In 18 days of electoral campaign for the early legislative elections, a series of events relayed in the media and on social networks have brought the question of xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism back to the forefront.
“I’m fed up with people like you, Bougnoules and Renois, I vote RN”, “Dirty Arab”, “The historic French people have their asses full of all these idiots”… For the past ten days, racialized French people, whether they are journalists at France 5, bus drivers or even nursing assistants, have been reporting the discrimination and racist insults of which they are victims.
To what extent does the political context favor the liberation of racist speech, or even racist tags, insults and attacks? To analyze the situation, franceinfo interviewed Nonna Mayer, researcher in political science at the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po and emeritus research director at the CNRS. A specialist in electoral sociology and racist and anti-Semitic phenomena in France and Europe, she has been a member of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) since 2015.
Franceinfo: To what extent did the high score of the National Rally (RN) in the European elections, and then the campaign for the early legislative elections, contribute to freeing racist speech in France?
Nonna Mayer: The topic of foreigners and immigrants has been at the heart of public debate and political debate for almost two years, with the vote on the immigration law. This therefore encourages a sidelining and a distancing of foreigners and immigrants. But indeed, the political dynamics of the RN, a party that places national priority at the heart of its program and that makes immigrants and foreigners a threat to France, legitimizes and encourages racist remarks. Hence this surge that we are seeing.
But we cannot attribute everything to the National Rally. The RN’s breakthrough is not new, it is an old dynamic: the party came first in 2014 and 2019 in the European elections. Although it creates an atmosphere and a context conducive to a certain liberation of racist speech, its high score obtained on June 9 is an element that adds to others. We can’t bring everything back to that. Racist potential is everywhere, with contexts that lend themselves more to its expression.
However, the RN gives glasses: basically, it sees everything through the filter of immigration. The people who vote for this party are not necessarily and fundamentally racist, it is not an essence of their being, but they are sensitive to this theme of immigration. They buy the RN’s framing, which is that of the national priority. For them, this issue is the most important.
The National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) notes, in its annual report published Thursday and to which you contributed, a decline in the tolerance index towards minorities in France between November 2022 and November 2023. How to explain it?
The longitudinal tolerance index allows us to show how prejudices against minorities have evolved since 1990 and up to today. It goes up and down over time: the decline is not new. First, there is a structural trend towards an increase in the level of tolerance. It is linked, on the one hand, to generational renewal: each new generation is more open towards minorities than those that preceded it, and more educated. On the other hand, France is an increasingly diverse society. Year after year, the trend is more towards tolerance than intolerance. Between 2022 and 2023, we fell from 65 to 62: there is a decline of three points (the index varies between 0 and 100, 0 = intolerance, 100 = totally tolerant, according to the answers to 75 questions). But at the starting point, in the 1990s, there were 47…
The history of this index is not a long, quiet river. Everything depends on the national and international context and the way in which the powers in place frame events. In 1998, there was a sharp rise in this tolerance index, linked to this breath of fraternization that followed France’s victory in the Football World Cup. In 2005, on the contrary, there was a sudden drop after the riots in the suburbs, presented as linked to Islam and the stereotype of the black family that has too many children… And then, in 2015, a year marked by terrorist attacks, the tolerance index saw a sharp rise, contrary to what was thought. Because the response of the public authorities was not to stigmatize Muslims but to insist on fraternization, on the idea that we are all potential victims of these terrorist attacks and that we must close ranks.
The CNCDH report also reports that 2023 will be marked by a very sharp increase in racist acts (+32% compared to 2022), with an explosion of anti-Semitic acts, based on data collected by the Ministry of the Interior. What are the triggers for these reprehensible acts? Does the political context play a role?
Let us first recall that these acts that have been recorded are of a certain seriousness and generally result in a complaint being filed. Their number also rises and falls over time. We see that in the 1990s, anti-Semitic acts, directed against Jewish people or those perceived as such, have almost disappeared. But since the second intifada in 2000, we have witnessed an explosion of serious acts. This ups and downs phenomenon reflects the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What happens in Israel and Gaza plays a key role and serves as a detonator for anti-Semitic acts. For acts against Muslims and immigrants, it is the same: they increase each time there are terrorist attacks. The international context therefore plays a great deal on acts, more than on opinions.
Murders and news items also play a role. The way in which Nahel’s death (in June 2023), then the riots that followed and the clashes after Thomas’ death in Crépol (in November) were used to designate “the foreigner, the immigrant and their children” as a scapegoat, may have played a role in encouraging racist acts. There is also discrimination at work and racism online, on social networks. We do not analyze them with the same instruments. To have a complete vision, we must look at all levels of analysis.
On June 20, the program “Envoyé spécial” on France 2 broadcast a sequence in which we see a black nursing assistant being the victim of racism from her neighbors, RN activists. Marine Le Pen considered that their remarks were not racist, while an investigation, notably for insults of a “racial nature”, has been opened. Does this type of reaction, from a political leader, incite racist remarks?
Marine Le Pen is trying to preserve her party’s image of respectability. But she is caught in her contradictions: she wants to exonerate this electorate and at the same time preserve her image of normalization and de-demonization. In a way, in the long term, I would say that it is a failure, because it is difficult to deny the racist nature of the statements of these activists. Perhaps some will feel exonerated and legitimate to make such statements, but I think that in a large majority of the electorate, this works against her.
There are racist incidents every day, and they are not all publicized. We must be careful not to generalize from those that are. Social and political life is not limited to that. But it is true that a party like the RN and its ideas, experiencing strong political dynamics, can encourage some to let go.
Many French people fear an outpouring of hatred if the RN comes to power… Without falling into prediction, what can we expect?
We will see the outcome of the legislative elections. The current situation is complex. We must keep in mind that the same phenomenon produces effects in both directions. It can encourage some to release a form of racist speech. But it can also mobilize, more than ever, other people, and encourage them to fight against racist speech. We must not dramatize, nor talk about civil war.