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Based on past and current ethnographic research and interviews with ethnic minorities in the Parisian metropolitan region, I argue that despite France’s colorblind and Republican ethos, France’s “visible minorities” function under a “suspect citizenship” in which their full societal belonging is never granted. I focus on the growing problem of state violence against ethnic minorities which reveals how France is creating a “bright boundary” (Alba 2005) between whites and non-whites, furthering disparate outcomes based on race and ethnic origin. By considering the multifaceted dimensions of citizenship and belonging in France, I demonstrate the limitations of full societal inclusion for France’s non-white denizens and how French Republicanism continues to mark, rather than erase, racial and ethnic distinctions.

In this article examining Black Lives Matter in France, we consider how French politicians and others in the public sphere use a U.S./France contrast frame to deny or downplay the existence of systemic racism within France. In so doing, they delegitimize as un-French or as too Americanized those French anti-racist activists who claim that racism in France is systemic and who challenge republican difference-blindness. To demonstrate this, we specifically focus on anti-racist activism against police violence and argue that, contrary to accusations by French political leaders, anti-racist activists do not directly impose U.S. Black Lives Matter discourse onto the French context. Rather, they deploy it in conversation with existing and long-standing anti-racist mobilization in France. This comparison between the United States and France also reveals the unique challenges of addressing police violence as a manifestation of racism in France, where anti-racist activists must fight to even name race and racism.

In this article, I use the example of Ahmed Merabet, a Muslim and Algerian-origin police officer who was one of the victims of the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre, as a way to understand how Islamophobia is a form of racism. Based on ethnographic research in Paris and its banlieues with the middle-class segment of the North African second generation, I discuss how they experience ‘collective punishment’ due to their status as both racial and religious minorities. I further trace the use of a ‘Muslim other’ category as a catch-all term for non-White individuals in a society that disavows race and ethnicity. I ultimately demonstrate how Islamophobia is a form of racism – one that sees certain individuals as too culturally different to ever be fully accepted as part of the French mainstream.

Jean Beaman on 20 Questions and Answers on Black Europe.

In this paper, based on qualitative research on the North African second-generation in Paris and the Turkish second-generation in Berlin, we discuss ethnic minorities’ attachment to place and how living in highly diverse cities shape their perceptions and experiences of marginalization and belonging. Even though France and Germany have different state-level approaches to citizenship and belonging, the experiences of marginalization and exclusion of the second generation in the city are rather similar. In both societies, ethnic and religious minorities such as the North African or Turkish second-generation are excluded from mainstream society. This exclusion is experienced on the local level. Thereby the geography of Berlin and Paris impacts ethnic second-generation populations’ feeling of belonging to the communities in which they live, as well as how they understand their experiences of racism and exclusion. This research has implications for understanding the multivariate experiences of middle-class second-generation ethnic populations across Europe.

Based on ethnographic research in the Paris metropolitan region, I discuss how my identity as a Black American ethnographer was implicated in this urban ethnography. Specifically, I discuss the intersections of researcher identity with that of the “researched” and how I was simultaneously framed as an insider and outsider due to different facets of my own identity. I further argue that these insights were data in and of itself as they revealed how race and racism operate in a society that has long disavowed their existence.

Based on ethnographic research of France’s North African second-generation, I bring together literatures on racial formation, whiteness, and race and racism in Europe to discuss how whiteness opera...