Ethnicity and Equality: France in the Balance

Conclusion: Get Moving!

Public institutions must take their share of the blame for the failure of the so-called French model of integration. They can no longer survive on the basis of a republican sclerosis wrapped up in mythical past glories, for the lofty ideal of meritocracy has long since been rent asunder by the reality of racial discrimination. It is now an understatement to say that not everyone has equal access to the elevator of social mobility. Far too many people don’t even know of its existence. As it simply isn’t part of their mental geography, they have no means of accessing it. We need to be vigorous and courageous in irrigating the paths to social mobility by actively going in search of citizens outside the system and diversifying public service personnel. France has entered a new turn in its hisConclusion Get Moving! 123 124 conclusion: get mov ing! tory. The turn this time is a hairpin. An effective equal opportunities policy is one of the last chances open to us. We must use the nation’s differential to enable it to stay on the road. Only thus can we secure the nation’s future and avert the nightmare of its collapse into warring ethnic communities. Public institutions are not the only ones to blame for these tensions. Young ethnics also need to take responsibility as individuals. They must start to move. Often they are reluctant to leave the hood, their family, their home, if they are offered a job away from their cocoon. They are frightened of being uprooted, frightened of being on their own, frightened of having to face themselves. This is an important problem limiting their access to the world of work. It is true that asking them to dérouiller means asking them to take a leap without any guarantee of a safe landing on the other side. It means asking them to come out of their shells, out of themselves. We have to speak pragmatically and assert the importance of people taking personal responsibility in a society that tends to defer to social workers, with the attendant risk of stifling the inner resources of individuals. Dérouiller means the opposite of standing like the base of a crane, rooted to a spot outside your apartment block. Dérouiller means moving to make good, taking risks by casting off your anchors, crossing symbolically to the other side of the tracks. It means exposing yourself to danger by getting close up to others. It means being ready to change in the process of meeting others. Of course young ethnics in the hoods are not the only ones worried by what is unfamiliar, far off, and different . In a more general sense, in recent decades as cities have grown in size, the idea of striking out, leaving fa- conclusion: get mov ing! 125 miliar territory, has become a source of anxiety. When feelings of insecurity grow, the tendency to remain with your own kind, on the spot, to minimize the risk of unpleasant encounters outweighs the spirit of adventure. The horizons within which you see yourself shrink. This kind of process has built especially high mental barriers among disadvantaged groups and among young ethnics in particular because of the microterritorialization in which they have immured themselves in recent years. To avoid this constant return to their own kind we have to educate them to “get moving,” not in a negative sense, but, rather, in the positive sense of taking a look elsewhere—and, in the process, taking a look at themselves , for I am convinced that it is only when you move, when you travel, that you find yourself. You become free when you step outside your inner walls. The tendency of young ethnics to turn in on themselves geographically and mentally needs to be countered by the idea of travel as an alternative to the safe haven. This isn’t necessarily easy. As Jamel Debbouze puts it, our message to these young people could be: “You have no chance—grab it!” Humor is often the most telling way of expressing deep truths. Travel versus the safe haven: that is how we should read the attempts made by Sciences Po to irrigate its recruitment field so as to better attract talented youngsters from the hoods. These were courageous, pioneering, productive efforts. They have set off a positive chain reaction in our society. They have launched...