Diverse Yet Divided

Sport has always been a medium for national pride and victory in international competitions such as the Olympics aand the World Cup. The teams and athletes that play in these competitions represent the whole of a nation. With the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, it was the French team that earned such prestige. The team was one of the competition’s most diverse, including a mix of players of European descent, but mostly players of African and North descent.

When the French beat Croatia to win the most coveted trophy in football, the South African comedian Trevor Noah applauded the French victory as an African one on the American satirical news program, “The Daily Show.’ This didn’t sit well with France’s ambassador to the United States, Gérard Araud. Araud responded to Noah with a statement, writing that, “France is indeed a cosmopolitan country, but every citizen is part of the French identity, together they belong to the nation of France. Unlike in the United States of America, France does not refer to its citizens by their race, religion, or origin. To us, there is no hyphenated identity, roots are an individual reality.”

As an ambassador, Araud’s words represent the state. His words can be considered inclusive, working to solidify perceptions of France as a country which embraces its ethnic diversity and avoids discrimination. On the other hand, the state risks perpetuating an ignorant, or even apathetic, outlook toward the reality of the ethnic divide in its own country.

France is a diverse country. There is colonial history, which has ensured that a large number of French nationals have ancestry ranging from North and Sub-Saharan Africa to South-East Asia and even Polynesia. Then there is the fact that France has continued to be a hot-bed for migration. In 2017, 83,674 immigrants were naturalized, 32,011 were granted asylum, 3,420,395 were issued visas and 262,000 were issued a titre de séjour. This excludes those residing in the country illegally, such as those living in make-shift tent villages around Paris or in migrant camps like those that existed in Calais.

As for exactly how diverse the country’s population really is, it is impossible to know. In 1978, the French government made it illegal for any census or survey to reference race, ethnicity, nationality or religion. The idea was that if the state recognizes its people as equal individuals who belong to no group aside from their nation, then equality would be achieved. But things have changed— the ethnic groups this law was focused on aren’t exactly the same as those who now reside here.

With the state still refusing to perform any census measuring France’s ethnic demographics, it doesn’t mean unityhas been achieved. Without any way to analyse the ethnic make-up of regions, cities and neighborhoods, there is no way to provide statistical evidence on ethnic segregation that might exist. The reality is that the French state can’t be relied on to clarify whatever ethnic divides exist in society.

The people of France, the moving parts in the mechanism of society, are the ones who lay bare the truth of their nation and its divides. Not just through their criticism, but through the values they express, the experiences they recount, and above all, the great difference between their view of the country itself.

Mathias Caracas is a 24-year-old Parisian native. He grew up in the affluent 16th arrondissement to a Congolese mother and Czech father. To anybody acquainted with that district, it is clear that Caracas doesn’t fit in. He has tattoos covering every inch of his body, his mouth bristling with silver grillz shaped like a vampire’s fangs. Head to toe, he dresses in the dark anddazzling street style that is taking the fashion industry by storm. To top it all off, he wears a necklace that seems to be made of barbed wire and carries a coffin-shaped satchel sporting an upside down cross.

As he was born in France, he’s technically as French as President Macron himself. But when the question is put to Caracas about France and his place within it, France isn’t what he first brings up. “You want to know the reality? I’ve always felt more African then anything,” he says with a smile. Caracas has lived most of his life in France, but travels often. He lived in Cameroon, where his mother sent him in the hope of distancing him from all the trouble of Parisian life.

Caracas’s time in Africa awoke him to certain realities, things that once passed unnoticed. In France, he says, “There’s this racism that exists beneath everything. It keeps me from ever feeling a part of this thing I was supposed to be born into.” It could be a supermarket manager hawking over him as he shops for groceries or a trio of cops stopping him in his tracks and searching him withoutexplaining why. Every avenue of daily life presents Caracas with that risk.

Heading home for an appointment one night, he saw police officers heading briskly his way. He knew right away that he was going to be stopped; as it had happened countless times before. He recalls, “Officers checked my phone and read my texts to check if it was stolen. Then they pulled my pants by the waistband and checked inside my boxers, ‘making sure’ I wasn’t hiding any drugs.” Then just like that, they let him go. The phone wasn’t stolen, no drugs were hidden in his pants. “For me, it’s like I’m getting raped against that wall. For them, its business as usual. And this is my block, I live here but, fuck, it sure doesn’t feel like it.”

Caracas claims to have all types of friends, from all stretches of life. When he asks his white friends, many of whom grew up in the same area as him, if they have any experiences like his own, they don’t. As for the rest of his friends, those with African or Arab parents, they all have stories. But it’s not just the police, says Caracas. Even the average citizen is guilty of the discrimination he speaks of. He tells of rainy nights when people view him as an impending threat, just because his hood is up.Once, a man saw him approaching and grabbed his girlfriend beside him, shielding her and ready for a fight.

For Caracas, it’s these instances that ensure a divide exists. “It makes it so that when we grow up, we stay within our groups,” he says. “Africans grow up with Africans. Everything about how we live life is influenced by that. We all want unity, we want to be proud of being French, but it just feels like most of the time, France isn’t proud of us.”

Seraphin Noraz, an 80-year-old from French Savoie, is certain of many things. One such certainty is that France has always been proud of him. He served two years in the French military and was a successful manager with an engineering company, one that had him travel the world and afforded him a pension. He married and had children who have now had children of their own. His long life has provided him with values and beliefs he would never let go of. When the question of France was put to Noraz, he answered with pride.

“I may be critical of this country, but I’m fiercely proud of it. There is such rich history and culture here, such beautiful and varied landscapes. I’ve traveled everywhere, but every time I came back here, I knew there was no place I’d rather live.”

Unlike Caracas, Noraz didn’t speak on any abuses he’s suffered. Instead, the same questions led him on a reflection of his life in the country that he loved. But, while he was never victim to the division Caracas spoke of, Noraz isn’t blind to it. He’s seen the country’s population change and, through all that change, he says there’s always been minorities or immigrants labeled as outsiders in French society, living separated and among their own.

“It used to be the Italians, they were the ‘outsiders.’ Now you have these waves of immigrants coming in, from places that are far more different to France than Italy was. While I sympathize with those fleeing from conflict, I’m against most of them coming in. Many have devious reasons and they fail in becoming a part of society.”

Noraz now lives in a suburb, bordering the small town of Chambéry. He sees that failure of integration happening right there. Throughout the 50 years he’s lived there, he’s seen generations of Moroccans and Algerians residing alongside him, but, he feels, never quite with him: “They used to be different. They lived among us French people, almost like French people. Not quite, but almost. Now, these younger generations, they’re much more separated from us. It’s them who cause problems, they’re the ones who don’t integrate.”

It is difficult to compare a 24-year-old from Paris with Africa in his veins to an 80-year-old from the French Alps whose ancestry likely leads to the Celtic tribes of Gaul. In almost every possible way, they are different from one another. But they are both equally citizens of France, and it’s clear they agree on one thing: France is ethnically diverse, but it is divided.

Noraz sees that divide as unchangeable. He says it’s something he learned in his own time living in Africa. He was respected by those he lived with, but was never a part of them. He believes when you have two different cultures, with two different ways of life, they can’t truly ever mix. Caracas sees a different future, as knowledge of the world is at our fingertips with phones and computers. He believes that, with time, culture and generations will mix until these divisions don’t exist anymore. Regardless of who is right, Caracas and Noraz make it clear that ethnic divisions do exist in France. If their views represent those of the French people, then France isn’t as color-blind as it thinks.

WRITTEN AND PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOACHIM FERNANDEZ