Chloé Morin was an opinion advisor to the Prime Minister from 2012 to 2017. She currently works as an associate expert at the Jean Jaurès Foundation. She published On a les Politiques qu'on mérite (Fayard, February 2022).
"Who are the favorite personalities of the French? Kylian Mbappé, Yannick Noah...". Carole Delga, the president of the Occitanie Region interviewed this Wednesday morning on France Info, launches into a demonstration on the positive contribution of immigration in France. But the interviewer cuts her off: "But they are French!" Answer obviously beside the point, since Carole Delga's demonstration was not intended to question the belonging of the two personalities to the French community, but to explain that one could be partly from immigration, and be loved and celebrated by our fellow citizens. Apparently distraught, Carole Delga tries to continue, as if surprised that she could be sued for racism in the middle of a tirade that says the exact opposite: "Yes, they are French, but they are from other countries, their parents..." Pretending still not to understand the interviewee's words, the interviewer continues: "MBappé's mother was born in France." As if his father had not been born in the... Cameroon.
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The outcome of this exchange is unfortunately known, as it recalls a thousand other controversies that have agitated the networks in recent years. On the one hand, the journalist prides herself on having aroused controversy and therefore "repeats", this journalistic grail that has unfortunately become the one and only measure of the quality of political interviewers (or, nothing better than "paying" an elected official when you want to arouse controversy). On the other hand, the networks will reproduce endlessly the indignant reactions, moral injunctions and uninhibited insults of those who will find in this misunderstanding deliberately "provoked" by the journalist the validation of their preconceived ideas, namely that a part of the left is obviously racist. (Oh my god, she supported Valls during the 2017 primary! This explains this, etc.). And don't dare to side with Delga and say she's not racist if you're not racialized yourself: you don't know the subject, so you're deemed illegitimate to talk about it. This controversy would be laughable if it did not say two serious things that undermine our public debate and therefore our ability to calmly discuss the problems encountered by our society and to find compromises to resolve them.
In the name of equality, and the fight against racism and all forms of discrimination, many victims of such discrimination deny those who are not the target the right to speak about racism and discrimination.
Chloé Morin
First problem: the actors of the public debate are in no way encouraged to measure, to nuance, and even less to benevolence. Their performance depends on their ability to make buzz of any wood. And the "courage" that is attributed to journalists is indexed to their ability to put politicians in difficulty, even when it is a question of making them say what they have not said. In this wonderful universe, the premium goes to narrow-minded and uninhibited communicators, those who think they are so right especially that they assert untruths in bulldozer mode, without ever being put in difficulty by their opponents. The others, those who doubt, those who do not fit into the unique mold of hyper-media-trained communicators, let themselves be disconcerted, caricatured and humiliated by a system that is made to be strong with the weak, and weak with the strong. If only the ability to doubt and think against oneself, and therefore to change one's mind or apologize, were considered virtues in politics, there is no doubt that public debate would not be the swamp it is unfortunately today...
Second problem: the logic of identity is gaining an ever-increasing number of our fellow citizens, who leave the shores of the universalism of the Enlightenment paradoxically believing that this will concretize our republican motto more quickly... In the name of equality, and the fight against racism and all forms of discrimination, many victims of such discrimination deny those who are not the target the right to speak about racism and discrimination. "You're not 'racialized'? You don't have the right to speak out about racism!" And no doubt out of stupidity and lack of culture, the apostles of this new form of political identity struggle do not even see that by claiming legitimacy in the name of their identity, they are assigning themselves to residence. "I am legitimate because I am a victim and not you, but I forbid you to lock me into this status of victim!" Go figure...
If we continue to be moved by vain polemics, without paying the slightest attention to the evils they reveal, it should come as no surprise that one day it will no longer be possible to talk about any subject that is even a little complex in this country.
Chloé Morin
Concretely, where does this slope lead us on which so many French people – left, right, center, poor and rich, religious or not – are committed? The disaggregation of public debate into ever smaller and ever more watertight bubbles. And therefore to the total impossibility of taking collective decisions resulting from a relatively broad compromise. The teacher denies anyone the right to talk about national education, because he would be the only legitimate expert to talk about the subject. The woman victim of violence does not feel represented by men. The feminist refuses to judge a man's commitment to women's rights as sincere. The poor do not think that a "rich" elected official can defend his interests. The Muslim thinks that one cannot understand, and therefore defend one's rights if one is not a Muslim oneself. The same goes for the transsexual, for the homosexual, for the immigrant of Cameroonian origin, etc. The very notion of representation, essential to the proper functioning of our democracy, is thus totally challenged by whole sections of our society, without this moving many people. If we continue to be moved by vain polemics, without paying the slightest attention to the evils they reveal, it should come as no surprise that one day it will no longer be possible to talk about any subject that is even a little complex in this country. Unfortunately, we are not that far from it...