In my experience of the French people that I have met, I have come across a lot of racism, from the majority of them.

[sillyme563]

There I said it. I have been married to my French husband now for ten years. I am Muslim and asian.

In the last ten years, I have never heard so much racism as I have in my entire life. Blatant, horrible, disgusting racism - most of it against either black people or Arabs/ Muslims.

'I would never go to South Africa. The safari experience would be good but I don't like black people'
'Gracie's Corner will spoil my child'
'Hijab wearing women are backwards'

ad infinitum.

I just spent the weekend with a couple of our friends from Paris. We walk past two girls in a hijab - cue obligatory conversation about how hijab wearing is wrong. I have to put up with these kinds of comments constantly, from his family and friends, and it's just sad because I have nieces who wear the hijab, and I can't invite them to things where the French are going to be there. I am getting so sick and tired of it, and I just don't have the inclination to be some sort of racial-social justice warrior to argue with all these nasty comments.

Oh yes I completely agree that some people feel a lot more confident in demonstrating racist behaviours since brexit.

But the fact remains that we have had 2 elections since then, with BNP/EDF/UKIP never winning a single seat, whereas national rally (sorry I forgot they'd renamed in my last post) have 89 seats and are the second biggest party/main opposition in the French parliament.

I know it's not an exact correlation because FN/NRa were a more established party etc. And I don't know enough to say what other policies they ran that would have also encouraged people to vote for them. But the point remains that a lot of French people did actively choose to do so.

It’s a very well known piece of French history that de Gaulle, as leader of the Free French, unified and rebranded a divided France after the war as a country that had been all on the side of resistance, with the resistance representing the whole people of France. He even sent non French SOE agents out of the country, to maintain the narrative that the resistance had been an entirely French affair. He needed to reunite a country divided in a kind of suppressed civil war.

You have misunderstood my comments on collaboration - the point is that directly after the war collaboration was brushed under the carpet as intentional policy. I didn’t say it is not acknowledged now - simply that the French (particularly of the war generation) do not like to talk about it. Of course they can’t avoid teaching Vichy as part of their history. Similarly the British don’t like talking about the atrocities of Empire, but that doesn’t mean colonial history isn’t taught in schools.

You’re confusing moral judgements on individual collaborators - which I didn’t actually make - and a moral and political assessment of the Vichy regime itself - which ended up a de facto branch of Nazism in France.

We can absolutely condemn Nazism and we can also condemn its partner regimes such as Mussolini in Italy and Vichy/Pétain. De Gaulle and the FF strongly opposed Vichy for being authoritarian and racist and de G was sentenced to death by it in 1940.

There are plenty of other occupied counties who never formed far right governments indulging in institutional collaboration with Nazism.

I don't think France denies it's collabo past and indeed you can sense it in the times of year when we mark remembrance of those days, programmes, etc. In England you sense an almost buoyant triumphant atmosphere of (deserved) pride in WW2 activities. In France I feel there is a much more sombre, "downbeat" atmosphere of remembrance

What France does deny though is the atrocities of Algeria and there is much, much less discussion of colonialism compared to the UK. The attitude seems to be "get over it". In fact I don't think the DOM TOMs would exist with their current structure if they were British

the point is that directly after the war collaboration was brushed under the carpet as intentional policy.

not only it was not, but collaboration was the justification for many policies and actions. It was literally used as a tool.

You can't rewrite history to justify your narrative 😂
You seem to be very anti-French, why is that?

What France does deny though is the atrocities of Algeria

as the impact is still very directly felt today and explains a lot of what's happening in France, that's is completely untrue.

If it was true, again, it wouldn't be taught in schools. Have you even read what secondary school pupils are learning about Algeria?

I really think people should look at what kids learn at school, it tells you a lot more than the gossips and opinions disguised as fact you see on the internet.

Question-

Could the difference between the attitudes of French and British people be because of the way that immigration has come about?

Most of the black people I have met from France have been Congolese or from Senegal. Also a lot of French Moroccans and Algerians. I know there are lots of other cultures too but it seems like people in France mostly come from French speaking colonies whereas in the UK people come from everywhere so are more integrated?

Are you seriously trying to dispute that de Gaulle united and rebuilt France on “résistancialisme” - the narrative that the patriotic France opposed both Vichy and Nazi occupiers? It’s a matter of public record. Using collaboration as a political tool is another matter entirely. Vichy was billed as a diversion in French history. This dominant narrative began to be questioned after the student riots of 1968 and by the 80s this snowballed.

I’m part French FYI. Your grasp of French history is superficial.

Yes! Most other non white people I know have also said the same. I find a lot of mainland Europe racist tbh compared to the UK.

The point of all this really that an understanding of the far right stream - nationalist, authoritarian, racist/anti-immigration, in French political and cultural history is the context in which racism in contemporary France needs to be read. Pétain’s strain went underground after the war and then re-emerged in the FN/RN in the early 70s.

I’m part French FYI. Your grasp of French history is superficial.

being part French obviously doesn't give you any knowledge of history, or worst, doesn't stop you from twisting everything😂

I think people should learn to differentiate between school history curriculum and deeply held socio-cultural attitudes.

N’importe quoi.

So what if we learn about Algeria (fleetingly) at school? Compare discussion and apology for Algeria in the newspapers, on television, with the articles and articles and articles and (honestly, perhaps top many) articles in the UK media on slavery and colonialism and particularly India which would be "the UKs Algeria" I guess

And if we want to be provocative, also compare minority aggression and terrorist issues in France and the UK and reflect on whether there is correlation....

@Loulou599 I don't know if I would say India is uk's Algeria. nowhere near as bad...

What is minority aggression?

And you think there is too much apology for slavery in the UK?

I watched that famous French film about Algeria not long ago. I think it was set in the 1950’s in black and white with locals as actors. At one point it showed the guillotine still being used in a prison. I’m not sure whether that’s historically accurate but I found that quite shocking if true.

don't be such an hypocrite

You cannot state that a country is denying and hiding part of their history,

then try to go onto a tangent when faced by proof that this history is very well represented and taught.

Even Algerians are not contesting the way the Algeria war, which wasn't a war at the time, is being shown and reported.

Amusing how a random MN poster is trying, and failing, to portray an entire country as deeply and institutionally racist and getting all muddled in their narrative. It's an attitude I meet a lot more in the UK than I meet in France.

it's true that the Guillotine was still used during the Algeria war.
Google tells me it was last used in 1977.

As it was a prisoner of Tunisian origin, no point for guessing that this will be jumped on as another proof of the French racism.

I agree that the India/UK doesn’t compare with Algeria/France - I don’t think this https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961 is well known in the UK, but even in France it was hidden for about 30 years.

@NoraLuka oh God.... that is truly horrific. humans have such capacity for violence

It is not my experience in France, though given the level of support for the party previously led by Madame Le Pen, what the OP has written does not surprise me.

That is sickening to the core.

sickening

just as sickening as the estimated 30,000 to 150,000 Algerian slaughtered for fighting for France during the war, or slaughtered after the war.

Just as sickening as the way France treated the survivors ones who narrowly avoided the massacres.

No side is coming out well from that war.