Eric Fassin

Same Sex, Different Politics: "Gay Marriage" Debates in France and the United States

In France, “America” is always (to borrow a phrase from Claude Lévi-Strauss) “good to think.”1 It is not, of course, that actual, in-depth knowledge of the United States is required in French intellectual life. On the contrary, sociology or anthropology might unduly complicate matters for intellectuals and unfairly undermine their legitimacy. Thus it probably is no accident that there should be so few academic specialists of contemporary American society in France (probably fewer than scholars competent on, say, Côte d’Ivoire).2 In the absence of specialized knowledge about the United States, generalist intellectuals feel entitled to elaborate arguments about America. The rhetorical figure stands for the empirical image. Indeed, one could argue that this has become the defining feature of the public intellectual in France: an intellectual is someone whose legitimacy

TRADITIONAL MEDICINE AND THE STAKES OF LEGITIMATION IN SENEGAL

Traditional medicine has been recently confronted by a new phenomenon in Senegal: the quest for new sources of legitimation. The cases presented here--an association of traditional practitioners, an encyclopedia of traditional knowledge and a controversy on a traditional leprosy center--illustrate the three following points: healers who are the most inclined to search for official recognition are also those who have the weakest traditional legitimacy; actors who claim for official recognition of healers reinforce at the same time their own legitimacy; and these new principles of legitimacy necessitate authorities for legitimation situated outside the scientific world. This Weberian analysis seems more accurate than usual descriptions of traditional medicines to explain the work of redefinition of social boundaries in the medical field. Far from being limited to Senegal, these stakes of legitimation can also be observed in other African countries and even in industrial ones with the question of parallel medicines.

Becoming Gay? Immigration Policies and the Truth of Sexual Identity

Our article is about the new relevance of the category of “the homosexual” in immigration policies. This novelty is paradoxical: while homosexuality had previously been defined exclusively in negative terms, from the point of view of the State, it has now assumed a positive value in the West—since it can be invoked to justify asylum seeking. The argument has two prongs. On the one hand, taking homosexuality into account for immigration control implies a definition of gay identity. On the other, the objects of these policies are also subjects: their own identity is caught up in this transnational process of identification. Fieldwork for this article was conducted in France on bi-national same-sex couples. However, the new categorization of homosexuality extends far beyond—in Europe and throughout the world. We argue that the politics of identity are not just, and not primarily about identity politics; they have to do both with politics in general and policies in particular.

Sexual Democracy and the New Racialization of Europe

Since 1989, Europe has shifted radically—from ‘open society’ to ‘Fortress Europe’. Does the current racialization of immigration signal a return to the 1930s? Contrary to the old antidemocratic nationalisms, the new sexual nationalisms today claim to defend democratic values against various ‘others’. However, this instrumentalization should not lead to a rejection of sexual democracy, but rather to a clear distinction between ideals and identities.

Entre Família e Nação: a filiação naturalizada

Na Franca, o debate sobre as unioes de casais do mesmo sexo foi mais centrado na filiacao – ao mesmo tempo naturalizada e sacralizada – do que no casamento, como foi o caso dos Estados Unidos. A filiacao nao e mais definida pelo casamento, mas em termos biologicos. Nos podemos certamente compreender este fato como uma reacao contraria as novas reivindicacoes relativas ao “casamento gay”, mas tambem como parte dos debates sobre a nacionalidade francesa, no contexto das politicas anti-imigracao. De fato, a filiacao pertence tanto ao direito de familia como ao direito de nacionalidade, interseccao crucial nos casamentos binacionais. Alem disso, a diferenca legal entre as familias francesas e estrangeiras e cada vez mais definida em termos biologicos a partir de um “DNA frances”, contribuindo assim para uma racializacao da nacao.

The politics of PACS in a transatlantic mirror: Same‐sex unions and sexual difference in France today

1989 was not only the year the Berlin Wall finally collapsed. In France, 1989 was primarily the year of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution—that is, at long last, the Revolution was over (at least, according to Francois Furet1). This meant that, henceforth, instead of opposing 1776 to 1789, a (good) liberal Revolution to a (bad) radical Revolution, French “neo-liberals” could invoke de Tocqueville to denounce the perils of democracy in America—thus turning around the transatlantic mirror: in contrast to a French tradition of civility fortunately inherited from a happy combination of the Old and New Regimes merging in the “Republique,” “democratic passions” (meaning the immoderate love of equality) jeopardized the American nation. This became intellectual common sense in Parisian circles in the following years, in response to American (so-called) political correctness, and shortly thereafter, to (so-called) sexual correctness. In France, 1989 was also the year of the affaire du foulard: should young Muslim women be allowed to wear a veil in public schools? The political choice was generally presented as an alternative between the principle of laicite (secularism) and a (somewhat unprincipled) cultivation of cultural difference. Language notwithstanding, this debate was not so much about religion: in fact, it reflected a growing concern about the “integration” of immigrants, or rather, second-generation immigrants, in French society. The defense of a national model against the perils of ethnic fragmentation was elaborated by public intellectuals such as Elisabeth Badinter, Regis Debray, and Alain Finkielkraut—in the name of the “Republique.” Resisting ghettoisation, they identified the French nation with what they defined as a universalist model of individual integration. In the process, they too drew on a transatlantic contrast: American differentialism (that is, the communautarisme of identity politics) was the mirror image of French universalism (that is, the individualisme of Republican politics).

Las “selvas tropicales” del matrimonio heterosexual. Ley natural y leyes de la naturaleza en la teología actual del Vaticano

Lejos de trascender la historia, la verdad de las ciencias sociales se despliega en ella. Sin embargo, dicha historicidad no las condena al relativismo. En cambio, lleva a distinguir la antropologia social de la antropologia religiosa, la cual propone una verdad trascendente. Debido a que el Vaticano se inquieta por los cuestionamientos al orden sexual, para proteger la naturaleza del matrimonio de las parejas del mismo sexo, el Papa propone actualmente una “ecologia humana” opuesta a lo que puede llamarse “democracia sexual”. Eso es, correr el riesgo de confundir a Dios y a la Naturaleza, o lo que es lo mismo, al universalismo de la ley natural y a la universalidad de las leyes de la naturaleza.

Illegitimate affairs: The sex of politics and the politics of sex in French contemporary politics

Is it necessary to draw on details from a person’s ‘private life’ to describe his (or her) ‘public life’? During fieldwork conducted on the politics of a medium-sized French city, the authors garnered a good amount of information – real or alleged – about the sexuality of local elected officials (most often women). Rather than keeping sexuality out of the scope of their research, as is common in social sciences, the authors examine how it is used locally to interpret political life. They look at two elected municipal officials with atypical career paths whose rapid rise to power defied the common rules of political selection, and who were rumoured to engage in romantic relationships with men who benefitted from a greater political capital. The study addresses two dimensions: social explanation by sexuality, which requires analysing the social functions of rumours; and the sociological explanation of sexuality, which implies examining the political role of sexuality. For both of these dimensions, the authors draw from analyses of the political context: the use of these sexual explanations does not make sense per se, but can only be understood within the context local politics in France during the 2000s, shaped by the application of the parity law. Finally, the demonstration leads the authors to plead in favour of normalizing the analysis of intimate relationships.

The Politics of PaCS in a Transatlantic Mirror

1989 was not only the year the Berlin Wall finally collapsed. In France, 1989 was primarily the year of the Bicentennial of the French Revolution—that is, at long last, the Revolution was over (at least, according to Francois Furet1). This meant that, henceforth, instead of opposing 1776 to 1789, a (good) liberal Revolution to a (bad) radical Revolution, French “neo-liberals” could invoke de Tocqueville to denounce the perils of democracy in America—thus turning around the transatlantic mirror: in contrast to a French tradition of civility fortunately inherited from a happy combination of the Old and New Regimes merging in the “Republique,” “democratic passions” (meaning the immoderate love of equality) jeopardized the American nation. This became intellectual common sense in Parisian circles in the following years, in response to American (so-called) political correctness, and shortly thereafter, to (so-called) sexual correctness.