Origins
This is a reply to Marie-France’s comment to yesterday’s post: “I am afraid “Isn’t he of Hungarian origin?!” shocks me……”, referring to Angela Joyce’s earlier question “Isn’t [Nicolas Sarkozy] of Hungarian origin?” Marie-France goes on to say “May be the readers of this blog should be taught what a mixed lot we French people are. You have the figures, I haven’t…….”
It is unfortunately impossible to know how many French nationals have non-French blood in them, since the census takers are not allowed under French law to ask about origins. But with the large number of Spanish, Portuguese and Italian immigrants from the south in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, added to the influx of political refugees from Soviet Russia in the 1920’s, Nazi Germany during the ’30’s and more Eastern European countries in 1945/46 (amongst whom Sarkozy’s father), all of whom, because of the colour of their skin, able to blend into the landscape, then the huge numbers coming in from Algeria in the 1960’s, some of European, others of North African origin, plus of course those who have arrived since and keep arriving, the population of France is as mixed and muddled-up as it is in Britain.
So I am fascinated that Marie-France is shocked by Angela Joyce’s phrase “Sarkozy’s Hungarian origin”. I know, as I wrote above, one is not supposed to know, discuss or take into consideration a person’s origins, whether racial or cultural, yet I find that a sad cutting-off of roots. My son is in a similar situation as the French president (!), born in France to a French mother and non-French but European father. I do my best to make him aware (and proud) of his English origins. I am not, unlike Jean-Marie Le Pen, one of those who believes everyone should decide on one single nationality (my son has three, very practical at airports). I am delighted that he passes everywhere as a French school-boy and probably thinks of himself most of the time as French (although some remark on his tête anglaise or his foreign name), but nevertheless I would be sorry if, when he grows up, people were shocked because he or others mentioned his English origins.
On the wider issue of what is Frenchness – and what is Britishness, a theme I shall be looking at over the next few weeks in relation to Gordon Brown’s green paper “The Governance of Britain” (which you can download here), I would be very interested to read other people’s views, especially ex-patriots who may feel pulled in different directions, on this very personal matter.
September 7th, 2007 at 9:04 am
Thank you very much Tim for answering. I’ll be so interested to read you in the next few weeks. I noticed that the heading “France Profonde” has disappeared from the latest “Prospect”. It seems appropriate to discuss France from a less quaint angle. As blogs seem to be a place for “cris du coeur” I must say I am very concerned by what makes up Frenchness. I have been constantly worried about this topic. I can’t enter into personal details but let us say I’m half French, half Czech but known at birth in Neuilly sur Seine as born of unknown parents. So there are no roots there. Sarkozy, it seems, but again I am not so well-informed, never mentions foreign roots. His wife on the other hand has remarked that she is not at all French, meaning she has no French roots. I used to say the same to my many foreign friends who were baffled ” but what are you then?” was the common sensical rejoinder. My contention is that being French is an abstraction adequately defined by Green Papers.
September 7th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Did you mean ex-patriots or expatriates? One can be one without the other, or both at the same time; or indeed abandon either or both positions at will!
As a probably 100% Anglo-Saxon English quarter-Scot with (I hope) a European sensibility, it seems to me that conventional French thinking on questions of national identity, and “republican values” like laicité, is curiously unsupple and unaccommodating. Admittedly, we in the UK are just as capable of pressing the “Where are you from?” questions to a point that reveals the underlying assumption that - basically - black or brown people can’t be “from” here; but equally, how can you understand and respect another’s views and experiences if you don’t know where they are coming from in all the possible senses of the phrase? How can France possibly know how well or ill it is serving its minorities if it refuses to analyse their experiences in their terms (statistically as well as culturally)?
To say “We are all one” in terms of the formalities of citizenship can - does - make it too easy to overlook and devalue any view or experience not already known within the dominant culture: and the ill effects of prejudice and inequality are thereby not dealt with. We had to learn that the hard way through repeated scandals: has France any better prospect of doing so?
September 10th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Not completely at home in either country, after half a lifetime in France.
September 20th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
How an American sees the “un-Frenchness” of M Sarkozy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/opinion/20cohen.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1190311497-GNCCbB6hAqXpMblDXh5Mbw