In mid-September, in a column published by The New Obsthe philosopher Saïd Benmouffok criticized the use of the concept of “ creolization » by Jean-Luc Mélenchon. If he recognized an interest, explaining that the “ creolization » proposes a society where identities enrich each other, he considered that the leader of La France insoumise was only making a symbolic demand, which lacks concrete translations into public policies, particularly on questions of immigration, secularism or the fight against discrimination. Thursday, October 3, the main person responds to him, still in the columns of Nouvel Obs, starting by recalling that this concept was developed by the philosopher Édouard Glissant, and that it is therefore not a personal invention.
Jean-Luc Mélenchon claims to have taken it up on his own to overcome the divisions between “ abstract universalism » et « fixed differentialism “. For him, the “ creolization “is a social fact” spontaneous “, not a formal political project, but it must be recognized as a fundamental cultural reality. He takes the historical example of the Edict of Villers-Cotterêts of François I to illustrate a policy of “ creolization » through the imposition of French as an official language, enriched by borrowings from other languages.
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The former presidential candidate also defends that “ creolization » is a natural response to socio-cultural mixing, whether through colonization, urbanization, or immigration, which “ now involves the relatives of one in four French people ». « Or even the emergence of female multitudes in all spheres of activity and visibility that were yesterday narrowly masculine “, he explains.
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“Unfinished France”
« My goal was first to oppose it to the racist concept of “great replacement” whose meaning is reduced to an essentialization of so-called native cultures compared to those designated as non-native. “Gallo-Roman” Creole self-identification demonstrates quite the opposite. As, moreover, Minister Retailleau’s rantings on the improbable Judeo-Christian roots of French identity or, conversely, his nonsense on the dangers of multiculturalism », continues the politician. For him, creolization is an inevitable process of cultural renewal that transcends ethnic or national origins, a phenomenon “ without which life would be limited ».
Jean-Luc Mélenchon believes that “ creolization » must be recognized politically to give birth to a new social and cultural reality, called “ new France ». « The new France therefore remains a subject of denial as long as it has not become an institutional political fact. The opposite of the new France is not “traditional France” but “unfinished France” perhaps because it is ashamed of itself », writes the Insoumis.
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