Paul from Paris

“Do they exist, or are they spooks?”

This question sparks the drama of Philip Roth’s The Human Stain. In Roth’s novel, professor Coleman Silk jokingly compares chronically absent students to ghosts, but his remarks are heard as a slur against people of color, as the absentee students happen to be black.

In English, a “ghost” can also refer to a ghost writer, as in Robert Harris’s political thriller, The Ghost. In French, a ghost writer is called a “nègre“, a word no more pejorative than the English “ghost”. But, in French, “nègre” has all of the ambiguities of “spook” when used to refer to a person.

These ambiguities have led to a month of outrage and protest in France.

As in Philip Roth’s novel, the story began in an unexpected way. Jean-Paul Guerlain, a dapper Parisian born in 1937, appeared on the mid-day national news in France to plug a book, Parfums d’amour (written with Mzrc Lacaze). The book could be titled, in English, Perfumes of Love, or For the Love of Perfume, as Guerlain was for many years the “nose” of the perfumery that bears his family’s name.

Guerlain sold the family business more than a decade ago to luxury conglomerate LVMH, but his memories stay with him. During his interview the news anchor Elise Lucet, a French television personality who looks and talks perfectly like a mom, Guermain made a particular effort to impress.

As he told his tale, years ago Guerlain was smitten by a woman … who didn’t wear perfume.

Undeterred, the perfumer asked her, “What would seduce you, were someone to make you a perfume?” The lady’s reply: jasmine, rose, and sandalwood.

Guerlain wasted no time and flew into action. Thirty-three attempts later, he concocted the fragrance that he would present to the object of his affections, and later to the market under the brand name Samsara.

Guerlain seems to have been enjoying himself. He probably wanted to impress Lucet, so he embroidered. Instead of stating merely that he’d worked hard in his quest to impress, Guerlain said, on national television (my translation, using one of several possible translations of “nègre“):

“For once, I started to work like a spook; but I don’t know if spooks ever worked so hard. Anyway, …”

Mouths dropped. Lucet said nothing, but voices of protests were soon heard.

Through a spokesman, Guerlain said, “I apologize to those who might have been offended by my shocking remarks. My words in no way reflect my profound thoughts, but fell out in a slip that I regret.”

LVMH pointed out that the Guerlain line no longer belongs to the Guerlain family and that Jean-Paul Guerlain no longer works forthe company. This has not stopped protests and pickets, especially at the flagship store on the Champs-Elysées.

Over the past month, it has become a salon commonplace to denounce casual racism, thought to be all too common among moneyed old families. But as in Roth’s tale, I’m not sure this really is the story. For my part, I instead think Guerlain was simply over-eager to please a solicitous journalist, and erred when embroidering his story. And I’m uncomfortable with the premise that one’s slips are more truthful or more revelatory –in sum, more real– than speech that’s thought-out and clearly expressed.

Finally, am I the only one who suspects the deeper problem –if there is one– was rather with the choice of name given to the perfume, as samara describes a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth central to Hinduism and other Eastern religious traditions?

Banishment and deportation were, for centuries, punishments under French law. They helped people (with French natives) French colonies in the Pacific, South America, and North Africa. A pair of some truly odd people might restore banishment and deportation to the French criminal code.

The story starts with a burka-wearing motorist in Nantes, pulled over for a routine traffic offense. Instead of apologizing to the police or paying a modest fine, the motorist chose to contest the limit on wearing a burka. This drew investigative curiosity from law enforcement.

Investigation led to the man in the motorist’s life, Lies Hebbadj, who has 4 wives and 15 children (two more are expected soon). Hebbadj is charged with “instigating” welfare fraud. According to prosecutors, over three years, Hebbadj and his large household received € 175,000 in welfare payments; had all family members lived under the same roof, the amount would have been € 88,000. (For clarity: some payments are based solely on parenthood, without regard to revenue.) For the prosecutors, Hebbadj’s conduct is particularly culpable because he “knowingly” decided not to acknowledge paternity of four children. (For clarity: “isolated”, single parents are entitled to more assistance than couples.)

For interior minister Brice Hortfeux, Hebbadj’s possible conviction is not enough. Hortefeux, one of the oddest characters in the conservative government and freshly convicted of racial insult (injure raciale, a conviction which Hortefeux reportedly will appeal), wants to mete out special punishment.

Hortfeux’s first line of attack was polygamy. Based on the facts of the case, this seemed simple enough. The law, however, prohibits bigamy: a married person who would contract a second marriage (like a homeowner with mortgage might contract a second mortgage). Polygamous cohabitation apparently is not prohibited under French law today.

Frustrated and mad as a hornet, this led Hortfeux to his second line of attack: banishment. For Hortefeux, “When a foreigner gains [French] citizenship thanks to marrying a French woman, and then, in the following years, lives in de facto polygamy, abusing the welfare system, is it normal that he keep French citizenship? My answer is no.” Hortefeux wants to strip Hebbadj of French citizenship, then deport him.

Since when has banishment been a punishment in France? Believe it or not, for hundreds of years. Banishment and deportation (and related concepts, like “civil death”) had a long history in French law, starting in the Renaissance and ending ultimately only with de Gaulle. They were especially serious forms of punishent, on par with execution. They were used, from the revolution of 1789 through the Paris commune in the 1870s, especially for political offenses. A special punishment was enacted for Dreyfus in 1895; one would hop this would give pause to Hortefeux.

A post-script. A big part of the Hebbadj controversy has not been reported or discussed. In addition to welfare fraud, Hebbadj is also charged with serious criminal offenses stemming from employment, from 2007 through 2010, of foreign students or undocumented workers. Apart from working conditions with prosecutors described as particularly deplorable, Hebbadj apparently paid his employees much less than the minimum wage. If the facts are as alleged, the case illustrates the plight of transient or undocumented workers who don’t report abuse, whether from ignorance or fear of attracting unwanted attention from authorities. I think it’s sad that the case has not received more attention.

Another post-script. I can’t help but wonder whether politics fuels Hortefeux’s peculiar interest in Hebbadj’s fate. Does Hortefeux harbor revenge fantasies against François Mitterrand, the twice-elected French president who for decades lived with two women, one his wife, the other his concubine?

French commentator Eric Zemmour is often heard on the radio, seen on talk shows, and read in print. On 6 March, on the weekend talk show “Salut les terriens!” (“Hi Earthlings!”), Zemmour said (my translation), “French people from immigrant backgrounds are stopped [by law enforcement] more often than others because most traffickers are black and Arab; that’s a fact.”

Controversy promptly erupted.

French broadcaster Canal Plus, which airs “Salut les terriens!”, reportedly received a warning from the CSA, the French television regulator.

One of Zemmour’s employers, French daily Le Figaro, openly discussed plans to fire him from a position on its editorial board; it ultimately backtracked when pro-Zemmour groups sprang up and staged protests outside the paper’s offices.

LICRA (French acronym for the International League Against Racism and Antisemitism) challenged Zemmour. The commentator replied, in an open letter, that he “never wanted to stigmatize ‘blacks or Arabs’” and apologized to those whom he had offended. LICRA replied with a letter of its own, calling for more debate with Zemmour.

SOS Racisme, another French group, brought a criminal complaint against Zemmour.

Parisian advocate general (a magistrate) Pierre Bilger wrote in his blog a piece in support of freedom of suppression. Some read Bilger’s post as a support of Zemmour, which led to Bilger being called in by his superiors to “remind” him of his duties of impartiality and non-partisanship.

I’m torn between two observations that are difficult to reconcile:

On the one hand, Zemmour has succeeded brilliantly in the art of self-promotion. Before Zemmour became enmeshed in controversy, I didn’t know who he was. If I had seen him on television (or heard him on the radio or read him in print) he had made no impression on me. Perhaps this is a failure on my part to keep abreast of French commentators, as Zemmour seems to be present in all media, all the time. Today, everyone knows who Eric Zemmour is, and his case is on everyone’s mind. On 3 March, Zemmour’s publisher released Mélancholie française (“French Melancholy”). From reviews and interviews, the book seems to be an idiosyncratic history of France as successor to Rome. Is it coincidental that controversy erupted just days later?

On the other hand, in France today, racism is a mortal sin; simply to be accused of racism is grave. (Even on a weekend show called “Hi Earthlings!”, whose host courts controversy himself, the suspicion or suggestion of racism is damning.) Partly this reflects French aspirations to universality. But it also points a a tension between colorblind aspirations and colored vision: to think of someone as a French person “from an immigrant background”, you rely on skin color or family name. Of course, although French people uniformly decry racism (and its concrete manifestations, such as discrimination in housing or employment, both of which are real in France today), many believe in and talk about ethnic or cultural differences common to “Africans” or “Arabs” or the “Chinese”. This is what I think will exculpate Zemmour from charges in the court of public opinion: for many, the commentator said aloud what many think to themselves.

Soon after a spat on “aggressive” reporting by a television journalist, French interior minister Brice Hortefeux made news again.

In a video made public by Le Monde, Hortefeux is shown at a late-summer meeting for young conservatives. He’s accompanied by Jean-François Copé, conservative party leader at the national assembly, and surrounded by party activists.

One of the activists, Amine, is of North African descent. It’s a jovial occasion, and everyone’s taking souvenir snapshots of conservative leaders. Amine approaches Copé and Hortefeux for a snapshot.

“Now that’s integration!” exclaims one activist. Someone (Copé?) chimes in, “He speaks Arabic!” Another activist adds, “He eats pork and drinks beer!”

Then Hortefeux adds: “He doesn’t match the prototype at all.” He concludes, “When there’s one, it’s fine. It’s when there are a lot that there are problems.”

There’s an embarrassing precedent. Last January, Hortefeux joked about Fadela Amara, junior minister for urban policy, whom he called “a compatriot”. Then he added, “As it’s not really obvious, I’m pointing it out.” No offense was taken: Hortefeux said he was kidding about his and Amara’s regional origins –both are from Auvergne– not Amara’s North African parentage.

Just days ago, Hortefeux retired a prefect, Paul Girot de Langlade (who coincidentally also is from Auvergne). While at the Orly airport outside Paris, Girot de Langlade became impatient with security checks and reportedly said, “you’d think we were in Africa,” and “there are only blacks here.”

There are three lessons to be learned from the Hortefeux affair:

1. For the left, racism is a mortal sin. It cannot be excused; it can be pardoned only after contrition. Insofar as the left draws on universal principles, this makes sense, because drawing ethnic lines runs counter to universalism. It also helps explain why the remedy sought is resignation rather than apology. Those on the left may be quick to find racism here because of Hortefeux’s precedents, the Girot de Langlade affair, and the fact that Hortefeux and president Sarkozy are fast friends.
2. For the right, and maybe for a majority of French people, Hortefeux did nothing wrong. (This also seems to be Amine’s position.) The right believes that national or regional origins carry or are prone to result in certain character traits; talking about an “Italian family” or “German precision” is shorthand not intended to stigmatize. This helps to explain why French prime minister Fillon appeared on national television and said that Hortefeux was the victim of a campaign of denigration. (Interesting etymology, better reserved for another post.) It makes understandable Hortefeux’s unwillingness to say something like: I didn’t mean to give offense, and I apologize to any whom my remarks may have offended. It also helps to explain how references to regional –as opposed to ethnic– origins would explain and excuse talk that otherwise could be thought racist. And it draws a line of sorts between Hortefeux’s comments and Girot de Langlade’s disparagement.
3. Hortefeux is behind the times, but not for the reasons some have in mind. In recent years, the quality of consumer electronics has improved: devices that capture images, video, and sound are accessible. And the Internet makes it easy to divulge and disseminate recordings. But Hortefeux has not been caught in a “Gotcha!” moment. He appeared at a communications event organized by his party, and he’s a professional politician. He consented to a photo-op. But he thought that he and his party control his image and how it’s used. On this point, the world is changing, becoming “flatter”, more democratic, more popular.