Introduction

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The term ‘Noir’ (‘Black’) appeared on the front page of several daily newspapers and weekly news magazines. See Hopquin (2005); see also the dossier entitled ‘Nous, les Noirs de France’, in Le Nouvel Observateur, April 13–19, 2006. See also “Blue, White, Blacks” (Libération, 26–27 November 2005) in which the CRAN (the Council of Black Associations, a federation of black organizations created in 2005) is said to defend integration and the recognition of France's slave past. The same goes for the parliamentary television channels Public Sénat and La chaîne parlementaire that have been broadcasting a documentary from Pascal Blanchard, entitled « Nous, les Noirs de France » since 2006. Essays from political figures and activists also used this term (see Faes and Smith 2006; Lozès 2007; Yade-Zimet 2007).

2. The HCI is a council created in 1989 to make recommendations to the French Prime Minister concerning the integration of immigrants. It regularly publishes reports.

3. Among the significant events organized in France, we can mention the conference ‘Noirs de France: Anatomie d'un groupe invisible’ [Blacks of France: Anatomy of an invisible group] organized by CAPDIV (Cercle d'Action pour la Promotion de la diversité) (Society for the Promotion of Diversity) at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in 2005; the conference ‘France Noire, Black France. The History, Poetics and Politics of Blackness’ organized at Columbia University in Paris, Reid Hall, in 2008 and the film festival ‘France Noire The Black Presence in France’ which took place in 2010 and 2011.

4. See the contributions of the current and the former president of the CRAN in scholarly publications (Lozès 2012; Tin 2008).

5. Interview with Gwénaëlle Calvès on the Equality of opportunity program's website. French American Foundation: http://equality.Frenchamerican.org/publications/transcript-interview-gwénaële-calvès-daniel-sabbagh (last retrieved: 12 November 2012)

6. The book examines how colonized African and Caribbean French elites, following the Congrès panafricain, broke down in various political associations and organizations like Gratien Candace's Association panafricaine or the Ligue universelle de défense de la race noire (The Universal Defense League of the Black Race) founded in 1924 by the Martinican writer René Maran and the Benin editor of Les Continents, Kojo Tovalou Houenou. Dewitte analyzes the divergences of pro-egalitarian leaders like Diagne and the opposition of the founders of Les Continents who, overtly criticized colonization and its consequences on African people.

7. This book is part of a broader research agenda on the importance of colonial imaginary and imageries in France. Since 1993, the independent research group ACHAC (which works on colonization, decolonization and post-colonialism) has established several editorial and iconographic projects to document the importance of colonial images on contemporary representations of minority populations in France. While the amount of visual works gathered and analysis provided is impressive, the quality of the analysis of these questions has not always been satisfying.