The Politics of Alterity: France and her Others

Is France afraid of her others? By looking back at the discourses and practices that have been formalised over the last fifteen years, Sarah Mazouz addresses French politics of alterity. Drawing on an ethnographic survey lead in both public administrations in charge of combating racial discrimination and naturalisation offices of a large city in the Paris region, she shows how immigration, nation and racialization are articulated in the social space. Through the analysis of these two public policies, she questions the processes of inclusion and exclusion within the national group itself (through the examination of the modalities taken by anti-discrimination) and outside, between the national and the foreigner (through the study of naturalization practices). In so doing, it seeks to grasp the paradoxical relationship between the Republic and her others and the plural logics producing national order.