IN THE EPILOGUE to his 1995 book, The Pink and the Black, which was arguably the first real history of the gay-rights movement in France, Frédéric Martel questions the notion of “gay pride.” He writes that he “feel[s]obliged to express reservations about this self-pride, an exacerbation of otherness and an ostentatious form of the right to difference. In the same way, it is a short step from self-affirmation to exhibitionism.” These words are surprising to find at the end of text about gay history, at least for an American, since they equate being proud of one’s difference with ostentation and exhibitionism, and therefore appear homophobic. Upon closer reading, however, it becomes clear that, rather than simply condemning queer people because of their sexual difference, Martel is asserting that capitalizing on any personal difference—whether religious, racial, sexual or what-have-you—is a divisive threat to “the very bonds of society in contemporary France.” In other words, Martel is arguing that privileging gay or indeed any minority identity over a universal concept of “Frenchness” is dangerous to the nation.
To scholars of queer theory, particularly those schooled at British and American universities, Martel’s arguments might seem homophobic and anachronistic. It is almost a given in contemporary Anglo-American conceptions of queerness, or indeed of the post-modern theories of identity in general, that, as literary critic Naomi Schor put it when considering similar assertions about women’s identity in France, “Postmodernism [is](among other things) an anti-universalism.” To become an organized force and to effect change in the United States, queer people have had to identify themselves as a “community” analogous to women, African-Americans, or other minorities. This kind of identity-based politics is known as either communitarianism or particularism in France, and is generally seen to be at odds with the universalist ideals upon which the Republic was founded, ideals considered to be a direct legacy of the Enlightenment.
France’s rejection of communitarianism has a venerable history.
One significant change since Renan put forth his theories a hundred years ago, however, is that it is no longer Germany whose self-conception is seen as the antithesis of French ideals. One of the most un-French nations now is—quelle surprise!—the United States, whose acceptance of difference as a principal of social organization is, in Martel’s words, “fomenting its own fragmentation.” This in turn results in what Françoise Lionnet (1998) says is often perceived in France as “‘the American nightmare’ of … infinitely fragmented social realities, where cultural relativism leads to the breakdown of the social contract.” Thus, communitarianism has become associated with American-style globalization, which in turn means that American conceptions of queer identity often are seen as an export as threatening to France as is the Big Mac.
This version of the conflict between American and French cultures is, however, just a new path on well-trodden ground and an oversimplified polarization. This binary opposition is false and a barrier to mutual learning for both countries when coming to terms with the slippery question of what it means to be queer.
Many cultural critics have turned to the example of race for comparative purposes when analyzing French universalism. Renan’s argument that race should not figure in the idea of a nation seems, on first hearing, very progressive. The problem comes, however, not from the idea that race is not an acceptable way to differentiate people, but instead from the ambiguous idea of a French “culture” that supposedly binds people together, and with which race is replaced. As Maxim Silverman argued:
It is true that Renan’s imagery is not that of a biologistic [sic]essentialism, but it often seems to verge on a cultural essentialism or absolutism. … Cultural absolutism can also be grounds for racist exclusion. … In the history of modern France, the tradition of biological racism has probably been less prominent than that of a national cultural racism (or perhaps, more appropriately, a cultural/ racist nationalism).
The shared history and experiences that form the common culture of a nation are really available only to a certain segment of the population that is all too often determined, in part, by its race. David Caron argues more or less the same thing in his book, AIDS in French Culture, claiming that the “strict polarization” he sees between race and culture is untenable: “The contractual model of nationhood is already undermined by its own essentialization. … In other words, the Republic invents the very communities it condemns, and essentially in the same terms with which it invented itself.”
The U.S. does not, of course, define its communities any better. In fact, it does so in a surprisingly similar way, where relativist issues of morality and patriotism (supposedly universal values, on which everyone should be able to agree) hold increasing sway in the law-making process. This is why France and America can learn something from each other by rethinking sexuality’s role in their societies’ respective conceptions of themselves. Both countries need to focus on the rights of the individual to assure equal treatment by the law and equal cultural status in society. GLBT issues should not be lumped together with other forms of diversity when making legislation, because as the following makes clear, the group is constituted in a distinct way and faces particular types of discrimination.
Robert Grossmann and François Miclo’s 2002 book, La République minoritaire: Contre le communautarisme (The Minority Republic: Against Communitarianism), is an excellent if extreme example of what is wrong with arguments against GLBT identity politics in France. These authors take on almost every group that has recently asserted its communal identity, from Alsatians to Arabs to GLBT people, claiming that they are responsible for the loss of what the authors call “l’esprit public,” the conviction that there exists a common ground that transcends membership (“les appartenances”) in any particular group and without which neither democracy nor the French Republic is possible.
Grossman and Miclo contend that being homosexual has no meaning in French society: “What does it mean to be homosexual? In the French Republic, neither more nor less than it means to be heterosexual. Happily so. As soon as the State gets involved in the private life or the morality of its citizens, one can be sure that the worst will happen.” What the authors do not seem to realize is that being homosexual does have a meaning in France: it still means both cultural and legal disenfranchisement to some degree. They ignore the fact that the State is already involved in the life and morals of its citizens, although for most citizens (i.e., those heterosexuals who enjoy full enfranchisement in the culture and under the law), this involvement is usually invisible.
In the U.S., the second-class legal status of gays and lesbians is best represented by their lack of access to marriage and thus to the 3,000-plus legal rights that go with it. Equally troubling is that laws are sometimes applied unequally, such as decency regulations and, until recently, anti-sodomy laws. It is true that, comparatively speaking, France has made much progress over the last 25 years to ensure the equality of gay and lesbian people. François Mitterand’s election to power in 1981 meant the decriminalization of homosexuality, which has often been credited (or blamed) for rendering the gay rights movement superfluous. The advent of PaCS in 1999, France’s version of legalized domestic partnership, accorded all French people in relationships most of the rights of the legally married. Marriage as such is a privilege still reserved for couples of the opposite sex, however, and creates a separate-but-equal status for GLBT people. (The legality of homosexual marriage is still in question in France. Although a couple was wed by the mayor of Beglès in June of 2004, it violated existing French laws.) An even more blatant example of lingering discrimination in France are laws governing adoption, which do not recognize the rights of unmarried couples (including opposite-sex couples) to adopt, even if one member of the couple is the child’s biological parent. The fact that French gay people can neither marry nor adopt proves that, contrary to Grossman and Miclo’s assertions, being homosexual does have a particular meaning—a negative one—in the French Republic.
Even if France’s legal discrepancies are eventually rectified, there remains the issue of French attitudes towards cultural difference. Sexuality is traditionally considered in France to be a private matter having no place in the public sphere. In some ways, this way of thinking has served GLBT French people well: since sex was not considered to be any of the government’s business, they’ve been left alone. One cannot imagine, for example, an invasion of privacy in France such as occurred in the U.S. in the Lawrence v. Texas case. The downside of this laissez-faire attitude is that it ignores a unique aspect of GLBT people’s situation, namely, that there’s no way to express the nature of one’s difference without taking one’s sexuality “out of the bedroom”—in other words, out of the closet—and into the public sphere. Since being gay or lesbian involves actually having sex with another person, and since talking about sex in public is deemed unacceptable, an essential aspect of modern queer identity is essentially out of bounds.
This is where French attitudes about the private nature of sexuality become particularly problematic, because they regard cultural expressions of sexuality as inappropriate and disrespectful of supposed “universal” notions of artistic value and taste. Frédéric Martel’s The Pink and the Black is a striking illustration of this point of view. Even though his own work could be seen as evidence of a gay culture, Martel argues that this subculture is not a good thing and may actually stand against the idea of art itself. Of “gay art and culture” he writes:
Male and female homosexuals sometimes encouraged these forms of expression by privileging a specific body of literature or art. The intention was laudable: to supply widely scattered individuals with peers, to link them to a history, and bring them together in a “destiny group.” This is not insignificant. At the same time, however, the desire to pile ghetto upon ghetto seems to be a hypermodern folly. Such a plan serves to negate the very purpose of art, which is to promote dialogue, openness, and freedom from isolation and confinement.
While not all French people share Martel’s views, they are by no means unusual. They refuse to believe that there’s anything distinctive about literature written by GLBT writers: “Just as there is no such thing as heterosexual literature, there is no gay literature, either. That is to say, no literature can be described by an epithet. There is simply literature and nothing else,” in the words of Grossman and Miclo. Notwithstanding their notion that “great literature” is universal, this opinion is really just a type of cultural absolutism: if there’s no such thing as heterosexual literature, this is because, before the advent of gay and lesbian literature, all literature was (or was thought to be) heterosexual. As Marguerite Yourcenar, an author who ironically is remembered for her refusal to classify herself under any rubric, including “lesbian” or even “French,” wrote in the introduction to her book, Alexis or the Treatise of Vain Combat: “Perhaps we haven’t paid enough attention to the fact that the problem of sensual freedom in all its manifestations is, to a large extent, a problem of the freedom of expression.” Indeed, limiting the expression of sexuality to the bedroom is a form of self-censorship that stifles, rather than protects, art—contrary to what universalist-minded cultural critics would have us believe.
The current status of GLBT people in France and the U.S. makes it plain that both countries could benefit by rethinking their positions on the role of identity politics in public life. The U.S. can learn much from France’s respect for the individual and its increasing recognition of legal rights for all people, regardless of their sexuality. France could stop worrying about “French Culture” and have faith that the universalistic values it fights to protect will, if they are truly universal, find their expression in new forms, including the recognition of minority cultures. As Maxim Silverman argues in his conclusion to Deconstructing the Nation, recognizing the particularity of individuals or of cultural groups “only seems to be a paradox if one accepts the opposition between … the individual and the community. It is not a paradox if these are seen not as oppositions, but as part of a wider and more complex unity.” Therefore, in both the United States and in France, the best way for each country to foster its so-called “national character” would be to champion a favorite motto of the French: “Vive la différence!” This can only be accomplished, however, by allowing all citizens to “vivre leurs différences”—to live their differences—as a practical reality.
References
Benechane, Mustapha. “Interdire le voile? La loi française et les signes religieux,” in Le Figaro, December 12, 2004.
Caron, David. AIDS in French Culture. U. of Wisconsin Press, 2001.
Grossmann, Robert and François Miclo. La République minoritaire: Contre le communautarisme. Éditions Michalon (Paris), 2002.
Lionnet, Françoise. “Performative Universalism and Cultural Diversity: French thought and American contexts,” in Terror and Consensus: Vicissitudes of French Thought, edited by J. Goux and P. Wood. Stanford U. Press, 1998.
Martel, Frédéric. The Pink and the Black: Homosexuals in France Since 1968. Stanford University Press, 1999.
Schor, Naomi. Bad Objects: Essays Popular and Unpopular. Duke U. Press, 1995.
Silverman, Maxim. Deconstructing the nation: Immigration, racism and citizenship in modern France. Routledge, l992.
Yourcenar, Marguerite. Alexis ou le traité du vain combat. (1929). Folio, Gallimard (Paris), 1971.
Note: All translations are the author’s own, unless otherwise indicated.
Thomas J. D. Armbrecht’s recent translation of Eric Jourdan’s 1955 novel, Wicked Angels, will be published by Haworth later this year.
