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27. Immigration and an Emerging African Elite in the Metropole (1946–1961)
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27 immigration and an emerging african elite in the Metropole (1946–1961) Philippe dewitte the 1950s mark a caesura in the manner in which sub-saharan africans were perceived in France. after the figure of the “tirailleur as overgrown child” from the interwar years, and before that of the mute and docile “immigrant laborer” from after the independence movements, africans occupying the center stage in the 1950s were politicians, intellectuals, artists, students, and more. They helped to modify the image of africans in the French unconscious, even if old stereotypes , born from the paternalism and racism of the colonial era, did not entirely disappear. i will not dwell on this occasion on the intellectual and political itinerary of africans colonized by France, on their postwar struggle for citizenship and their subsequent independence, on those fifteen years during which public opinion evolved at a dazzling pace.1 it is nevertheless important to note that modern african elites were extremely active in the metropole during this era, and that the presence of this intelligentsia had a profound impact on the minds of the public. Those who in 1914 were still seen as “uncivilized” beings, who were promoted to the status of “big children” in the interwar period (thanks to the participation of senegalese tirailleurs during the Great War), would be seen very differently in the era of decolonization.2 Paris, an african Capital it was not terribly difficult for people from the colonies to clandestinely make their way to the metropole. official numbers must therefore be taken with caution . nevertheless, to get a sense of the general picture, one can look to the official population census, which accounts for 13,517 persons of sub-saharan origin living in the metropole in 1946, and 17,787 persons in 1962. The numbers are admittedly fairly modest. However, they do not account for the new visibility of these populations, and the impact of their presence with respect to the ways in which French metropolitans saw them. The participation, for example, of africans in political life was fast becoming a “French political reality.” Beginning in 1946 with the French union, which was 364 Immigration and an Emerging African Elite | 365 meant to promote a federal relationship between France and its colonies, african politicians had seats at the Palais-Bourbon. The most famous of these politicians were lamine Gueye and léopold sédar senghor (both from senegal), Félix Houphouët-Boigny (the ivory Coast), sourou Migan apithy and Jean-Félix tchikaya (dahomey). of the six hundred delegates seated at the national assembly, sub-saharan africa was represented by only twenty in 1946, twenty-eight in 1951, and twenty-nine in 1956. However, their presence, like their activism generally, did not go unnoticed by the French public, and representatives from sub-saharan africa held more stakes in the ministerial cabinets than their homologues from algeria or indochina; the most illustrious even held ministerial posts (this was not coincidental!) within the Fourth republic, which was caught up in the issue of independence and the colonial conflicts. two men became symbols of this new african elite: léopold sédar senghor, the state secretary to the Council’s president in edgar Faure’s government in 1955, and Félix Houphouët-Boigny, the president and founder of the african democratic rally (rda) in 1946 and a member of the Guy Mollet government in 1956, which participated, with Gaston deferre, the minister of France overseas, in the development of a legal framework for the independence, some might say the Balkanization, of sub-saharan african under French domination. The era was, moreover, extremely receptive to the intellectual and artistic contributions from what would soon be called the “third world” (alfred sauvy’s expression dates back to 1952), and especially from sub-saharan africa. Jean-Paul sartre, raymond aron, albert Camus, andré Gide, Théodore Monod, Marcel Griaule, Georges Balandier, emmanuel Mounier, Michel leiris: this was the French intelligentsia that helped baptize the periodical Présence africaine, along with its eponymous publishing house, founded in 1947 by the senegalese alioune diop. one year later, Jean-Paul sartre, in the famous preface, “Black orpheus,” to léopold sédar senghor’s illustrious Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (anthology of new Black and Malagasy Poetry in French), definitively, and in dithyrambic tones, knighted negritude into the Parisian intellectual world. This marked a shift in the perception of african civilizations by French intellectuals: “Black...