essentialization, not a critical concept.

Discussion between the journalist and Etienne Girard on why we are here, the porosity with the American model. Influence of American pop culture, of intellectual smugglers who have brought American concepts to France. What is annoying is not that they are American but that they are not universalists. "White privilege" in particular, which only talks about race, skin color, there is no intersectionality with class. The journalist indicates that in the US, there are teachers who apologize for being privileged whites.

SL : it's true that in the US, the majority of university professors are white for historical and social reasons, in France it's the same thing, and in France no one apologizes for it but I think the question is precisely to know it and when we talk about "white privilege", it's really an expression that came about at the time when it was in fact white people themselves who realized that they were favored by the fact of being white when in fact there is still this illusion that we have just heard formulated that everyone is treated the same, that there is no difference...
Etienne Girard : Ah no no I'm not saying that at all 
SL : if you don't say that, it's because you recognize that being white is nonetheless a help compared to being black or being of origin... 
XLS : we can perhaps recontextualize the debate. Being white anywhere?
SL : for example, black people who try to stop a taxi, in our country, it's much more difficult, there you go, white privilege, it's really immediate, the fact that people of foreign origin in France, there have been many more victims of covid because they are in such disadvantaged regions, 

Journalist : we will talk about it later in your book 
SL : there you go, it's data, it's not a privilege in the sense of a moral accusation, it's that, in fact, there is simply an awareness among many people of the fact that they have been favored by this as by other factors. 
XLS : I'm going to be a bit teasing, but I wonder if we would dare, for example, to defend the idea of ​​an indigenous privilege that would be recontextualized in each civilization. And I think that we might have some difficulty moving forward in this debate by looking, for example, at how indigenous privileges work in different civilizations. But you see that we are gradually slipping into a debate that is extremely interesting because it actually reveals a desire for division. For example, we think that school is the solution, that democracy is the solution. And when the ideas are carried by politicians and democratically end up in the debate, it will probably be time to seize them. But when we reintroduce the idea that language belongs to us, to us – I quote the title of a book by Maria Candela and Laélia Véron – but who is this "we" opposed to? When I say "white privilege", but what other color is this white opposed to? How many shades of gray must we contrast to be able to understand the meaning of this expression? 

Journalist presents a subject by another journalist: in the express, ifop did a survey 

Woke ideas are poorly understood by the French. It is starting to infuse public opinion but it remains marginal. In the battery of items proposed, only 4 passed the 50% mark: white privilege, rape culture, gender studies, inclusive writing. Concepts used by the media for some time and this is how they enter public opinion. 

knowledge of these terms is very marked, by age – young people are much more woke – and qualifications – the most qualified are more woke. 

Survey on secularism and young people: Ifop and Licra (Samuel Paty surveys). Images of the meeting on October 22, 2020 of the Minister for Youth, Sarah El Haïry, who came to close 4 days of debates on secularism with a hundred young people from all over France. Dialogue of the deaf with young people who want to authorize the veil in school. A point of view widely shared by young people: 52% of young people are in favor of wearing religious symbols in public high schools compared to 25% of French people. Generally speaking, young people judge French secularism more harshly than their elders. 37% of high school students believe that the major laws (1905, 2004) are "discriminatory against Muslims". The right to blasphemy guaranteed since 1881 in France is less and less accepted. According to IFOP, there is a real divide between Muslims and the rest of the youth: 78% of Muslims oppose the right to blaspheme, compared to 45% of Catholics and 47% of those without religion. Among young people who say they are Muslim, 88% would be in favor of returning to wearing religious symbols in schools. But the IFOP journalist specifies that this does not mean a rejection of secularism, it is that they see it differently, they do not construct it, they do not think about it in the same way as their elders, they see it through the prism of inclusiveness. They have no problem with wearing conspicuous religious symbols in public spaces, they consider that it is a way to achieve a form of equality and freedom. Opposition to the right to blasphemy: fear of discrimination. 

Journalist : XLS, is the secular fight lost? 

XLS : it is lost if no one fights. But we are faced with a choice of civilization or a choice of society. The problem if you like, we have summarized it a little on the site, is that we have ended up in fact establishing the idea that the school was the place of colonization, I will tell you an anecdote on this subject, and that France was itself colonial in its own schools. 
School is about colonizing minds, colonizing is bad, so school is bad.

[SL shakes his head]

I carry this speech, I will give you the example that I had in my classes one day, very recently, I was teaching on Charlemagne, I was talking about school, why school, and a student said to me, which had never happened to me, "ah yes school is to acculturate them". "Excuse me? To acculturate them? To educate them you mean". "Oh no! To acculturate them, to crush their indigenous culture". I was stunned! So we spent 35 minutes in the middle of an old French class on secularism. I think that the school of tomorrow, the teachers of the day after tomorrow, they are being built in today's university. This is also one of the reasons that led us to mobilize. 

Journalist : and to fight within the observatory and to react whenever a conference is not possible..

XLS : exactly, when you see what is happening in Grenoble right now, Kinzler and our colleague Vincent Tournier being singled out even though they are political scientists, they are being singled out for Islamophobia and their names are being displayed at the entrance to the university, when you see student associations taking up this problem, I think that today, we can equip ourselves with a tool that simply consists of looking at what is happening. We will see what we do with it!

Journalist : SL you will have the final word on this. Is secularism a pillar of our constitution? 

SL : Yes of course 

Journalist : … Religious expressions have no right to exist within public establishments and a fortiori the sanctuary of the school, but young people do not seem to understand this…

SL : And it is a very very important principle but all the young people we hear there, well they also grew up among all sorts of other young people of foreign origin etc. so they know that even if secularism is a very beautiful principle, it is constantly used and pointed out in fact against certain people, against certain religions, and so suddenly the term effectively and I find that it is really a shame it has lost its strength and its aura because it has been used to stigmatize.