The place of racism in the study of discrimination

What is the experience of racism of migrants and their descendants? Persons from sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and the French overseas departements are very frequently the targets of “explicitly racist remarks and behaviours”, while those from Southeast Asia, Turkey or Europe much less so. Being born in France to a parent from one of these countries and having French nationality does not reduce this experience of racism. On the contrary, racism is reiterated and expressed in school and in public places, but also at work and in dealings with public services. It is compounded by experience of exclusion and discrimination. Conversely, persons from the mainstream population are rarely exposed to this type of situation and never report discrimination. Their experience of remarks perceived as racist is most often limited to public places or school. Racism targeting migrants and their descendants categorizes them into minority groups (in the sense of discriminated minorities), while racist remarks targeting the mainstream population have no material impact upon them

Decadence and indifferentiation in the ideology of the Front National

Decadence, moral decay and national disintegration are obsessively recurrent themes in the narratives of the French radical right. This article explores the topos of decadence in the Front National's ideology through a content analysis of speeches and campaign material ranging from the 1980s until 2012. Beginning with an interpretation of decadence based on Rene Girard's discussion of persecution-legitimising texts, the article argues that the Front National's discourse on decadence revolves around the idea of a crisis of differences and an acceleration of exchanges presented as unnatural. This point is developed in relation to the role of sexuality in the party's profile and to the logics of historical development and political agency inherent to the Front National's understanding of decadence. Decadence, I argue, is indissociable from indifferentiation - the fear of seeing the disappearance of differences conceived as fundamental for the preservation of national order