“The conflict claimed by Mélenchon could only turn into resentment”

“I would like people to stop essentializing me based on my first name, my last name or my supposed origin. I am French, a journalist, a citizen. That’s all and nothing else.” This cry of the heart was formulated by Mohamed on the set of France 5. He is one of journalists of North African origin targeted by racist letters. However, what he says about his personal and professional identity is equally aimed at the other essentialist camp, LFIste.

Mohamed Bouhafsi is a journalist, first and foremost a sportsman, committed to fighting domestic violence, a former child martyr, and for Child Welfare. Far-right racists see him as a Muslim Arab with dubious allegiance. Far-left racialists see him as a Muslim Arab with certain allegiance, the one that goes to the Ummah and the bled. Mohamed Bouhafsi links this freedom of speech to the possible success of the RN in the next legislative elections. He also neglects another cause that is just as operative.

It is also the LFI which made Muslims a target by making them its electoral captive prey

Because in fact, it is also the LFI that has made Muslims a target by making them its electorally captive prey and by constantly bringing them back to their identity as Muslims of immigrant origin, necessarily victims. It installs quarrelsomeness at the heart of its ideological matrix, quarrelsomeness that Robert defines as a pathological tendency to seek quarrels, to demand reparation for harm suffered, real or imaginary. When the LFI claims to defend Muslims here by protecting Palestinians there, it makes Muslims here into foreigners there.

She gives up politicizing and mobilizing neighborhood residents on social issues because she considers them too… foreign or resistant to these issues, overinvesting in issues that explode identity: “the State harms you because you are Muslims. The police are violent and murder you because you are Muslims, you only count because you are ostentatious, thunderous Muslims.” They are only Muslims. They are Muslims first. They only react to community slogans. Their religion is their primary identity and their only horizon.

It was the LFI which for the first time generated an ethno-religious vote during the last presidential elections. Ask voters in working-class neighborhoods to name 3 measures from Mélenchon’s program. They are incapable of it. I only heard this argument around me and in my family who voted for Meluch as one man: “He loves Muslims, he defends us. “. Identity panic is no longer reserved only for RN voters. This terrible “we” of people who resemble each other supplants the “we” of people who come together around ideas, political struggles. The camps organize themselves and each demand pledges of loyalty.

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But, while the RN proposes the love of France as a unifying horizon, LFI imposes the identity Mcdo on those who should nevertheless be moving towards this citizenship: the FI is come as you are, stay as you are, cultivate your differences. As long as we do not detect anything French in it especially. The cynicism is such that the elected representatives of the FI only talk about police violence, Palestine, revenge and compensation in working-class neighborhoods, but are careful not to talk about trans or LGBTQI+ rights. Their efforts have contributed to making the Arab and the Muslim a figure of the foreigner again.

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While the RN proposes love of France as a unifying horizon, LFI imposes the identity Mcdo

And if journalists only defend positions linked to their origins, like Karim Rissouli, they are mistreated. These racist letters, these dirty words are unacceptable, in all situations, even when an elected official, like Rima Hassan, only serves foreign interests. This is not the case of Mohamed Bouhafsi who is, as he said, French but first and foremost a journalist, a good journalist and a committed man. He talks about something other than himself, he expresses himself more than just his skin. He built himself against adversity.

The conflict claimed by Mélenchon could only turn into violence and deep resentment. Voters are white hot. What will happen after the second round? Will they accept the verdict of the ballot box? When we dramatize a vote, when we make people believe that it is their life that is at stake, their freedom, what else can we expect other than violence from the side that loses?