Where is Race in Race-Blind France? Racial Categorization in Cultural Programs for Immigrants in France

The pattern of policy-making towards immigrants in France has been conditioned by a racialized view of non-European immigrants vs. European immigrants. This paper discusses the utility to refer to ethnic or racial categories in the French context and gives concrete examples to locate the construction of racial categories in the French policy making. I argue that racial categories from the colonial period have been re-articulated to meet contrasting economic demand, should it be during the flourishing 60s when labor force was on demand or the less prosperous 70s when the country experienced a raising unemployment rate. In the 60s, France resorted to immigration in response to a labor shortage in the French economy. Workers came from Portugal and Algeria in equal number. Many Portuguese were fleeing the Salazar regime, while Algerian migrants were following a well established route of exchange. Archives from the administration in charge of social programs towards immigrants in France show evidences of an official's preference for the European over the non-European immigrants. Considering how much the pattern draws on conception inherited from the colonial period, the hierarchy underlying official's selection can be referred to as a racial hierarchy. In the 70s, the center right government of Valery Giscard d'Estaing resorted to cultural programs to organize the valorization of immigrant indigenous culture. The project was imbedded in a policy designed to prompt immigrants to come back to their native country. The framework of the policy maintained a selective approach and targeted those who were supposed to be “less likely to assimilate to the French culture”, namely the immigrants coming from North Africa. Racial categories created in the previous period were rearticulated in the context of the new economical situation, thus maintaining racial conceptions towards immigrants and children of immigrants regardless of their citizenship status.