We yearn mightily to learn from the past, but often history does not oblige us. As sure as we can be of superior American firepower, we cannot know where, in the next years or decades, the Iraqi crisis will take us. Still, one must sometimes act from uncertainty. It is, at such times, especially important not to act from ignorance.
The so-called "lessons of history" are modest. They concern nothing but homely facts about our human nature. In burgeoning countries on this shrinking planet, we must live together every day. The world will not end tomorrow. It is better to act together than alone. It is better to speak than to fight. These truths are often disappointed. But they must not be ignored. Democracy is never built on such ignorance. It is America’s current disgrace to try.
The Foreign Minister of France, Dominique de Villepin, offered us a corrective lesson on February 14th. Americans should pay attention. The force of the French position is not just the eloquence with which it was stated. Nor is it just a respect for these truths. It is what brought forth applause at the United Nations and, the next day, millions into streets around the world. It is the desire to exhaust the political option before recourse to war.
The French are not angels. Perhaps they, too, want control of Iraqi oil. Perhaps they just want to stick it to us. It does not matter. Just as the motives — good or bad — of the Bush administration will not determine where history takes us.
What counts is that de Villepin found words which at once express the particular interests of France and appeal to the common sense of the world. The political option corresponds to the kind of world democrats want. What counts is that the Bush administration has been unable to find such words. The reason is simple. Pure ambition cannot be disguised as the common good.
Only in public debate do such differences come to life. It is a sometimes unwieldy but still formidable machine. In the forum of the United Nations, the need to negotiate is a demand for reasons. It is a force without arms. France is winning the argument because everyone knows — indeed, everyone admits — that it would be better to talk than to fight. Better not to act alone. Thus, unwavering "unilateralism" leaves the Bush administration with nothing to say to those whose future it aims to control. For this war concerns the whole world.
The American President has said that if the United Nations does not follow his program, it will "fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant, debating society." The opposite is true. The Bush administration made a cynical bet. They sought U.N. support while believing it unnecessary. In so doing, they made it necessary. Their hubris made de Villepin’s words ring out. Nothing shows more clearly the power of the U.N. than George W. Bush’s losing bet. This will be true even — especially — if America goes it alone.
Perhaps you think de Villepin’s speech was just words. Think again. Every power of every State comes down to the human energies which execute it: someone must build the buildings, collect the taxes, teach the children, carry the guns. These energies are directed more by beliefs than by commands. Governments stand on opinion. This, finally, is the winning force of France’s position. It is spoken in words that even Americans can believe. If only we have the courage to do so.
Amended English version of "Lezioni Francesi," Written from Paris, February 27, 2003
Sunday, March 02, 2003
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
Lezioni Francesi
Anche se desideriamo imparare dal passato, spesso la storia non ci fa questa cortesia. Per quanto possiamo essere sicuri che il potere armato dell’America sia schiacciante, non possiamo sapere dove la crisi irachena ci porterà nei prossimi anni o decenni. Malgrado queste incertezze, debbiamo a volte agire comunque. In tali momenti è però importante non agire sulla base dell’ignoranza.
Le cosiddette "lezioni di storia" non ammontano tutto sommato a molto. Alcuni fatti semplici e familiari. Riguardano la natura umana. Il pianeta si restringe, i paesi sono traboccanti di gente, ma non è cambiato l’antico fatto che dobbiamo vivere insieme ogni giorno. Il nostro mondo non finirà domani. E meglio agire insieme che da soli. Meglio parlare che combattere. Spesso non siamo all’altezza nemmeno di queste modeste verità. Ciononostante esse non debbono essere omesse. La democrazia non è mai fondata su tale ignoranza. Tuttavia l’attuale disgrazia degli Stati Uniti è proprio di dimenticare questo.
Il giorno di San Valentino, il ministro degli esteri francese Dominique de Villepin ha reso omaggio alla possibilità di sostituire la violenza con la politica. Chiamiamo questa l’opzione politica. Si è trattato di una lezione correttiva e importante. Dovremmo - noi, popoli e governanti, Americani e Italiani - fare attenzione. In che cosa è consistita la forza della posizione francese ? Non solo l’eloquenza con la quale è stata esposta. Neanche la sua armonia con i prinicipi fondamentali. Piuttosto c’è stata qualche cosa che ha suscitato l’applauso nella grande aula delle Nazioni Uniti e, il giorno dopo, dei milioni sulle strade del mondo intero. La forza dietro il discorso di de Villepin è un desiderio naturale di percorrere l’opzione politica prima di ricorrere alla guerra.
Questo desiderio non ha niente a che fare con la virtù. Poniamo che i francesi non siano angeli. Forse anche loro hanno sete di petrolio - anche se credere che gli Stati Uniti cerchino di controllare il petrolio iracheno sia sottovalutare il perfido fanatismo del governo Bush. Forse - come dicono sempre più spesso negli Stati Uniti - i francesi sono gelosi, vigliacchi, rompiscatole. Non importa. Non c’entra. Esattemente come le motivazioni, giuste o sbagliate, buone o cattive, del governo Bush non determineranno per nulla dove la storia ci porterà.
Cosa importa allora ? Il fatto che de Villepin abbia trovato parole non ambivalenti ma bivalenti. Allo stesso tempo, è riuscito a esprimere degli interessi particolari francesi e a fare appello al sensus communis del mondo. L’opzione politica corrisponde al tipo di vita che desiderano le genti democratiche.
Inoltre importa il fatto che il governo Bush non sia arrivato a trovare tali parole. La ragione è semplice. Il lupo dell’ambizione pura non può essere travestito sotto il mantello del bene comune.
Non è purtroppo una favola. La storia non ha una morale. Se imparassimo da questa situazione, sarebbe attraverso le nostre proprie parole ed azioni. La democrazia ha bisogno sempre di un pubblico per smascherare i trucchi. E’ nella dialettica del dibattito che la differenza fra due discorsi viene svelata. Il dibattito pubblico è un macchinario profondamente umano. Di tanto in tanto è poco maneggevole. Ma, per quanto possa sembrar strano, questa debolezza non è l’essenziale. Nel foro delle Nazioni Unite, il dibattito impone la necessità di trattare; le trattative impongono la necessità di giustificarsi. Il dibattito pubblico diviene perciò una forza senza armi. La Francia ha la parte vincente perche dà giustificazioni inconfutate e irrefiutabili. Tutti sanno - a ben vedere, tutti ammettono - che sarebbe meglio parlare che combattere. Meglio non agire da soli. Il suo incrollabile "unilateralismo" ha lasciato il governo Bush senza niente da dire a coloro i quali il futuro pretende dicontrollare. Questa guerra riguarda tutto il mondo.
Il Presidente Bush ha detto che non si lascerà far dominare dalle voce dei milioni; tuttavia ha risposto chiaramente al discorso dei francesi. Ha detto che se le Nazioni Unite non marciano al ritmo della sua canzone, questa istituzione sperimentale "scomparirà dalla storia come una club di discussione inefficacie e buona a nulla."
Ma, la verità è, ovviamente, il contrario. Il governo Bush ha fatto una scommessa cinica. Ha cercato il sostegno delle Nazioni Unite mentre credeva che non fosse necessario averlo. Facendo cosi, l’ha reso necessario. La sua prepotenza ha amplificato la voce di de Villepin. Nulla avrebbe potuto mostrare più chiaramente il potere delle Nazioni Unite che la scommessa perdente di George W. Bush. Questo sarà vero anche se - soppratutto se - l’America decidesse di andare avanti da sola.
Forse crederete che il discorso di de Villepin e il dibattito alle Nazioni Unite siano stati poco più che un insieme di parole, vento. Ed in generale, l’uso della parola contro la violenza è un segno di debolezza. Ricredetevi. Tutti i poteri di ogni stato, in ultima analisi, consistono nelle energie di coloro che li eseguono: qualcuno deve costruire edifici, raccogliere le tasse, insegnare ai bambini, portare le armi. Queste energie sono dirette piuttosto dalla convinzione che dagli ordini imposti dai governanti. Come ha detto David Hume, i governi si fondono su questa forma d’opinione. Aggungiamo che questa opinione si fonda sull’uso della parola in pubblico. E’ questa, infine, la forza vincente della posizione della Francia: usare dei termini, delle parole in cui anche altri possano rispecchiarsi, sulla base delle quali possano agire. Ci volevano milioni d’italiani e americani il 15 febbraio pronti ad accettare coraggiosamente questa sfida. Prima o poi, George W. Bush dovrà ascoltare. Le vere consequenze di questa guerra dipenderanno dal momento in cui questo avverrà.
Scritto da Parigi per la rivista "Il Ponte" [non e uscita], 24 febbraio 2003
Le cosiddette "lezioni di storia" non ammontano tutto sommato a molto. Alcuni fatti semplici e familiari. Riguardano la natura umana. Il pianeta si restringe, i paesi sono traboccanti di gente, ma non è cambiato l’antico fatto che dobbiamo vivere insieme ogni giorno. Il nostro mondo non finirà domani. E meglio agire insieme che da soli. Meglio parlare che combattere. Spesso non siamo all’altezza nemmeno di queste modeste verità. Ciononostante esse non debbono essere omesse. La democrazia non è mai fondata su tale ignoranza. Tuttavia l’attuale disgrazia degli Stati Uniti è proprio di dimenticare questo.
Il giorno di San Valentino, il ministro degli esteri francese Dominique de Villepin ha reso omaggio alla possibilità di sostituire la violenza con la politica. Chiamiamo questa l’opzione politica. Si è trattato di una lezione correttiva e importante. Dovremmo - noi, popoli e governanti, Americani e Italiani - fare attenzione. In che cosa è consistita la forza della posizione francese ? Non solo l’eloquenza con la quale è stata esposta. Neanche la sua armonia con i prinicipi fondamentali. Piuttosto c’è stata qualche cosa che ha suscitato l’applauso nella grande aula delle Nazioni Uniti e, il giorno dopo, dei milioni sulle strade del mondo intero. La forza dietro il discorso di de Villepin è un desiderio naturale di percorrere l’opzione politica prima di ricorrere alla guerra.
Questo desiderio non ha niente a che fare con la virtù. Poniamo che i francesi non siano angeli. Forse anche loro hanno sete di petrolio - anche se credere che gli Stati Uniti cerchino di controllare il petrolio iracheno sia sottovalutare il perfido fanatismo del governo Bush. Forse - come dicono sempre più spesso negli Stati Uniti - i francesi sono gelosi, vigliacchi, rompiscatole. Non importa. Non c’entra. Esattemente come le motivazioni, giuste o sbagliate, buone o cattive, del governo Bush non determineranno per nulla dove la storia ci porterà.
Cosa importa allora ? Il fatto che de Villepin abbia trovato parole non ambivalenti ma bivalenti. Allo stesso tempo, è riuscito a esprimere degli interessi particolari francesi e a fare appello al sensus communis del mondo. L’opzione politica corrisponde al tipo di vita che desiderano le genti democratiche.
Inoltre importa il fatto che il governo Bush non sia arrivato a trovare tali parole. La ragione è semplice. Il lupo dell’ambizione pura non può essere travestito sotto il mantello del bene comune.
Non è purtroppo una favola. La storia non ha una morale. Se imparassimo da questa situazione, sarebbe attraverso le nostre proprie parole ed azioni. La democrazia ha bisogno sempre di un pubblico per smascherare i trucchi. E’ nella dialettica del dibattito che la differenza fra due discorsi viene svelata. Il dibattito pubblico è un macchinario profondamente umano. Di tanto in tanto è poco maneggevole. Ma, per quanto possa sembrar strano, questa debolezza non è l’essenziale. Nel foro delle Nazioni Unite, il dibattito impone la necessità di trattare; le trattative impongono la necessità di giustificarsi. Il dibattito pubblico diviene perciò una forza senza armi. La Francia ha la parte vincente perche dà giustificazioni inconfutate e irrefiutabili. Tutti sanno - a ben vedere, tutti ammettono - che sarebbe meglio parlare che combattere. Meglio non agire da soli. Il suo incrollabile "unilateralismo" ha lasciato il governo Bush senza niente da dire a coloro i quali il futuro pretende dicontrollare. Questa guerra riguarda tutto il mondo.
Il Presidente Bush ha detto che non si lascerà far dominare dalle voce dei milioni; tuttavia ha risposto chiaramente al discorso dei francesi. Ha detto che se le Nazioni Unite non marciano al ritmo della sua canzone, questa istituzione sperimentale "scomparirà dalla storia come una club di discussione inefficacie e buona a nulla."
Ma, la verità è, ovviamente, il contrario. Il governo Bush ha fatto una scommessa cinica. Ha cercato il sostegno delle Nazioni Unite mentre credeva che non fosse necessario averlo. Facendo cosi, l’ha reso necessario. La sua prepotenza ha amplificato la voce di de Villepin. Nulla avrebbe potuto mostrare più chiaramente il potere delle Nazioni Unite che la scommessa perdente di George W. Bush. Questo sarà vero anche se - soppratutto se - l’America decidesse di andare avanti da sola.
Forse crederete che il discorso di de Villepin e il dibattito alle Nazioni Unite siano stati poco più che un insieme di parole, vento. Ed in generale, l’uso della parola contro la violenza è un segno di debolezza. Ricredetevi. Tutti i poteri di ogni stato, in ultima analisi, consistono nelle energie di coloro che li eseguono: qualcuno deve costruire edifici, raccogliere le tasse, insegnare ai bambini, portare le armi. Queste energie sono dirette piuttosto dalla convinzione che dagli ordini imposti dai governanti. Come ha detto David Hume, i governi si fondono su questa forma d’opinione. Aggungiamo che questa opinione si fonda sull’uso della parola in pubblico. E’ questa, infine, la forza vincente della posizione della Francia: usare dei termini, delle parole in cui anche altri possano rispecchiarsi, sulla base delle quali possano agire. Ci volevano milioni d’italiani e americani il 15 febbraio pronti ad accettare coraggiosamente questa sfida. Prima o poi, George W. Bush dovrà ascoltare. Le vere consequenze di questa guerra dipenderanno dal momento in cui questo avverrà.
Scritto da Parigi per la rivista "Il Ponte" [non e uscita], 24 febbraio 2003
Wednesday, January 01, 2003
Undocumented Vacation, or Vacances Sans-Papiers
[This piece was written in August 1996; I post it to suggest how easy it should have been to predict the recent social unrest in France.]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The summer exodus from Paris is famous. Parisians set out for everywhere to forget, well, Paris. That is the myth, and an evening walk in the near empty streets of wealthy central arrondissements could lead you to believe it. But follow the thirteen lines of the subway's circling web towards the edge of the city and another story begins to unfold. These trains, like the "A" Train in New York immortalized by Ellington, are vectors of class and race. At each station northwards they darken with Arabs and West Africans. Pass the Gare du Nord and step out into the life of the night at Barbès-Rochechouart.
The myth has an official form. Thanks to the brief administration of socialist Léon Blum in the 1930's, every legal French worker has the right to a paid vacation. In early August the newspapers celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of this tenacious right in a country with thirteen percent unemployment. The right persists because, so far, the French resist "restructuring." Last Winter much of the country shut down for more than a month in support of a transportation strike. From all walks of life commuters made their way to work on foot, not so much to defend railroad workers but to block the erosion of a range of established social entitlements similar to the paid vacation. Some observers took this revival of broadly-based protest politics as the last gasp of the sense of social justice in France. The French, they said, will soon follow their neighbors and lay down in the path of an increasingly exigent commitment to "Europe" and "the Global Economy." The next decade will tell if the denunciation of injustice, a central theme in French political culture since the Revolution, is headed for the history books. For the moment, however, it seems to be making a comeback.
The August myth tells you it is the height of vacation. The newspapers sing the right to leave both work and home behind. Yet even at midnight the streets of the Goutte d'Or district are full. This is because on these sloping streets near Montmartre the residents are often neither French and nor working legally. The neighborhood resonates with the languages of Mali, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast. One of those languages is French. Follow the lines of decayed and demolished buildings and the promise of public housing; old Paris is coming down and something new is growing. Two policemen with their blue pillbox hats and a radio watch over the perimeter of this battleground for the new France.
Not far beyond is St. Bernard de la Chapelle. In this sober catholic church hundreds of undocumented aliens from francophone Africa form the latest front-line. They do not have the right to a paid vacation. How, indeed, can you go on vacation when you are nowhere at home? There is slight chance that they could ever return to their lives in France if they crossed a national boundary. The summer, for them, is a time to stay put and live out the accelerating nightmare of France's turn to the right. While the French at the mediterranean coast frolic in the sea, the Africans in Paris struggle not to be forgotten.
Like the beginnings of the sanctuary movement in the United States at the time of the war in El Salvador, churches in France may be becoming an important site of political conflict. It happened a bit by chance. Three hundred Africans at St. Bernard, mainly from Mali, occupied the church when forced from a series of other locations in the City of Lights. They have now been squatting there for more than a month. Many are refusing to eat; the hunger strike is in its forty-sixth day. They demand recognition that they belong to and in France.
Although surprised by the occupation of his church, Father Henri Coindé insists that civil laws are subject to a moral test. He evokes the Natural Law tradition so familiar to readers of Martin Luther King. To this he adds an acute sense of political sociology, insisting that "this situation has been created by the government and they should take responsibility for it." It is the political shift to the right that has caused this new crisis. New immigration laws pushed over the edge a lot of people who for years have managed to scrape by. Thus, Coindé has refused to sign official papers authorizing expulsion of his refugees. Every morning at sunrise those inside the church and a greater number of supporters outside brace for an assault by the police.
It might be said that the battle is against the harsh immigration controls put in place by former and present Ministers of Interior Charles Pasqua and Jean-Louis Debré. These laws aim to stem the natural tides of population which renew all vital cultures and make great cities like Paris organisms of human creativity. They serve the same ends as some laws proposed and some enacted in the United States. The lois Pasqua are, for the moment at least, more effective than what we have seen in the United States for four reasons. First, the actual proportion of illegal immigrants living in France is very much lower than in the United States, amounting to about 0.15% of the total population. Second, this relatively small number can be located easily because dark skin color and immigrant status are more likely to come together. Third, the highly centralized administrative apparatus which covers the relatively small territory of France makes for a tight net of social control. Finally, in a country where public justification is so important it clearly helps the government that no political stand-off here is yet the subject of twenty-four hour media surveillance.
Since the baton was passed from Pasqua to Debré last year, the immigration hardliners have brought one especially pernicious element of the law to the foreground. The reform of the Code de la Nationalité denies automatic citizenship to children born on French soil. This is a radical break from the French republican tradition. It incorporates the dreams of Le Pen and the Front National into the core of the political program of President Jacques Chirac's "center" right government.
The attempt to impose this new form of control over the livelihood of human beings has produced, not surprisingly, a panoply of unintended consequences and new points of conflict. Since early this year, the movement responding to the increasingly offensive immigration policy has been growing. Alluding at once to the bureaucratic state and the revolutionary tradition, the name that has stuck to the movement is les sans-papiers. It is as though les sans-culottes were missing documentation instead of pants.
The new laws seek to sustain the public order by shifting responsibility for demographic chaos squarely onto the shoulders of the weak. Americans will recognize this strategy and its consequences from recent efforts in California to prohibit the delivery of basic services to non-citizens. Such policies in fact disrupt social practices which respond to irrepressible long-term human needs and which are the results of decades of bricollage and mutual accommodation. Networks of human interdependence cannot be smashed without destroying the beings which make them up. So no one should be surprised when this type of immigration law creates just what it aims to avoid: disorder and violence in the lives of citizens and immigrants alike, and an increasingly misplaced assertion of state power.
Such disorder is now erupting from the parisian cityscape and seeping into the lives of neighbors and friends, parishioners and priests, co-workers and bosses. Thus, the battle is not really against the immigration laws but for work, for families, for a moderately stable life. In the long run, it is for all children born on French soil. This includes the children born in the sanctuary of St. Bernard during the continuing occupation and hunger strike, who unlike their little brothers or sisters born before the first day of 1994 do not have the automatic right of citizenship.
It is after midnight now. A sleepless buzz is in the streets. Camping is a vacation favorite in France, and around the church tired campers await the dawn. In their midst, the high and the low, the drunks and the Derridas. A young student from Mali, alone in Paris for four years, working her way up the ladder to the exalted position of secretary, has recently finished her classes. School's out and this, she says, gives her more time to come to the church. More time to fight for a vacation. Maybe tomorrow this battle will be about the beloved right to a paid vacation. For now, it is against forced repatriation and the wrenching apart of families. It is a most emphatic assertion of residence and the longing to be at home. It is the battle for the new France. It is a battle that is coming soon to your neighborhood.
Written from Paris, August 1996
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The summer exodus from Paris is famous. Parisians set out for everywhere to forget, well, Paris. That is the myth, and an evening walk in the near empty streets of wealthy central arrondissements could lead you to believe it. But follow the thirteen lines of the subway's circling web towards the edge of the city and another story begins to unfold. These trains, like the "A" Train in New York immortalized by Ellington, are vectors of class and race. At each station northwards they darken with Arabs and West Africans. Pass the Gare du Nord and step out into the life of the night at Barbès-Rochechouart.
The myth has an official form. Thanks to the brief administration of socialist Léon Blum in the 1930's, every legal French worker has the right to a paid vacation. In early August the newspapers celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of this tenacious right in a country with thirteen percent unemployment. The right persists because, so far, the French resist "restructuring." Last Winter much of the country shut down for more than a month in support of a transportation strike. From all walks of life commuters made their way to work on foot, not so much to defend railroad workers but to block the erosion of a range of established social entitlements similar to the paid vacation. Some observers took this revival of broadly-based protest politics as the last gasp of the sense of social justice in France. The French, they said, will soon follow their neighbors and lay down in the path of an increasingly exigent commitment to "Europe" and "the Global Economy." The next decade will tell if the denunciation of injustice, a central theme in French political culture since the Revolution, is headed for the history books. For the moment, however, it seems to be making a comeback.
The August myth tells you it is the height of vacation. The newspapers sing the right to leave both work and home behind. Yet even at midnight the streets of the Goutte d'Or district are full. This is because on these sloping streets near Montmartre the residents are often neither French and nor working legally. The neighborhood resonates with the languages of Mali, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast. One of those languages is French. Follow the lines of decayed and demolished buildings and the promise of public housing; old Paris is coming down and something new is growing. Two policemen with their blue pillbox hats and a radio watch over the perimeter of this battleground for the new France.
Not far beyond is St. Bernard de la Chapelle. In this sober catholic church hundreds of undocumented aliens from francophone Africa form the latest front-line. They do not have the right to a paid vacation. How, indeed, can you go on vacation when you are nowhere at home? There is slight chance that they could ever return to their lives in France if they crossed a national boundary. The summer, for them, is a time to stay put and live out the accelerating nightmare of France's turn to the right. While the French at the mediterranean coast frolic in the sea, the Africans in Paris struggle not to be forgotten.
Like the beginnings of the sanctuary movement in the United States at the time of the war in El Salvador, churches in France may be becoming an important site of political conflict. It happened a bit by chance. Three hundred Africans at St. Bernard, mainly from Mali, occupied the church when forced from a series of other locations in the City of Lights. They have now been squatting there for more than a month. Many are refusing to eat; the hunger strike is in its forty-sixth day. They demand recognition that they belong to and in France.
Although surprised by the occupation of his church, Father Henri Coindé insists that civil laws are subject to a moral test. He evokes the Natural Law tradition so familiar to readers of Martin Luther King. To this he adds an acute sense of political sociology, insisting that "this situation has been created by the government and they should take responsibility for it." It is the political shift to the right that has caused this new crisis. New immigration laws pushed over the edge a lot of people who for years have managed to scrape by. Thus, Coindé has refused to sign official papers authorizing expulsion of his refugees. Every morning at sunrise those inside the church and a greater number of supporters outside brace for an assault by the police.
It might be said that the battle is against the harsh immigration controls put in place by former and present Ministers of Interior Charles Pasqua and Jean-Louis Debré. These laws aim to stem the natural tides of population which renew all vital cultures and make great cities like Paris organisms of human creativity. They serve the same ends as some laws proposed and some enacted in the United States. The lois Pasqua are, for the moment at least, more effective than what we have seen in the United States for four reasons. First, the actual proportion of illegal immigrants living in France is very much lower than in the United States, amounting to about 0.15% of the total population. Second, this relatively small number can be located easily because dark skin color and immigrant status are more likely to come together. Third, the highly centralized administrative apparatus which covers the relatively small territory of France makes for a tight net of social control. Finally, in a country where public justification is so important it clearly helps the government that no political stand-off here is yet the subject of twenty-four hour media surveillance.
Since the baton was passed from Pasqua to Debré last year, the immigration hardliners have brought one especially pernicious element of the law to the foreground. The reform of the Code de la Nationalité denies automatic citizenship to children born on French soil. This is a radical break from the French republican tradition. It incorporates the dreams of Le Pen and the Front National into the core of the political program of President Jacques Chirac's "center" right government.
The attempt to impose this new form of control over the livelihood of human beings has produced, not surprisingly, a panoply of unintended consequences and new points of conflict. Since early this year, the movement responding to the increasingly offensive immigration policy has been growing. Alluding at once to the bureaucratic state and the revolutionary tradition, the name that has stuck to the movement is les sans-papiers. It is as though les sans-culottes were missing documentation instead of pants.
The new laws seek to sustain the public order by shifting responsibility for demographic chaos squarely onto the shoulders of the weak. Americans will recognize this strategy and its consequences from recent efforts in California to prohibit the delivery of basic services to non-citizens. Such policies in fact disrupt social practices which respond to irrepressible long-term human needs and which are the results of decades of bricollage and mutual accommodation. Networks of human interdependence cannot be smashed without destroying the beings which make them up. So no one should be surprised when this type of immigration law creates just what it aims to avoid: disorder and violence in the lives of citizens and immigrants alike, and an increasingly misplaced assertion of state power.
Such disorder is now erupting from the parisian cityscape and seeping into the lives of neighbors and friends, parishioners and priests, co-workers and bosses. Thus, the battle is not really against the immigration laws but for work, for families, for a moderately stable life. In the long run, it is for all children born on French soil. This includes the children born in the sanctuary of St. Bernard during the continuing occupation and hunger strike, who unlike their little brothers or sisters born before the first day of 1994 do not have the automatic right of citizenship.
It is after midnight now. A sleepless buzz is in the streets. Camping is a vacation favorite in France, and around the church tired campers await the dawn. In their midst, the high and the low, the drunks and the Derridas. A young student from Mali, alone in Paris for four years, working her way up the ladder to the exalted position of secretary, has recently finished her classes. School's out and this, she says, gives her more time to come to the church. More time to fight for a vacation. Maybe tomorrow this battle will be about the beloved right to a paid vacation. For now, it is against forced repatriation and the wrenching apart of families. It is a most emphatic assertion of residence and the longing to be at home. It is the battle for the new France. It is a battle that is coming soon to your neighborhood.
Written from Paris, August 1996
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