Open mouth, insert foot

In France, debate always goes on, and elections are always around the corner.

Regional elections are coming up in 2010, and president Sarkozy has incited debate on French “national identity”. This torch burns hot and has been passed repeatedly among conservative hands.

Former minister for immigration and national identity, Brice Hortefeux, got into trouble when he made off-color remarks about a young man, apparently of Arab descent, at a conservative party youth event. Hortefeux today heads up the interior ministry.

The current minister for immigration and national identity, Eric Besson, courts controversy with zeal. For many years a labor party leader, Besson was humiliated and pushed aside by Ségolène Royal during her presidential campaign. Besson switched sides and joined Sarkozy’s government. For the left, he’s a turncoat, and he’s denounced or decried whenever he speaks. A weekly news magazine branded him “the most hated man in France”.

The junior minister for family affairs, Nadine Morano, caused a stir when she spoke this week in Charmes, a town in the Vosges best known as the birthplace of nationalist, anti-Dreyfusard, “chief of the brainwashers”, Maurice Barrès. When asked what she “wanted” from a “young Muslim”, Morano replied: “for him to love France when he lives in this country”. Hardly controversial words. Then Morano added that she wanted this hypothetical young person also to “find work”, “not speak in slang”, and “not wear his baseball cap backwards”. As with Hortefeux, the words aren’t facially anti-Muslim, but are heavily weighted down with nasty stereotypes. And as with Hortefeux, Morano claims to have been misquoted or misunderstood.

Sarkozy’s bet seems to have been to pick up some votes from potential National Front protest voters, and to consolidate the conservative party as the majority party. I read his preoccupation with “national identity” much like efforts in the USA to ban flag-burning. But the debate continues to make the Sarkozy team look like bumblers: time after time, seemingly reasonable, smart people make comments that are beyond the limits of polite discourse in France today.

Calls have been ringing out, including from the conservative camp, to stop the “national identity” debate.