Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

A French Intifada? Ethnic Relations in Contemporary France by Alec Hargreaves

Date(s)
Thursday 21st November 2013 (18:00-19:00)
Description

Research Seminar

 

2013/14

 

Professor Alec G Hargreaves

A "French Intifada"?
Ethnic Relations in Contemporary France 

 

Prof Hargreaves - Emeritus Winthrop-King Professor of Transcultural French Studies
Florida State University
and
Special Professor to the Department of French and Francophone Studies, University of Nottingham

 

Thursday, 21 November at 6 pm

Ethnic relations in France, plagued for decades by ill-tempered debates over the nation’s immigrant minorities, most notably those of Muslim heritage, have in recent years taken a new and troubling turn. Among the symptoms of this are a sharp rise at the beginning of the new century in recorded cases of anti-semitism, a more recent rise in recorded cases of Islamophobia, the 2005 riots in the “banlieues”, and the fanatical killings of minority ethnic French soldiers and Jewish schoolchildren carried out by Mohamed Merah in 2012. These and other developments have led some commentators to speak of a “French Intifada” while others have denounced what they call “anti-white” racism. This paper aims to clarify the nature of these developments and their causes. I will suggest that beneath the surface of ethnic tensions lie deep-seated social, economic and political fractures that politicians in France have failed to address and that they have often exacerbated.

 

 

 

All welcome

Department of Modern Languages and Cultures

University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD

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