The “national identity”: a false problem

– Read also: “ Talk about other languages ​​than that of science », Interview with Gérard Noiriel (8-01-2008)

This work is the first title of “ Past & Present », The collection that the Cvuh (The vigilance committee in the face of public uses of history) has just created at Agone editions. Founded in spring 2005, the Cvuh brings together historians, researchers and superior and secondary teachers, concerned about what they consider as a “ political instrumentation of history ». Born at the time of the adoption of the law of February 2005 demanding teachers whom they insist on the “ positive role From the French presence in the Maghreb, this committee intends to alert citizens to the diversions of historical research at the same time as he proposes to reflect on the place and the function of history in our society. Historian, Gérard Noiriel is director of studies at theEhess and president of Cvuh. He is one of the eight historians (out of twelve members) of the Scientific Council of the National City of the History of Immigration (Cnhi) who have resigned from their official functions the same day the formation of the “ Ministry of Immigration and National Identity », May 18, 2007.

This is this question of “ national identity », Discount at the center of political news during the presidential campaign, which Gérard Noiriel analyzes in this brief but dense little book. His reflection is built in two complementary components: a historical component first, showing how identity logic, born in XIX^e century has since constantly fueled nationalist discourses ; A more directly related component of news, aimed at lighting the contemporary political debate.

History, he recalls first, is to be differentiated from memory. Speeches and memorial stories, from Antiquity and until today, are responsible for judging the actors of history. For its part, the community of historians seeks to produce knowledge “ objective “, Responding to an ideal of scientific truth, in order to explain (and not to judge) the past. It is therefore based on many historical research carried out for thirty years that he demonstrates that there is no objective definition of the “ national identity ». From The French crucible (1988) until Immigration, anti -Semitism and racism in France (2007) via National tyranny (1991), Gérard Noiriel himself strongly contributed to erect immigration as a study and to question the idea that France would have a “ identify ».

First fundamental idea: the defense of national identities first had in Europe in Europe XVIII^e century a progressive character. It was first of all the triumph in France of the revolutionary definition of the nation in 1789 ; The term is then synonymous with “ people “Or” Third Party-State ». In the German states, there was a cultural dimension to the same time, that of the liberation of popular cultures, tales and traditions which will allow the development of a collective memory distinct from learned and aristocratic culture. We know the role that the Grimm brothers will play in this sense a few decades later.

In France, the first definitions of national identity date from XIX^e century. Jules Michelet, defender of the ideal of light progress, sees it as “ homeland of the universal ». Ernest Renan’s famous conference in 1882, “ What is a nation ? “Is in fact a partisan intervention against Germany: it was indeed a question of affirming that the Alsace-Lorraine lost during the war of 1870, although of language and” breed Germany was very French in history. It is therefore to this light that we must read its famous definition of the nation as “ The will to live together ». During the Third Republic, the concept of national identity finds a legal definition ; with the double law jus soli coupled with compulsory conscription (1889), the “ French quality And belonging to the State become major political and economic issues, especially since they command access to emerging social protection. It was at this time that the word “ immigration »Besides in the lexicon.

Second fundamental idea: to understand the confrontation that took place on the question of national identity between Nicolas Sarkozy and Ségolène Royal during the recent presidential elections, we must go back to the debate between Maurice Barrès and Jean Jaurès. Barrès, thus shows Noiriel, focusing this notion on the theme of the “ earth and dead And on the distrust of abroad, has developed a conservative version that the republican right will defend until the Second World War. To this “ nationalism “De Barrès (term free of value judgment and which he claimed himself) opposed the” patriotism “By Jaurès: the theme of the defense of national identity is brought back there” on the privileged field of the left, namely the social ground (P. 41). As Noiriel itself underlines, Jaurès’ belonging to the SfioInternational organization which fights for the surpassing of nation states, is not very conducive to a real commitment on the ground of defense of the national interest even if it tries to reconcile it with the universalist ideals of the workers’ movement. We would therefore have liked more details, even a more solid argument to support this supposedly principal opposition between one (bad ?) Right nationalism (Barrès-Sarkozy ?) And one (good ?) Left patriotism (Jaurès-Royal ?). The question is indeed important enough to call a more in -depth reflection than this simple referral to a cleavage (in essence ? transhistoric ?) Between the left values ​​and those on the right.

Gérard Noiriel is in any case very convincing when he analyzes the reactivation, from the 1980s, of the themes of immigration and national identity in French political discourse, after their public use was discredited in the immediate post-war period. He thus shows how these questions have in fact never disappeared, but reappear modified and transvestite ; How they move and are reborn in various demands from the 1960s in France, but also in Europe and the United States, for example in the “ rehabilitation of dominated collective identities “(So in France the liberation movements of Corsica, Occitania, Brittany, etc.), the struggles of women, homosexuals, blacks, etc. ; How then they were taken up in the late 1970s, when Valéry Giscard d’Estaing launched his policy of massive repatriation of immigrants and singularly Algerian workers ; How finally they relive in racist and xenophobic discourses of the National Front to the current politico-media themes, the fight against “ communitarianism “, The defense of republican secularism (let’s hear” French ») Against invaders (Arabs ? Muslims ? Islamists ?), The war raised against “ The-games-des-Cités “, These new barbarians, these foreigners (“ they lack soul », Dort to the weekly article Marianne During the suburbs of the suburbs in 2005, when others were trying to evoke the social, political and economic violence they were victims). Here we must cite this beautiful passage from the book:

The Franco-German antagonism which had structured the news story between 1870 and 1945 was thus replaced by a new discourse where the “ We “French appears constantly opposed to” them Islamist. The word “ communitarianism Quickly established itself to appoint the new threat, operating as a reading grid that journalists pressed by news can easily fill every day. Muslims have thus appeared like new barbarians, who spend their days killing themselves, foment to terrorist attacks, burn cars, direct drug trafficking, impose the Islamic scarf on their sister and violate the other girls of the cities. (p. 61)

As Noiriel says, there is no definition of the national identity that is accepted by all researchers. The reason is simple: it is not a scientific concept, it is an expression that belongs to political language. He adds even more bluntly: the question of national identity as it appeared for the first time on January 14, 2007 in the speech of Nicolas Sarkozy “ is a “false problem”, a simple electoral scheming intended to flatter the prejudices of the most xenophobic fraction of the population (P. 126).

We must pay tribute to this little book which revives our sense of history at a time when we are told so much about “ duty of memory ». In short, therefore, to finish: in 1881, a brawl involved in Marseille from the Italians, a community strongly established in the Southeast and presented at the time as “ A nation in the nation », A threat to national integrity which had to be eradicated by forcing its members to become French. This is indeed the origin of our famous “ soil law “, Reactivated by the law of 1889: no more generous than the” blood law », That we readily present as a racist, he was first and foremost a constraint to national integration. It was before the test law DNA.

– Read also: “ Talk about other languages ​​than that of science », Interview with Gérard Noiriel (8-01-2008)