Same Sex, Different Politics: "Gay Marriage" Debates in France and the United States

In France, "America" is always (to borrow a phrase from Claude Lévi-Strauss) "good to think." ¹ It is not, of course, that actual, in-depth knowledge of the United States is required in French intellectual life. On the contrary, sociology or anthropology might unduly complicate matters for intellectuals and unfairly undermine their legitimacy. Thus it probably is no accident that there should be so few academic specialists of contemporary American society in France (probably fewer than scholars competent on, say, Côte d'Ivoire). ² In the absence of specialized knowledge about the United States, generalist intellectuals feel entitled to elaborate arguments about America. The rhetorical figure stands for the empirical image. Indeed, one could argue that this has become the defining feature of the public intellectual in France: an intellectual is someone whose legitimacy allows him (more often than her) to address French issues through references to America.

From the "Rhetoric of America" to the Transatlantic Comparison

Throughout the 1990s, the "rhetoric of America" was constantly invoked in French public discourse, especially in debates regarding minority issues--ethnicity as well as gender and sexuality. Today as much as ever, America is indeed good to think, as a model or (more frequently) a countermodel for French identity politics. This is most manifest in the case of gay and lesbian issues, whose very vocabulary is borrowed from American culture--from "drag queens" to "backrooms," from "coming out" to "outing," from "gay" to "queer." This imitation, which may be called "Americanization," even extends to the name of an association like Act-Up or a ritual such as the yearly Gay Pride march. The language of queer politics is (American) English, albeit with a French accent. Conversely, opposition to gay and lesbian politics (even among moderate gays) is often formulated as a rejection of so-called American identity politics in the name of French political culture.

In France, the contrast between the two models of the nation gained prominence in public debates around 1989. This rhetorical contrast was then developed around immigration issues--as a reflection on what was presented as a national model of citizenship--and later extended to other minority issues with the revival of feminist as well as gay and lesbian politics. The French model of the nation is called républicain, as it claims to prolong a political tradition formulated by the Third Republic (in reference to the principles of the 1789 Revolution). This ideal of national integration does not acknowledge group identities of any kind: the universalist model of citizenship is based on abstract individuals. Regional, religious, and ethnic differences are not to be taken into account by the state. Citizens are all supposed to be equivalent: as a consequence, such differences belong to the private sphere rather than to the public realm of politics. At the end of the nineteenth century, this ideology was meant to unify the nation by transforming "peasants into Frenchmen." ³

The rhetoric that was developed at the end of the nineteenth century through a contrast with Germany was rehabilitated in the 1990s through a contrast with the new dominant model. It is hardly surprising that America should play this role today, since the central political issue has recently become the transformation of "immigrants into Frenchmen." According to this updated rhetoric, the American model of citizenship is based on group identities. Individuals belong to "communities," who find their political voices through "lobbies." Both terms (and both realities) are said to be fundamentally foreign to the French tradition: it is assumed that political representation is always "color-blind" in France, while in the United States it could only be "color-conscious"--in terms of race and ethnicity as well as gender and sexual orientation.

Obviously, this contrast has a political function: it is prescriptive, rather than descriptive. The transatlantic mirror is meant to discourage political groups from "importing" minority issues, lest...