National Identity and Everyday Cultures in Contemporary France: Re-Constructing Frenchness through ‘Third Kind’ Representations of the Cités (1960–2000)*

^*In memoriam of Maurice Bernard (1930–2008), a ‘photographer’ of the Cité.

Abstract

This article examines the role played in France by the culture du quotidien (everyday culture) in establishing a more integrated image of the nation and identity. It suggests that since the 1960s, dominant media discourse in France, and artistic representations of the urban periphery, have often perpetuated an image of the cités as menacing spaces detached from the national community and emblematic of France's postmodern crisis. Focusing on everyday cultural creations about the Grand Ensemble in La Courneuve, it argues that the ‘ordinariness’ of the lives these creations convey, along with the residents’ cultural practices and their continuing sense of belonging, effectively treats geography, culture and history in a way that questions the standard externalising discourse about the cités. Despite their limits in terms of circulation, these cultural artefacts of a ‘third kind’ offer images that contribute to challenging the ‘banlieues myth’ and help re-construct a French identity perceived under threat. 1

Notes

^*In memoriam of Maurice Bernard (1930–2008), a ‘photographer’ of the Cité.

 [1] I express my gratitude to Dr Karima Laachir, Professor Kate Ince and Dr Jackie Clarke for their support, comments and advice, while preparing this article. I am also indebted to the challenging and inspiring contributions made by the participants of the ASMCF conference held in Manchester in September 2008. Finally, my thanks go to the inhabitants of La Courneuve who, like Dr Roger Amar, kindly accepted to discuss their views on French contemporary society.

 [2] The term banlieues, mainly used in the plural form, and also synonymous with cités or grands ensembles, refers to council estates built between the 1950s and the 1970s on the outskirts of French cities, and emblematic, nowadays, of France's ‘urban marginality’ (Wacquant 2006).

 [3] The territorial stigma attached to the banlieue is well known. François Dubet has noted (1987, p. 13) that ‘la misère’ but also, and more crucially, ‘la mauvaise réputation’ constituted major forces of exclusion afflicting the suburbanites.

 [4] In contrast to the resistance emanating from artistic discourse, some French academics have stated that the image of the banlieues has remained amply based on the sensational and the ‘apocalyptic’ (Boyer & Lochard 1998, p. 72) replicating, in many ways, the usual cité discourse (see Rey 1996, pp. 7–8 and, especially, Lepoutre 1995).

 [5] Showing the importance of everyday culture and its applicability within the periphery, Guillaume Le Blanc's theoretical work on the divertissement finely illustrates (2001, pp. 27, 33) how ‘les jeunes des banlieues’ make use of the divertissement. Through the ‘jeu’, they find an original way of treating some ‘effets de lieux’ (Bourdieu 1993, p. 159) and ‘se rappeler à soi’ (Le Blanc 2001, pp. 33–34).

 [6] A list of cultural productions of the Quatre-Mille since 1962 is available in my online ‘archive’: http://cite4000.blog.fr/.

 [7] The opening of a temporary radio station at the turn of the 1980s to protest against the dramatic and unfair increase of the rent imposed by the Parisian Housing Authorities—first owner of the estate—is in that respect a fine example. In the course of a fast-spreading racism, the setting-up of the association Africa, at beginning of the 1990s, represents with its running of ‘Universités populaires’ another clear illustration of the dynamics of everyday culture in the Grand Ensemble.

 [8] As cultural practices, Bernard's pictures, Rochelle's texts and Amar's postcards match for the most part those in society exemplified by Olivier Donnat (1998). Whereas photography has remained a very common activity, Donnat observes that, in 1989, more than 7% of the French engaged in ‘une activité d'écriture’ (1998, p. 279) and, in 1997, 4% collected postcards (p. 303).

 [9] Simone Weil's analysis of the worker's fate is in that respect eloquent: ‘Aucune intimité ne lie les ouvriers aux lieux et aux objets parmi lesquels leur vie s'épuise et l'usine fait d'eux, dans leur propre pays, des exilés, des étrangers, des déracinés’ (in Noiriel 1986, p. 186).

[10] I am alluding here to Jean-Claude Chamboredon's article, ‘Proximité spatiale, distance sociale. Les grands ensembles et leur peuplement’ (1970).

[11] This idea derives from Georges Perec's concept—see Sheringham (2006, p. 248 and passim).

[12] The highly publicised ‘affaire Huet’ goes back to March 1971 and the murder of Jean-Pierre Huet, a ‘jeune blouson noir’, by a cafetier of the Cité, Louis Gasq. For a full account of this ‘fait divers’ where the Cité is compared in the press to the ‘Far West’ and the café-bar, to a ‘saloon’, see Bachmann and Basier (1989, pp. 81–90).

[13] Unlike other materials, these creations have not been collected through cultural ethnography but come from Desmond Avery's book, Civilisations de La Courneuve, images brisées d'une cité (1987).

[14] During my on-site cultural research, I have observed similar practices among other cité residents engaged in various forms of ‘écriture intime’ (Simonet-Tenant 2001). For different accounts of the diary of a caretaker in the Quatre-Mille, see for instance Lara Rastelli's Renoir des 4000 (2002) or Alain Vincenot's Fleur de béton (2001).

[15] In La Culture des individus (2004), sociologist Bernard Lahire provides an inspiring insight into culture and social inequality. Before examining access to culture in the light of social class (‘variations inter-classe’), Lahire focuses on internal differences found in each individual (‘variations intra-individuelle’). Based on this approach, he forcefully demonstrates (to use his own words) ‘[que] la frontière entre la légitimité culturelle (la “haute culture”) et l'illégitimité culturelle (la “sous-culture”, le “simple divertissement”) ne sépare pas seulement les classes, mais partage les différentes pratiques et préférences culturelles des mêmes individus, dans toutes les classes de la société’ (p. 13).

[16] I am hinting at the double oppression of gender and ethnicity experienced by young immigrant women. If young men suffer from exclusion and marginalisation on the grounds of their ethnicity or on those of being Franco-Maghrebian, North African women add another dimension to that hyphen which is that of gender oppression.

[17] Thus specific modes of dress can be noted (in Avery 1987, p. 47). The same applies to cooking practices (p. 143) or aggressive or cruel behaviour (p. 142).

[18] For a well-documented journalistic overview of the postcards, see Vincenot (2001).

[19] I am alluding here to the postmodern concept proposed by Marc Augé (1992).