The debate on French national identity and the case of Anne Sinclair

France is in the throes of a debate on national identity.

At least some sectors of society and in particular politicians from the right are, with the agenda being led by the minister of immigration, Eric Besson, who opened the whole discussion at the beginning of November last year to find out how best "to reaffirm the values of identity and the pride of being French."

Others - and not just those from the left of the political spectrum - are refusing to get involved, going no further than questioning the need to debate the issue in the first place.

Whatever the case, here's a tale that reveals how difficult it can be at times for even those in supposedly high places to prove their "Frenchness" in the face of a bureaucracy that is - to say the least - unhelpful.

It comes from Anne Sinclair - a woman who could....just could....be a future first lady of this country.

She's a pretty well-known figure in France having created and presented the weekly news and political programme 7/7 in the 1980s.

A woman with a proven track record in television, radio and print journalism, Sinclair was, as she says on her blog, even asked by some to embody the national symbol of Marianne.

You can't get much more "French" than that.

Oh yes, and she's also married to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the current head of the International Monetary Fund and potential Socialist party frontrunner for the 2012 French presidential elections.

So what exactly has the 61-year-old fuming and adding her two cents worth to the debate on national identity?

Well it all has to do with the renewal of her national identity card (couldn't get more pertinent to the debate really than that) a laminated plastic card valid for 10 years and used in France to confirm a person's identity when paying by cheque for example or opening a bank account.

It can also be used as a passport when travelling within the European Union and certain other countries.

So it is really a sign of being French if you will, as to hold one you have to have proven your eligibility in the first place.

And this is where it can get difficult - or at least it did for Sinclair.

On her blog Sinclair recounts how her existing card was actually valid until 2017 (remember that) but she wanted it amended so that it would show her Parisian change of address.

So she made her way to the local Préfecture de Police armed with (what she thought were) the necessary papers and, while she waited a couple of hours, could hear the often less-than-friendly grilling others were being given in having to prove their eligibility.

When it came to her turn, as she had been born abroad (in New York) she was asked not only if both her parents were French but also whether her grandparents were as well.

Even though Sinclair pointed out that on her birth certificate it clearly stated that both her mother and father were born in Paris (the capital of France that is) and she already held a valid identity card, the clerk dealing with her request proved "intractable in demanding that since 2009, I needed an additional document, a birth certificate of my father or my mother, which would prove my Frenchness."

Sinclair left and returned last week with the required documents, including this time a copy of her mother's birth certificate.

The welcome she had this time around was much warmer - more to do with the person behind the counter than the administrative regulations it would appear.

But it didn't change the response she received when questioning the need to "prove" that at least one set of her grandparents had been French.

It's a story the clerk had apparently heard dozens of times before from people Sinclair said had been "Less well off than me, with less time, a life more eventful or in cases where it was harder to obtain birth certificates of their parents! But that's the new law - the requirement for a 'double proof'", she was told.

"But why not a third, or a fourth," asked Sinclair. "How many generations back should I have to go to provide proof of citizenship which has never before been questioned."

Rhetorical questions to which the poor clerk was unable to respond other than by saying that it was the law.

All of which leads Sinclair to conclude in her blog that even if it could be perceived as administration simply doing its work given the change in the law, "It's not an issue of bureaucratic red tape but a mindset that is harmful to the identity of France."

French unease over national identity debate

Opposition as to whether there's a need for a debate on what constitutes national identity here in France is continuing to increase, according to the latest opinion poll released in the national daily, Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France.

Half of those questioned weren't satisfied with the way in which the debate was being carried out.

And just as significant perhaps was the response to whether the debate should be stopped.

Again 50 percent said "yes": split between those who wanted it halted completely (29 per cent) and those who wanted it suspended (21 per cent).

For Jean-Daniel Lévy, the director of the CSA Institute that carried out the poll, the findings show that the French are sending out a clear message to their president, Nicolas Sarkozy, as even among supporters of the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement) there is some apprehension.

"The survey indicates that a number of UMP supporters prefer not to express their opinion," he says.

"In not wanting openly to find fault with a debate which is being conducted at the wish of the president, his supporters are also avoiding criticising Sarkozy himself," he added.

These latest figures are significantly different from a similar poll carried out just before the debate was launched by the immigration minister, Eric Besson, at the beginning of November, when 60 per cent of French voters said they were in favour of the idea.

The question over whether there's need for a debate has stirred passions from the outset, with political opponents accusing Sarkozy of pandering to the right wing ahead of next year's regional elections.

Indeed even though the French might have given general support to the idea at the beginning, 64 per cent of them also perceived it as electioneering.

Along with the latest opinion poll there has been more opposition from other quarters this weekend.

The French non-governmental organisation, SOS Racisme, launched a petition calling for the debate to be ended saying that the fear of it being "at best stigmatising for the country and at worst racist" had in fact become a reality.

That was a view echoed by Pierre Moscovici, a prominent Socialist party member, during an interview on national radio on Sunday.

He insisted that France had no problem with its national identity and that Besson was simply the messenger carrying out "Sarkozy's dirty work."

The debate, he said had quickly created a link that somehow put into question national identity and being Moslem, and "was damaging to the republic and degrading to France."

In spite of the latest poll and mounting criticism, Besson appears to have lost none of his enthusiasm or determination to keep the debate going, and as he made clear in an in interview the same newspaper which published the survey, Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui en France, he even intends to extend its duration.

"The debate has been the object of a pounding for a month now and it's normal that some people should be sceptical," he said.

"Media attention has been focussed on some xenopobic remarks, but it (the debate) has partly been a victim of its own success," he continued.

"It's a debate that must unite, allowing us to look forward and provide answers to questions that might sometimes raise doubts among the French," he insisted, adding that, "We will debate this until the end of 2010 well beyond the regional elections (in March)."

A slice of life in France - a hunting tale

November 6, 2009

Ah yes, it's hard not to mention it but living in France, and especially outside any of the metropolitan areas, means facing the passion many in rural areas still seem to have for la chasse.

France is after all a country in which values of the countryside and family are still promoted and hunting, it would appear, remains an integral part of rural life.

It's perhaps ironic that given the grand debate launched this week by the immigration minister, Eric Besson, on "national values and identity" that a story so quintessentially "French" or at least representative of "life in the country" hardly caused a stir in the media.

All right, so it dates back to 2007, but is nonetheless highly topical and although perhaps only "small" in stature, from an outsider's point of view it illustrates a part at least of what "being French" is about.

Last week an appeals court in the southwestern city of Toulouse upheld a ruling made last year against Jérôme Lagarrigue.

In November 2007, Lagarrigue, who was responsible for a pack of hunting dogs, pursued a stag right into the home of Peter and Patricia Rossard (and their children) and killed it in their kitchen.

You can see a photo of the slaughtered animal here - attention it isn't for those with a weak stomach.

The couple took him to court for trespassing on private property and endangering the lives of others, and a year later he was found guilty, fined €1,000, ordered to pay a similar amount in compensation to the couple and had his licence to lead a pack of dogs revoked for two years.

But Lagarrigue, with the support of a local branch of a hunting organisation, l'association de la vénerie nationale et la fédération de chasse du Tarn, appealed the decision, insisting that killing the animal - even on private property - had been an act of hunting.

Now whatever you might think about the rights or wrongs of hunting, the case surely illustrates a part at least of what rural life in France is like.

Maybe what shouldn't be so astonishing for those living here is the fact that although the original court hearing the case handed down a judgement, the hunter saw fit to appeal and had support in his defence.

After all let's not forget France is a country in which there's even a political party Chasse, Pêche, Nature, Traditions, (Hunting, Fishing, Nature, Tradition, CPNT) which since it was founded in 1989 has fielded candidates in two presidential elections and whose very aim is to "defend the traditional values of rural France."

Although CPNT doesn't currently have any representatives in the National Assembly or the European parliament, back in the 1999 elections to the latter it won six seats.

An anecdote related recently to me from a couple looking to buy a property in the very same part of France in which the stag in this story met its end, included words of wisdom they had received while house hunting and once again it goes some way to demonstrating how much hunting remains an important component of rural life.

The vendors of a house in which they were interested told them that if they were serious about giving up city life and starting over in the country they would have to "learn the ways of the locals".

"When you eventually buy a house with some land, don't post 'no hunting on this property' signs all over the place even if you are against it,'" they were advised.

"Try to reach a friendly understanding' with the locals as to how you felt about hunting and they would probably leave you alone."

Probably but not definitely as the Rossards discovered.

French national identity - the grand debate

Politicians and the media in France have been literally falling over themselves in response to an interview given by the immigration minister, Eric Besson, last weekend in which he said he wanted to launch a major discussion over "national values and identity".

To start from the beginning of November it will be, in the words of the minister, a debate to determine how best “to reaffirm the values of identity and the pride of being French.”

Not surprisingly perhaps reactions came thick and fast with the media quickly jumping on the story.

Radio and television stations asked audiences what they thought about the idea and newspaper websites invited comments.

Reactions from politicians ranged from support from members of the governing centre-right Union pour un Mouvement Populaire (Union for a Popular Movement, UMP) party to scepticism or outright condemnation from opposition parties.

Frédéric Lefebvre, the UMP spokesman welcomed the idea saying that it wasn't "the return of a debate on national identity that should be surprising, but the blurring of that identity."

The leader of the centre Mouvement démocrate (Democratic Movement MoDem) party, François Bayrou, though was more guarded, insisting that defining or determining "national identity is not for politicians."

"It's like history," he said. "It's not up to politicians to try to monopolise the subject."

For Vincent Peillon, a European parliamentarian for the Socialist party, the call for opening a debate on national identity was symptomatic of a certain "sickness" in France and would have an negative effect on how the country was viewed by others throughout the world.

"France has never talked about national identity," he said. "And it's dangerous to open the debate like this."

Benoît Hamon, the spokesman for the Socialist party, was harsher in his reaction accusing Besson of pandering to the far-right Front national (FN) ahead of next year's regional elections in making illegal immigration a central issue before the vote in March.

"Eric Besson is applying the ideas of the FN," he said.

"He's cynically carrying out parts of its (FN's) programme," he continued.

"It's all part of government policy of keeping illegal immigrants in a state of extreme hardship to dissuade them from coming. "

And from the FN itself came the call from Marine Le Pen for a "Grenelle on national identity" to be held, similar to the one there had been for the environment as her party had "a lot of things to say on the subject."

Maybe the most measured response though came from a member of the UMP itself, in the shape of the former prime minister and current mayor of Bordeaux, Alain Juppé.

Writing on his blog, Juppé cited the discourse "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?" ("What is a Nation?") given by the French philosopher and historian, Ernest Renan, back in 1882.

"The definitions of the nation are numerous," writes Juppé. "It seems to me that the explanation given by Ernest Renan, remains unsurpassable," he continues before quoting from Renan's speech.

"In defining what the nation is, Renan said 'the essential element of a nation is that all of its individuals must have many things in common and they must also have forgotten many things,''" quotes Juppé.

"Renan also said a nation is 'a sense of solidarity, one that supposes a past but is summarised in the present by a tangible fact: the consent, the clearly expressed desire to continue living together,'" continues Juppé.

"Everything has been said," concludes Juppé.

"What's the point of starting the debate all over again?"