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Making Space

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In Making Space, Melissa K. Byrnes examines how four French suburbs near Paris and Lyon responded to rapidly rising North African populations.

Image courtesy of interviewee. February 22, 2024

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This video video discusses a scholarly exploration of local-level migration experiences in France, particularly focusing on four Parisian suburbs and their dynamics with North African migrants. The research began as a doctoral dissertation, gradually expanding to include additional suburbs for comparative analysis. The author emphasizes a shift in focus from city politics to broader questions of local activism, particularly the motivations of individuals advocating for the rights of North African migrants.

The author recounts initial research experiences during a period of urban unrest in Paris, noting discrepancies between archival findings and existing scholarship on city engagements with North African communities. Key themes explored include the intersection of urban renewal policies and displacement of migrants, the political motivations of local officials, and the ongoing influence of France's colonial past.

Throughout the work, six chapters present varied motivations for involvement with North African rights, including urban policies, political calculations, and economic interests. The narrative underscores that while many activists and officials may harbor ulterior motives, there are also genuine efforts for solidarity and community enhancement.

Ultimately, the text posits that understanding local experiences provides crucial insights into larger global phenomena such as migration, imperialism, and social justice, advocating for inclusive community identities and highlighting the potential of grassroots collaborations in addressing contemporary social issues in France. The closing message emphasizes the importance of fostering meaningful solidarity to strengthen community dynamics and combat racial and social disparities.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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I came to this book because I was interested in

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how migration is experienced at the local level.

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Um, I was really interested in day-to-day actions.

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So, you know, we think of migration, it's this big process

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that's managed by a nation state,

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but when people actually live the experience of migration,

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they do it from one community to another.

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So I really wanted to focus in on, on communities.

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Um, and this started very early on as a,

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a doctoral dissertation about two Parisian suburbs.

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And there I was really interested in city policies

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and city politics.

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Um, but I got a postdoc

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and I decided to, do something

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that I wouldn't necessarily recommend with a first book,

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but I decided to completely double the research base

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and to add, two suburbs from the LEO region

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to really bring in a new level of comparison.

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So it got a lot bigger. Um,

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and one of the things that happened in addition

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to just having a different place geographically, is

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that having these extra two cities really forced me to think

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beyond just city politics.

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And to start thinking a lot about bigger questions about

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local activism, about local activators,

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and really fundamentally that sort of big question,

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what is it that motivated these people, particularly a lot

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of white French folks to argue for greater rights

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and welfare for North African neighbors?

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So the way I started the research, was,

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actually again, in 2005 as a, as a doctoral student, I, I,

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headed to Paris and I wanted

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to get out into the suburbs,

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and I started commuting out to ine.

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And this was in the fall of 2005.

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And about few weeks

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after I started going to the archives in ine,

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there was some major urban unrest

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that broke out in 2005 in France, which really affirmed

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to me that I was looking at a history that had a lot

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of direct bearing on the present moment.

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So that was one part of my experience in Sandee.

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The other thing that happened when I started going

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to Sandee is I realized that a lot of the stories I found,

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even in the first couple boxes, didn't line up very well

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with what I'd been reading in scholarship up to that point.

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Um, it sort of diverged a lot from, the history of,

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of a particularly city level engagement.

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Um, most studies said that, you know,

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city officials just weren't interested in North Africans.

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And if they were, you know, it was,

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it was just to kind of get rid of them.

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And I found some evidence of that in some places.

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Um, but I really found

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that something was a little different.

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So I was like, okay, now I have to figure out why this is

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so surprising, why there's so much time

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and energy in the city,

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and even funding being spent on, on North African migrants.

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I, and so what I did at that point is I said, you know,

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Senni is one of the, the sort of the, the, the big stars

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of the red belt that's around Paris.

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And people say the red belt, I mean, it's, it's all of the

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leftist aligned sort of workers party, cities

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that surround the city of Paris.

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Uh, and so most, because most of the suburbs

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of Paris are left-leaning, most of the work

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that's done is on left-leaning cities.

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And I was like, well, do we have, a right, you know,

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at least a centrist or maybe a Gales city, in the area

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that also did some work with North African migrants?

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And does that look different?

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So is this just a, you know, can I control

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for the political variable essentially?

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Um, and so I ended up in, in Anya Socent,

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which very conveniently,

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the Metro 13 line goes north south

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and like one fork Northern fork goes to sand,

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and the other one goes to Anya.

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So Anya had a Gales mayor,

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and, it, it did sort of have some, some comparisons

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or, or some differences.

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And I was able to kind of look

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at, at what they did differently.

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What I did then was spend some time in the National Archives

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and the departmental archives trying to sort

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of build out this story, connect what's going on in these

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cities to the, the, the bigger national story.

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Um, and then in 2009, I went to Leon, right?

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I decided to, to expand things. I chose NIE and Ban.

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So nie also like Sni,

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a really strong communist aligned city.

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Um, ban was not Gales.

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There were no Gales suburbs of Leon that I could find.

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Um, but Ban had this mayor,

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in the period I was looking at from the, you know, the,

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mostly from the, the fifties

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and sixties, they had this mayor that was really sort

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of centrist, had been in the socialist party, got kicked out

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with really anti-communist,

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and kind of worked on that way as a,

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as a political difference.

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Um, and what happened there,

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and this is one of the things that draw drove the expansion,

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not just geographically,

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but thematically, is that turns out the city archives in

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and band just were not as robust as the ones

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that I found in, in Anya and, and Ani.

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Um, and so I had to expand my focus, by spending a lot

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of time in the Rowan Department archives.

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I got a new cast of characters, so it wasn't just mayors

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and their, their city councils,

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but I started to see all of these other types of people

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who are getting really involved with North African issues.

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Um, and I kind of follow those through.

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And the last thing I'd say at that point is that I had been

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by then teaching a number of classes on histories

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of human rights, of humanitarianism of philanthropy.

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And that was what really started to push me

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to ask questions about activism, right?

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What are the roots, what are the

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motivations for this activism?

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Why are these folks so interested in,

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and committed to North African policy?

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And so the final book is actually organized around answers

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to that question, why are people involved

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with North African migrants?

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And we've got six chapters

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with six different answers to that.

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There's two really important historical trends that we need

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to think about as context for, for,

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for the history I'm telling.

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One is the growth of the French suburbs themselves,

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and particularly how they intersect with migration.

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And then the other is the rise and fall

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of the overseas French Empire.

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So you've got the, the French suburbs sometimes called the,

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the, the French name.

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Um, the French suburbs exist in a, a type of urban fabric

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or urban structure that's very different

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for someone from the us.

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It's a bit more familiar to European cities.

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But basically, French cities, for the most part,

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have these really beautiful, elite, lovely inner cities

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to understand the, the broader context

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for the history I'm telling, we need to think about two sort

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of bigger processes and histories.

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One is the growth of the French suburbs,

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and especially how that interacts with migration.

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And the other is the rise

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and fall of overseas French Empire.

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So the French suburbs

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or the, the Lias, they're often called by their French name.

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Um, are these sort of bans around the cities where,

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traditionally kind of less, less desirable people,

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less desirable things are kind of pushed out of the cities.

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So, European cities, especially French cities,

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have this, structure

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where the inner cities are the really nice elite,

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lovely historical parts of the cities,

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and it's the suburbs where you get,

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particularly a lot of working classes.

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And that's a very sort of old development,

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with industrialization.

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What that meant is that a lot of factories, which are big

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and not very pretty and quite smelly, a lot

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of times those got pushed out into the suburbs.

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And following those factories,

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of course, were their workers.

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Um, that's one of the reasons

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that you have this really strong tradition

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of leftist workers parties around, in the suburbs,

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around Paris and other French cities.

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Um, but something else that happens is

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that when the labor force is, is located in one area, that's

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where my migrants tend to go to, right?

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Most migrants are coming to work.

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Um, and so you have all of these waves of migration, in,

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in French history coming in largely into these,

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these suburbs, particularly 19th and 20th century.

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Um, my book is mostly concerned with the types of migrants

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who showed up, at least at first as colonial migrants.

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Um, and it's worth recognizing that even

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before you started to have these colonial

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and post-colonial migrants, the fact

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that you have radical politics

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and lower classes assigned to these suburbs meant

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that those had already been coded as somewhat problematic,

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sometimes even dangerous even

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before someone like the, the North Africans showed up.

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So that's a, that's a longer trend already

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that North African migrants come into.

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The second thing I mentioned was empire, right?

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You can't tell this story without thinking about French

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imperialism and then the experience of decolonization.

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So North Africans, other migrants from,

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the French Empire, started

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to arrive in increasing numbers, starting

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with the First World War, some increased during the,

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the interwar period, and then really huge numbers

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after 1945.

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Um, one of the reasons that they're showing up,

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which is gonna play into the story a little later, right?

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One of the reasons they're showing up is

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that you have this massive reconstruction project, right?

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Uh, lots of France is destroyed during,

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during the Second World War.

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And so people have to rebuild, literally rebuild,

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concretely rebuild the, the cities.

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One of the things to, to note here is that

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among North Africans,

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and among all of the, the kind

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of imperial migration flows we see

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Algerians are, are special.

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They have a special status.

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Um, my book title refers to North Africans.

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I often refer to North Africans

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because so many folks on the ground continuously confuse

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Algerians with North Africans.

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Um, but it is important for us to recognize that Algerians

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did have a different special status

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that's gonna play into the story.

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Um, and Algeria was administered not actually as a colony,

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but as an integral part of France ever since 1848.

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And that's gonna change, the way Algerians are dealt

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with and the way that the decolonization

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of Algeria is dealt with.

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Um, one of the big things for my purposes is that by 1947,

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Algerians had full rights of French citizenship.

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When they are on the French mainland,

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that means they can vote, which is gonna be important.

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Um, something else that's gonna happen soon

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after that is in 1954, Algerian nationalists

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and independence fighters and anti-imperialist are gonna

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launch the War for Independence.

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Um, that war goes from 1954 until the formal recognition

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of Algerian independence in 1962.

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And over the course of that war, France is going

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to do a couple of things.

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One, they're gonna try to crack down on political activism

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among migrant populations,

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but the other thing they're gonna do is they're gonna run

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this Hearts and Minds campaign.

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They're gonna try to extend all of these welfare benefits,

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to Algerians to convince them that they're better off

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as, as part of the French system.

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And so you have this massive expansion of, of welfare

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policies towards Algerians after 1962.

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That welfare system,

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and that migration system is expanded

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to all post-colonial migrants in France.

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And then after that, it becomes the, the foundation

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for the entire sort of French immigration system

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as, as it stands today.

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Um, what that means is that there are a lot

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of lingering imperial structures, a lot

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of lingering imperialist ideas, many

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of those based in racial prejudice,

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that affect the way we still see the, it affects the way

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that we talk about migration in France.

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It affects the way we see the suburbs.

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Um, we understand, or the French often understand

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or talk about the suburbs, as, as places of racial

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and social difference and still,

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places of political danger.

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All that being said, right?

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All of the ways that we can understand these sort

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of long histories or these long threads that bring us

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to a place where the suburbs are a place of difference

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and unrest or, or, or they're seen as problematic

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or dangerous, none of that means it's predetermined.

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And I think that's one of the most important things I I try

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to push throughout, throughout my work in this book and,

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and more generally, right?

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Um, none of this is predetermined. None of it's inevitable.

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Um, and one of the reasons that I really wanted

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to look at these local experiences

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and these local interactions within these communities is

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that within, in these very communities that are supposed

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to be the problem, we see a lot of alternatives

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to belonging, a lot of alternatives to community identity

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that persist throughout the same period.

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So, so the legacy

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of the suburbs being a problematic space

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and the legacy of all of these imperial interactions,

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that's not the only history we have to deal with.

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There are other things that are going on the book,

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as I said, it's organized into six chapters,

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and each of those chapters looks at one set of motivation

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or justifications for why people are involved in arguing

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for North African rights and welfare.

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Um, so first chapter, is on, i,

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I call it the mission to modernize.

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It's about sort of these urban renewal strategies,

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and this is what looks most like the kind of traditional,

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fairly negative story of, of French interactions

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with North African migrants.

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What we see here is a whole set of actors,

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and I can use any as one of my examples

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that I have some others, in,

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in any soen there's this massive renovation project of,

12:17.345 --> 12:19.125
of this northern neighborhood in the town

12:19.125 --> 12:21.285
where there had been, a number of,

12:21.385 --> 12:22.725
of North African migrants,

12:22.725 --> 12:25.165
and they built, what the French called the beetle view

12:25.185 --> 12:27.605
are these sort of shanty towns that, that are put together.

12:27.985 --> 12:30.565
Uh, I should say that not all North Africans lived in beetle

12:30.565 --> 12:33.085
view, and not only North Africans lived in beetle view,

12:33.105 --> 12:35.165
but they come, they start to be understood

12:35.185 --> 12:36.365
as a North African problem.

12:37.025 --> 12:41.765
Um, and so the, the is sort of facing the, this whole set

12:41.765 --> 12:43.885
of, or this whole set of neighborhoods that they're trying

12:43.905 --> 12:45.085
to, to renovate

12:45.085 --> 12:48.645
and bring into a modern, French suburban ideal.

12:49.185 --> 12:51.325
Um, and what that involves quite a lot

12:51.325 --> 12:53.725
of is just displacing North African migrants.

12:53.785 --> 12:55.405
So you're gonna use migrant labor

12:55.585 --> 12:57.725
to rebuild, these areas.

12:58.065 --> 13:01.205
You're gonna get rid of all of the kind of slum

13:01.205 --> 13:03.565
and shanty town, sort of degra degraded housing,

13:04.525 --> 13:07.805
re replace it with these wonderful new modern towers

13:07.805 --> 13:09.165
that are supposed to be better for everyone.

13:09.345 --> 13:11.845
Except in the process, you're also gonna try to move as many

13:11.845 --> 13:13.285
of those North Africans out of town

13:13.285 --> 13:14.685
as possible, out of the city limits.

13:15.185 --> 13:17.245
Um, so there's a displacement side to this.

13:17.705 --> 13:19.365
Uh, for those North Africans who stay,

13:19.365 --> 13:20.765
there's also gonna be this really heavy

13:20.765 --> 13:22.045
program for reeducation.

13:22.115 --> 13:24.005
Most of them get put into these,

13:24.005 --> 13:26.045
so-called transitional housing centers,

13:26.385 --> 13:27.925
and I use the square scare quotes

13:27.925 --> 13:30.925
because the, the transitioning, is supposed to only be,

13:30.925 --> 13:32.885
you know, like a year or so, and it actually in many cases

13:32.895 --> 13:34.485
takes decades for them to close down

13:34.485 --> 13:35.765
and figure out where to put these people.

13:36.345 --> 13:39.445
Um, but in these, in these reha, these,

13:39.765 --> 13:44.645
transitional centers, you have a huge, push for,

13:44.745 --> 13:48.245
reeducation, really heavy surveillance, right?

13:48.245 --> 13:51.325
These, these folks are subjected, to all kinds

13:51.325 --> 13:53.965
of policies that are really meant, you know, the, the,

13:54.185 --> 13:57.005
the local ideas that they're going to be educated

13:57.105 --> 13:59.365
to be more civilized, to be able

13:59.365 --> 14:01.725
to be much more like their white French counterparts.

14:02.065 --> 14:04.765
Um, those words are just so laden with, again, all

14:04.765 --> 14:06.805
of these kind of racist imperialist assumptions.

14:07.225 --> 14:10.085
Um, but the idea is that they're going to, to, to be taught

14:10.225 --> 14:13.805
how to be good modern French citizens in these little,

14:14.195 --> 14:16.165
chrysalis of, of the transitional centers.

14:16.225 --> 14:18.405
And then they can, then they can be absorbed into,

14:18.435 --> 14:20.525
into French society, but only a few of them

14:20.525 --> 14:21.845
because we've gotten rid of a lot of them.

14:22.505 --> 14:23.925
So that's the first reason

14:23.925 --> 14:25.925
that people talk about North African welfare.

14:25.995 --> 14:27.925
They talk a lot about providing better housing,

14:27.985 --> 14:30.165
but that housing means, again, housing that's elsewhere,

14:30.185 --> 14:33.285
or housing, that has this really heavy surveillance and,

14:33.285 --> 14:35.125
and education component that's really troubled.

14:35.705 --> 14:37.885
So that's chapter one, first set of motivations.

14:38.145 --> 14:41.765
Second set of motivations, is, is a political calculus.

14:41.995 --> 14:44.565
It's, the way that politics plays into this,

14:44.565 --> 14:47.365
and this is where we really get into what's going on in ine

14:47.365 --> 14:49.325
that was so surprising to me when I first got there.

14:49.825 --> 14:52.965
Um, but the folks in Sandy are really, really involved

14:52.965 --> 14:54.365
with North African migrants.

14:54.385 --> 14:55.965
Um, they're pushing a whole bunch

14:55.965 --> 14:59.245
of social policies right from 1946 onwards.

14:59.625 --> 15:00.725
Um, not just housing.

15:00.725 --> 15:04.205
They're looking for employment opportunity for,

15:04.505 --> 15:07.205
for real education, not just trying to teach you

15:07.205 --> 15:09.845
to be French, but actually sort of giving people vocational

15:09.845 --> 15:13.485
and other forms of education, to be,

15:14.265 --> 15:16.325
better workers, better citizens, better able

15:16.325 --> 15:17.365
to take care of their own needs.

15:17.625 --> 15:19.845
Um, they're pushing this sort of wider array of policies

15:19.945 --> 15:22.165
and, and they're doing so with language

15:22.165 --> 15:23.405
that's a lot more con inclusive.

15:23.665 --> 15:25.965
Now, part of that is it's a communist around municipality.

15:26.335 --> 15:27.965
North Africans are primarily workers,

15:28.345 --> 15:29.525
so they're members of the working class.

15:29.585 --> 15:31.285
So that's one really easy way that,

15:31.285 --> 15:34.525
that the Senate municipality can at least rhetorically pull

15:34.535 --> 15:37.765
North Africans into their discussions of, of what's needed.

15:38.745 --> 15:40.685
The second thing I mentioned earlier, that

15:40.685 --> 15:42.525
after 1947, Algerians have the right to vote.

15:42.905 --> 15:45.685
So not only are they fellow workers, their fellow workers

15:45.785 --> 15:47.965
who could actually vote for the communist,

15:48.195 --> 15:49.445
elected officials, right?

15:49.465 --> 15:51.325
So there, there's this cultivation of,

15:51.325 --> 15:53.325
of a voting block that's going on there.

15:54.225 --> 15:56.125
And then the third part of the political calculus

15:56.305 --> 15:59.325
that's really important in Sini is that as a,

15:59.445 --> 16:03.125
a really committed communist set of, officials, one

16:03.125 --> 16:06.525
of their main goals is to oppose the French State

16:07.025 --> 16:08.885
and North African migration issues turn out

16:08.885 --> 16:12.325
to be really excellent, way to, to, to show

16:12.325 --> 16:13.565
what the French state is doing wrong

16:13.565 --> 16:16.645
and to really push ideas of being anti-imperialist,

16:16.645 --> 16:19.645
anti-capitalist, showing all of the ways

16:19.645 --> 16:21.485
that the French state is failing these people,

16:21.665 --> 16:23.725
and all of the ways that the communist,

16:23.845 --> 16:26.205
local officials can step in and, and fill that gap.

16:26.585 --> 16:29.125
Um, so you've got this, this, this way that a politics

16:29.125 --> 16:30.645
of opposition is, is really important.

16:31.425 --> 16:33.925
So we have urban renewal ideas, which are, are,

16:33.945 --> 16:37.765
are largely racist in, in, or in their, underpinnings.

16:37.765 --> 16:39.965
You've got these sort of political calculation

16:39.965 --> 16:41.325
that's a little bit more inclusive.

16:42.345 --> 16:44.045
Um, the next set, you know,

16:44.045 --> 16:46.045
I mentioned Empire a few times already, and,

16:46.065 --> 16:48.525
and empires is really at the heart of the book, the way

16:48.525 --> 16:51.285
that the empire kind of is the attempt, the French attempt

16:51.285 --> 16:52.965
to hold onto the empire and the way

16:52.965 --> 16:53.965
that we oppose the empire.

16:54.265 --> 16:56.445
So chapter three and four are, are those two sides.

16:56.445 --> 17:01.365
Chapter three looks at pro imperial stances, a whole bunch

17:01.465 --> 17:02.685
of local officials,

17:02.685 --> 17:05.045
whether it's the Rome prefect who's actually, you know,

17:05.245 --> 17:06.765
a representative of the French Republic,

17:06.785 --> 17:08.285
of the French State,

17:08.585 --> 17:11.405
or some, you know, some, some local folks who are running,

17:12.025 --> 17:15.605
local associations who are running local housing,

17:16.835 --> 17:18.845
complexes for these North African migrants.

17:19.185 --> 17:22.445
And what was really fascinating to me is that a number

17:22.505 --> 17:26.965
of the, these folks at this, again, very ground level,

17:27.595 --> 17:30.125
they're talking about the French Empire as something

17:30.125 --> 17:32.245
that they themselves are working for.

17:32.905 --> 17:36.525
The reason that we need to change housing policies

17:36.525 --> 17:39.605
for North Africans in Leo and the surrounding cities is

17:39.605 --> 17:41.845
because we have to hold on French, French Algeria.

17:42.225 --> 17:44.525
Um, it sounds a little strange, but,

17:44.525 --> 17:46.285
but that's very much what they're talking about, right?

17:46.285 --> 17:49.645
Like the glory of the French Empire is being protected

17:50.265 --> 17:53.365
by the police who are out surveilling the North African

17:53.365 --> 17:55.365
migrants who are working in the Leon region.

17:55.985 --> 17:59.045
Um, and so, so that connection, you know, we know

17:59.045 --> 18:01.085
that the French state is interested in the empire.

18:01.465 --> 18:03.005
We know that there are these connections

18:03.005 --> 18:04.325
between Algerian welfare and,

18:04.345 --> 18:06.085
and trying to win the Algerian war,

18:06.425 --> 18:09.325
but really seeing how this plays out in the day-to-Day,

18:09.385 --> 18:13.405
and the fact that it just permeates so much of the, the,

18:13.405 --> 18:14.925
the rhetoric and the policy making

18:14.925 --> 18:17.285
and the decision making for these local officials was,

18:17.305 --> 18:18.525
was really fascinating to me.

18:19.625 --> 18:22.245
The flip side to that, takes us back to, to Sanden,

18:22.245 --> 18:23.765
where again, have these communists

18:23.765 --> 18:25.405
who are staunch anti-imperialist,

18:25.905 --> 18:27.285
and, the, the mayor

18:27.285 --> 18:30.085
of Senni in 1951 starts talking about the need

18:30.105 --> 18:33.845
for Algerian nationalist, independence, which is,

18:33.865 --> 18:35.845
you know, that's before the Algerian war breaks up.

18:35.845 --> 18:37.125
That is way ahead of anything.

18:37.185 --> 18:39.885
The, the National Communist Party does.

18:39.905 --> 18:42.285
The, the French Communist Party does not necessarily have a,

18:42.845 --> 18:45.565
a a, easy

18:45.665 --> 18:47.565
to understand pro Algerian stance

18:47.565 --> 18:48.645
throughout this entire period.

18:48.985 --> 18:50.645
But the mayor of Senni actually does

18:50.645 --> 18:54.925
and is, is constantly understanding, you know, using,

18:55.215 --> 18:57.645
again, the idea of North African welfare as a way

18:57.645 --> 18:59.845
to critique the French imperial state right there,

19:00.145 --> 19:02.765
the French Empires failing these people on, on,

19:02.785 --> 19:04.005
on really basic level.

19:04.465 --> 19:06.485
Um, but something else that's interesting that starts

19:06.485 --> 19:07.845
to happen in Nee is

19:07.845 --> 19:10.645
that their anti-war protests also become,

19:10.875 --> 19:12.165
anti-police protests.

19:12.355 --> 19:14.765
They start to, to really explicitly target

19:16.005 --> 19:17.365
policing practices.

19:17.505 --> 19:20.485
So, racial discrimination, racial profiling

19:20.485 --> 19:23.165
that they see happening with North African workers,

19:23.385 --> 19:25.125
pro policies of detainment

19:25.265 --> 19:26.485
for these North African workers.

19:26.625 --> 19:30.125
And so they see and understand the police as being part

19:30.125 --> 19:32.485
of the French imperial forces in their city

19:32.865 --> 19:34.885
and their role as anti-imperialist

19:34.905 --> 19:36.965
as anti-war, activists.

19:36.985 --> 19:41.165
And as they understand it, at least, allies to, to,

19:41.225 --> 19:42.485
to, to local Algerians

19:42.485 --> 19:43.605
and other North Africans

19:43.605 --> 19:45.005
that keep being pulled up into the mix

19:45.005 --> 19:48.365
because of the racial profiling that their role as the,

19:48.365 --> 19:50.725
these, these allies is to oppose the police

19:50.825 --> 19:52.005
and oppose the French state.

19:53.275 --> 19:56.215
So both pro and imperial, pro

19:56.215 --> 19:58.055
and anti imperial motivations

19:58.055 --> 19:59.495
for getting involved with North Africans.

20:00.275 --> 20:02.045
Chapter five is about profit.

20:02.985 --> 20:06.085
Um, you know, most migrants come looking for,

20:06.265 --> 20:08.365
for greater income for themselves, right?

20:08.365 --> 20:10.045
They're looking for economic opportunities.

20:10.465 --> 20:12.645
Uh, a number of North African migrants set up their own

20:12.765 --> 20:14.605
businesses, whether it's hotels or cafes, kind

20:14.605 --> 20:16.605
of the most common, but they do other things well.

20:17.145 --> 20:18.565
Um, you have all of the folks

20:18.585 --> 20:21.685
who are employing North Africans, they have this idea that,

20:21.685 --> 20:26.205
you know, the better, the more stable these workers are,

20:26.305 --> 20:27.645
the better workers they will be.

20:28.185 --> 20:30.485
Um, and finally, you have, one

20:30.485 --> 20:32.965
of my favorite cases in the whole book is this,

20:33.555 --> 20:34.645
landowner, right?

20:34.645 --> 20:36.725
You've got the people who are housing, like,

20:36.725 --> 20:38.765
who actually own the property that houses some

20:38.765 --> 20:39.805
of these North Africans.

20:40.105 --> 20:43.725
And there's this, businessman in, in one of the suburbs,

20:43.745 --> 20:46.725
suburbs of ol who in the, the late

20:46.725 --> 20:50.205
Sixties and seventies starts to become this amazing

20:50.805 --> 20:53.365
advocate for North African rights.

20:53.505 --> 20:56.085
Um, and what happens is that he was this landowner,

20:56.225 --> 21:00.285
he ends up building this set of housing, towers,

21:00.315 --> 21:02.445
that a whole lot of North Africans come and live in.

21:02.945 --> 21:04.965
Um, and that set of,

21:04.985 --> 21:07.645
of housing tides called the Olivia DeSay Complex.

21:08.065 --> 21:10.885
Um, this, this housing complex becomes a target of

21:10.985 --> 21:12.325
so much local anxiety.

21:12.325 --> 21:15.085
Like neighbors are freaked out, the mayor is really upset,

21:15.425 --> 21:16.485
the prefix is worried.

21:16.705 --> 21:19.445
Uh, there's this whole set of ideas about how

21:20.085 --> 21:22.765
concentrated migrant populations are really problematic

21:22.865 --> 21:24.445
and must be avoided at all costs.

21:24.945 --> 21:26.045
And having a place that has,

21:26.085 --> 21:28.205
I think it's over 300 housing units, almost all

21:28.205 --> 21:29.725
of which are filled by North African families

21:29.725 --> 21:31.125
with something that they just couldn't handle.

21:32.225 --> 21:34.085
And so we started to go through all of these things trying

21:34.085 --> 21:35.965
to close this housing complex down,

21:36.465 --> 21:38.045
and in response, you have this businessman

21:38.185 --> 21:40.125
who I wanna be clear, he is trying

21:40.125 --> 21:41.405
to save his bottom line, right?

21:41.405 --> 21:42.805
Like he doesn't wanna go out of business.

21:43.385 --> 21:47.165
But the way he starts to argue, for this, he starts

21:47.165 --> 21:50.765
to launch this really, detailed critique of,

21:50.905 --> 21:52.325
of French migration policy

21:52.665 --> 21:55.685
and starts to make all of these claims about, you know, the,

21:55.745 --> 21:58.245
the way that the, you know, north Africans are being treated

21:58.245 --> 21:59.765
with discrimination and prejudice

21:59.865 --> 22:02.285
and speaking for the need for, you know,

22:02.285 --> 22:03.485
much more racial inclusion.

22:04.185 --> 22:07.285
Um, and so it's this, you know, kind of fabulous way

22:07.285 --> 22:09.685
that you see how powerful the language of,

22:09.705 --> 22:10.765
of migrant rights is

22:10.765 --> 22:12.405
of North African rights is in this moment,

22:12.625 --> 22:14.805
and it's being used for, for, for a reason that

22:14.805 --> 22:16.485
that's maybe not actually in the best interest

22:16.485 --> 22:18.645
of North Africans see fairly extortionist

22:18.645 --> 22:19.805
and its business practices.

22:20.105 --> 22:21.885
Um, but, but that idea is still right.

22:21.915 --> 22:23.365
He's still making that that case

22:23.385 --> 22:24.485
in ways that are interesting.

22:25.665 --> 22:29.405
Um, the final chapter is, is the one that looks at,

22:30.335 --> 22:32.805
tries to get away from all of these ulterior motives.

22:32.895 --> 22:34.405
We've got five chapters looking at ways

22:34.405 --> 22:36.805
that people are really using North African rights

22:36.805 --> 22:39.405
and welfare as a way to support their own sets of interests.

22:39.905 --> 22:41.885
Um, the last chapter is on solidarity,

22:42.065 --> 22:46.005
and it looks at, primarily, a set of,

22:46.005 --> 22:47.685
Christian mostly Catholic,

22:47.685 --> 22:49.845
though some Protestant organizers, mostly

22:49.845 --> 22:52.005
around the Leon region, again, sort

22:52.005 --> 22:53.045
of thinking about communists.

22:53.425 --> 22:57.005
Um, and then also looking at the new, more radical leftists

22:57.005 --> 22:58.485
that are emerging in the 1960s.

22:58.825 --> 23:01.925
Uh, and, and the way that all of these groups who

23:02.505 --> 23:06.165
not coincidentally all have worldviews that go

23:06.165 --> 23:07.485
beyond the nation state, right?

23:07.485 --> 23:11.365
They all have larger understandings of what community is

23:11.385 --> 23:12.805
and should be,

23:12.825 --> 23:15.885
and that all of them are, are trying to work,

23:16.505 --> 23:19.325
for the benefit of North Africans with at least some sense

23:19.325 --> 23:21.005
of, of real solidarity and,

23:21.005 --> 23:23.205
and some kind of human commonality.

23:23.625 --> 23:26.285
Um, so there, there are some people who are at least trying

23:26.285 --> 23:27.605
to do to the right thing or,

23:27.605 --> 23:29.445
or acting, in the best interest

23:29.445 --> 23:30.845
of the, the North Africans.

23:31.215 --> 23:35.165
There are a couple of major takeaways that I, I really want

23:35.165 --> 23:37.045
to get through, with this book.

23:37.305 --> 23:40.125
Um, one of the first ones kind of a broader theoretical one,

23:40.125 --> 23:42.405
which is that it's both important

23:42.465 --> 23:44.965
and useful to connect the super local

23:45.265 --> 23:47.045
to the transnational and the global.

23:47.385 --> 23:51.245
And if we wanna understand really big global processes.

23:51.245 --> 23:53.445
So there's a number of major takeaways that,

23:53.445 --> 23:55.365
that I hope people leave the book with.

23:55.825 --> 23:58.005
Um, the first is, is a really broader,

23:58.005 --> 24:01.485
almost theoretical one, which is that to understand things

24:01.485 --> 24:03.205
that are happening at a global

24:03.345 --> 24:05.445
or transnational level, one of the best

24:05.995 --> 24:08.525
ways we can gain insight is to start at the local level.

24:08.555 --> 24:10.085
That there is a deep connection

24:10.085 --> 24:12.845
between very local lived everyday experiences

24:13.265 --> 24:16.405
and what's going on in kind of bigger world processes,

24:16.405 --> 24:19.885
whether that's migration or imperialism or decolonization

24:19.945 --> 24:24.045
or capitalism, that we get to see the way those play out,

24:24.465 --> 24:27.925
in a very local neighborhood, community, person

24:27.985 --> 24:29.405
to person interaction setting.

24:29.785 --> 24:32.005
Um, and that that can tell us a lot about these bigger

24:32.005 --> 24:35.565
things and, and how folks manage moving through the world.

24:35.565 --> 24:37.445
Because we are both very local

24:37.825 --> 24:41.445
and yet also very, very tied into to global things.

24:42.205 --> 24:44.125
I think that it helps, you know,

24:44.465 --> 24:48.685
asking why people are motivated to do these kinds of things,

24:48.745 --> 24:50.805
to speak out on behalf,

24:50.825 --> 24:53.205
or work on behalf of, of migrant rights and welfare.

24:53.785 --> 24:56.245
Um, understanding those motivations can actually help

24:56.825 --> 24:58.245
us towards better activism.

24:58.345 --> 25:01.725
So I think people reading this, a view to the present,

25:01.725 --> 25:04.005
should think about, you know, what are the main motivations

25:04.065 --> 25:05.285
of, of the folks in power

25:05.425 --> 25:09.645
and how can those ideas be used to get sort

25:09.645 --> 25:10.725
of what you want and need?

25:10.725 --> 25:13.325
And, and the, the book has a number of, of instances of,

25:13.325 --> 25:14.325
of North African migrants

25:14.325 --> 25:17.045
and their allies sort figuring out how to, how

25:17.045 --> 25:19.965
to make their case in the best way, knowing what kind of,

25:19.965 --> 25:21.725
what, what things are mattering to the, to the people

25:21.725 --> 25:23.365
around them or the people in power around them.

25:23.365 --> 25:26.485
Something that I think, should be clear through all

25:26.485 --> 25:29.445
of these answers, right, is how important the empire is.

25:30.065 --> 25:31.085
Um, and that even

25:31.095 --> 25:35.085
after decolonization, France continues to experience

25:35.115 --> 25:36.885
what I call structural imperialism.

25:37.015 --> 25:39.085
We've gotten kind of used to the idea of structural racism,

25:39.305 --> 25:41.605
the way that, all of these, sort

25:41.605 --> 25:45.205
of discriminatory PAC practices are kind of baked into,

25:45.435 --> 25:46.925
into laws, into policies.

25:46.945 --> 25:48.285
The same thing goes for empire.

25:48.315 --> 25:52.565
It's, it's really critical to me to, trace again,

25:52.865 --> 25:56.045
not only the way that,

25:57.235 --> 25:59.685
that the French migration system is built on top

25:59.705 --> 26:02.325
of this system that was created for Algerian

26:02.325 --> 26:03.845
and then other post-colonial migrants,

26:04.225 --> 26:06.445
but also that, that experience

26:06.445 --> 26:08.485
of empire at the local level, right?

26:08.695 --> 26:10.045
Folks who are again,

26:10.065 --> 26:14.085
on the ground running a housing association, running,

26:14.365 --> 26:18.285
a local neighborhood group running, a a local business.

26:18.835 --> 26:21.805
They are taking some of these imperial ideas

26:22.105 --> 26:24.565
and they're putting them into the very ways

26:24.595 --> 26:28.885
that they are interacting, again, on a practical concrete,

26:28.905 --> 26:31.005
on the ground, daily level.

26:31.425 --> 26:35.205
And so imperialism, despite decolonization, despite all

26:35.205 --> 26:37.725
of the claims that, that the French Republic can make in

26:37.725 --> 26:38.765
the 21st century, right?

26:38.765 --> 26:40.365
There are still all of these imperial ideas

26:40.425 --> 26:42.965
and practices that are really deep inside,

26:43.505 --> 26:46.445
Um, the way that urban policy, housing policy,

26:46.675 --> 26:50.205
education policy, not to mention migration policy function.

26:50.395 --> 26:52.965
Finally, those sort of two, two related things.

26:53.225 --> 26:56.045
Um, I said earlier that one of the things I really wanted

26:56.065 --> 27:00.965
to do with this project was explore with alternatives to, to

27:01.585 --> 27:03.925
the kind of colorblind,

27:04.285 --> 27:07.565
supposedly colorblind French Republican universalist

27:07.675 --> 27:08.765
view of citizenship.

27:09.145 --> 27:11.725
Um, it turns out that, that folks in these neighborhoods,

27:11.725 --> 27:13.405
in these communities, they understand their,

27:13.975 --> 27:15.805
their community, they understand their identity,

27:15.805 --> 27:17.405
they understand their belonging in much more

27:17.515 --> 27:18.965
complex and rich ways.

27:19.825 --> 27:22.925
Um, and so there's not just one way to be French.

27:22.925 --> 27:26.005
There's not just one way to be, a member of,

27:26.025 --> 27:27.165
of any of these cities.

27:27.665 --> 27:29.685
Um, there's lots of different ways, right?

27:29.705 --> 27:30.965
The suburbs out there

27:31.025 --> 27:32.925
and the history of these suburbs are like kind

27:32.925 --> 27:35.365
of a laboratory for, for, for French identity.

27:35.365 --> 27:37.445
They give us lots of other examples

27:37.625 --> 27:39.005
of the way people can interact

27:39.005 --> 27:40.685
and the way people can, can work together.

27:41.385 --> 27:44.285
And what I hope that really kind of pushes us

27:44.305 --> 27:46.525
to think about is the way that

27:46.525 --> 27:49.125
that meaningful solidarity has strengthened these

27:49.125 --> 27:52.125
communities, how their values can actually really be

27:52.525 --> 27:55.525
enhanced, become stronger, become more inclusive,

27:55.625 --> 27:56.685
become more flexible,

27:56.685 --> 27:59.205
and able to manage 21st century problems.

27:59.785 --> 28:03.285
Um, in Sini, one of the,

28:03.855 --> 28:05.645
there was conference held many years

28:05.645 --> 28:07.525
after I started this research, but they held a conference.

28:07.705 --> 28:10.805
The title was My Is Not the problem, it's the Solution.

28:11.025 --> 28:13.645
And I really think one of the, the biggest takeaways from,

28:13.755 --> 28:15.565
from this project should be the ways

28:15.635 --> 28:17.525
that the suburbs themselves

28:17.545 --> 28:19.925
and these experiences, these on the ground day-to-day

28:19.925 --> 28:23.085
experiences of, you know, French neighbors

28:23.085 --> 28:25.285
and officials as the title has it,

28:25.305 --> 28:27.045
and their North African neighbors, right?

28:27.105 --> 28:28.765
The way that they work with each other.

28:28.915 --> 28:31.965
That gives us a lot of potential solutions to any kind of,

28:32.345 --> 28:33.645
you know, problems or issues

28:33.665 --> 28:35.965
or tensions that we're seeing in the French suburbs today.

Local Migration Experiences in Paris Suburbs

00:00:00 - I came to this book because I was interested in how migration is experienced at the local level. I was really interested in day-to-day actions. So, you know, we think of migration, it's this big process that's managed by a nation state, but when people actually live the experience of migration, they do it from one community to another. So I really wanted to focus in on, on communities. and this started very early on as a, a doctoral dissertation about two Parisian suburbs. And there I was really interested in city policies and city politics. but I got a postdoc
00:00:33 - that I wouldn't necessarily recommend with a first book, but I decided to completely double the research base and to add, two suburbs from the LEO region to really bring in a new level of comparison. So it got a lot bigger. and one of the things that happened in addition to just having a different place geographically, is that having these extra two cities really forced me to think beyond just city politics. And to start thinking a lot about bigger questions about local activism, about local activators,
00:01:06 - what is it that motivated these people, particularly a lot of white French folks to argue for greater rights and welfare for North African neighbors? So the way I started the research, was, actually again, in 2005 as a, as a doctoral student, I, I, headed to Paris and I wanted to get out into the suburbs, and I started commuting out to ine. And this was in the fall of 2005. And about few weeks after I started going to the archives in ine, there was some major urban unrest
00:01:37 - to me that I was looking at a history that had a lot of direct bearing on the present moment. So that was one part of my experience in Sandee. The other thing that happened when I started going to Sandee is I realized that a lot of the stories I found, even in the first couple boxes, didn't line up very well with what I'd been reading in scholarship up to that point. it sort of diverged a lot from, the history of, of a particularly city level engagement. most studies said that, you know,
00:02:07 - And if they were, you know, it was, it was just to kind of get rid of them. And I found some evidence of that in some places. but I really found that something was a little different. So I was like, okay, now I have to figure out why this is so surprising, why there's so much time and energy in the city, and even funding being spent on, on North African migrants. I, and so what I did at that point is I said, you know, Senni is one of the, the sort of the, the, the big stars of the red belt that's around Paris.
00:02:38 - leftist aligned sort of workers party, cities that surround the city of Paris. and so most, because most of the suburbs of Paris are left-leaning, most of the work that's done is on left-leaning cities. And I was like, well, do we have, a right, you know, at least a centrist or maybe a Gales city, in the area that also did some work with North African migrants? And does that look different? So is this just a, you know, can I control for the political variable essentially? and so I ended up in, in Anya Socent,

Exploring Urban Dynamics and Migration in France

00:03:09 - the Metro 13 line goes north south and like one fork Northern fork goes to sand, and the other one goes to Anya. So Anya had a Gales mayor, and, it, it did sort of have some, some comparisons or, or some differences. And I was able to kind of look at, at what they did differently. What I did then was spend some time in the National Archives and the departmental archives trying to sort of build out this story, connect what's going on in these cities to the, the, the bigger national story. and then in 2009, I went to Leon, right?
00:03:41 - So nie also like Sni, a really strong communist aligned city. ban was not Gales. There were no Gales suburbs of Leon that I could find. but Ban had this mayor, in the period I was looking at from the, you know, the, mostly from the, the fifties and sixties, they had this mayor that was really sort of centrist, had been in the socialist party, got kicked out with really anti-communist, and kind of worked on that way as a, as a political difference. and what happened there,
00:04:11 - not just geographically, but thematically, is that turns out the city archives in and band just were not as robust as the ones that I found in, in Anya and, and Ani. and so I had to expand my focus, by spending a lot of time in the Rowan Department archives. I got a new cast of characters, so it wasn't just mayors and their, their city councils, but I started to see all of these other types of people who are getting really involved with North African issues. and I kind of follow those through.
00:04:43 - by then teaching a number of classes on histories of human rights, of humanitarianism of philanthropy. And that was what really started to push me to ask questions about activism, right? What are the roots, what are the motivations for this activism? Why are these folks so interested in, and committed to North African policy? And so the final book is actually organized around answers to that question, why are people involved with North African migrants? And we've got six chapters with six different answers to that. There's two really important historical trends that we need
00:05:14 - for the history I'm telling. One is the growth of the French suburbs themselves, and particularly how they intersect with migration. And then the other is the rise and fall of the overseas French Empire. So you've got the, the French suburbs sometimes called the, the, the French name. the French suburbs exist in a, a type of urban fabric or urban structure that's very different for someone from the us. It's a bit more familiar to European cities. But basically, French cities, for the most part, have these really beautiful, elite, lovely inner cities
00:05:47 - for the history I'm telling, we need to think about two sort of bigger processes and histories. One is the growth of the French suburbs, and especially how that interacts with migration. And the other is the rise and fall of overseas French Empire. So the French suburbs or the, the Lias, they're often called by their French name. are these sort of bans around the cities where, traditionally kind of less, less desirable people,

Migration Patterns in French Urban Suburbs

00:06:18 - So, European cities, especially French cities, have this, structure where the inner cities are the really nice elite, lovely historical parts of the cities, and it's the suburbs where you get, particularly a lot of working classes. And that's a very sort of old development, with industrialization. What that meant is that a lot of factories, which are big and not very pretty and quite smelly, a lot of times those got pushed out into the suburbs. And following those factories, of course, were their workers.
00:06:48 - that you have this really strong tradition of leftist workers parties around, in the suburbs, around Paris and other French cities. but something else that happens is that when the labor force is, is located in one area, that's where my migrants tend to go to, right? Most migrants are coming to work. and so you have all of these waves of migration, in, in French history coming in largely into these, these suburbs, particularly 19th and 20th century.
00:07:20 - who showed up, at least at first as colonial migrants. and it's worth recognizing that even before you started to have these colonial and post-colonial migrants, the fact that you have radical politics and lower classes assigned to these suburbs meant that those had already been coded as somewhat problematic, sometimes even dangerous even before someone like the, the North Africans showed up. So that's a, that's a longer trend already that North African migrants come into.
00:07:51 - You can't tell this story without thinking about French imperialism and then the experience of decolonization. So North Africans, other migrants from, the French Empire, started to arrive in increasing numbers, starting with the First World War, some increased during the, the interwar period, and then really huge numbers after 1945. one of the reasons that they're showing up, which is gonna play into the story a little later, right? One of the reasons they're showing up is that you have this massive reconstruction project, right? lots of France is destroyed during,
00:08:22 - And so people have to rebuild, literally rebuild, concretely rebuild the, the cities. One of the things to, to note here is that among North Africans, and among all of the, the kind of imperial migration flows we see Algerians are, are special. They have a special status. my book title refers to North Africans. I often refer to North Africans because so many folks on the ground continuously confuse Algerians with North Africans. but it is important for us to recognize that Algerians
00:08:53 - that's gonna play into the story. and Algeria was administered not actually as a colony, but as an integral part of France ever since 1848. And that's gonna change, the way Algerians are dealt with and the way that the decolonization of Algeria is dealt with. one of the big things for my purposes is that by 1947, Algerians had full rights of French citizenship. When they are on the French mainland, that means they can vote, which is gonna be important. something else that's gonna happen soon

Algerian Independence and French Welfare Policies

00:09:26 - and independence fighters and anti-imperialist are gonna launch the War for Independence. that war goes from 1954 until the formal recognition of Algerian independence in 1962. And over the course of that war, France is going to do a couple of things. One, they're gonna try to crack down on political activism among migrant populations, but the other thing they're gonna do is they're gonna run this Hearts and Minds campaign. They're gonna try to extend all of these welfare benefits, to Algerians to convince them that they're better off
00:09:56 - And so you have this massive expansion of, of welfare policies towards Algerians after 1962. That welfare system, and that migration system is expanded to all post-colonial migrants in France. And then after that, it becomes the, the foundation for the entire sort of French immigration system as, as it stands today. what that means is that there are a lot of lingering imperial structures, a lot of lingering imperialist ideas, many
00:10:29 - that affect the way we still see the, it affects the way that we talk about migration in France. It affects the way we see the suburbs. we understand, or the French often understand or talk about the suburbs, as, as places of racial and social difference and still, places of political danger. All that being said, right? All of the ways that we can understand these sort of long histories or these long threads that bring us to a place where the suburbs are a place of difference
00:10:59 - or dangerous, none of that means it's predetermined. And I think that's one of the most important things I I try to push throughout, throughout my work in this book and, and more generally, right? none of this is predetermined. None of it's inevitable. and one of the reasons that I really wanted to look at these local experiences and these local interactions within these communities is that within, in these very communities that are supposed to be the problem, we see a lot of alternatives to belonging, a lot of alternatives to community identity that persist throughout the same period.
00:11:31 - of the suburbs being a problematic space and the legacy of all of these imperial interactions, that's not the only history we have to deal with. There are other things that are going on the book, as I said, it's organized into six chapters, and each of those chapters looks at one set of motivation or justifications for why people are involved in arguing for North African rights and welfare. so first chapter, is on, i, I call it the mission to modernize. It's about sort of these urban renewal strategies,
00:12:03 - fairly negative story of, of French interactions with North African migrants. What we see here is a whole set of actors, and I can use any as one of my examples that I have some others, in, in any soen there's this massive renovation project of, of this northern neighborhood in the town where there had been, a number of, of North African migrants, and they built, what the French called the beetle view are these sort of shanty towns that, that are put together. I should say that not all North Africans lived in beetle

Displacement and Integration of North African Migrants

00:12:33 - but they come, they start to be understood as a North African problem. and so the, the is sort of facing the, this whole set of, or this whole set of neighborhoods that they're trying to, to renovate and bring into a modern, French suburban ideal. and what that involves quite a lot of is just displacing North African migrants. So you're gonna use migrant labor to rebuild, these areas. You're gonna get rid of all of the kind of slum
00:13:04 - re replace it with these wonderful new modern towers that are supposed to be better for everyone. Except in the process, you're also gonna try to move as many of those North Africans out of town as possible, out of the city limits. so there's a displacement side to this. for those North Africans who stay, there's also gonna be this really heavy program for reeducation. Most of them get put into these, so-called transitional housing centers, and I use the square scare quotes because the, the transitioning, is supposed to only be, you know, like a year or so, and it actually in many cases
00:13:34 - and figure out where to put these people. but in these, in these reha, these, transitional centers, you have a huge, push for, reeducation, really heavy surveillance, right? These, these folks are subjected, to all kinds of policies that are really meant, you know, the, the, the local ideas that they're going to be educated to be more civilized, to be able to be much more like their white French counterparts. those words are just so laden with, again, all
00:14:07 - but the idea is that they're going to, to, to be taught how to be good modern French citizens in these little, chrysalis of, of the transitional centers. And then they can, then they can be absorbed into, into French society, but only a few of them because we've gotten rid of a lot of them. So that's the first reason that people talk about North African welfare. They talk a lot about providing better housing, but that housing means, again, housing that's elsewhere, or housing, that has this really heavy surveillance and, and education component that's really troubled.
00:14:38 - Second set of motivations, is, is a political calculus. It's, the way that politics plays into this, and this is where we really get into what's going on in ine that was so surprising to me when I first got there. but the folks in Sandy are really, really involved with North African migrants. they're pushing a whole bunch of social policies right from 1946 onwards. not just housing. They're looking for employment opportunity for, for real education, not just trying to teach you
00:15:09 - and other forms of education, to be, better workers, better citizens, better able to take care of their own needs. they're pushing this sort of wider array of policies and, and they're doing so with language that's a lot more con inclusive. Now, part of that is it's a communist around municipality. North Africans are primarily workers, so they're members of the working class. So that's one really easy way that, that the Senate municipality can at least rhetorically pull North Africans into their discussions of, of what's needed.

Algerian Rights and Local Political Dynamics

00:15:40 - after 1947, Algerians have the right to vote. So not only are they fellow workers, their fellow workers who could actually vote for the communist, elected officials, right? So there, there's this cultivation of, of a voting block that's going on there. And then the third part of the political calculus that's really important in Sini is that as a, a really committed communist set of, officials, one of their main goals is to oppose the French State and North African migration issues turn out
00:16:12 - what the French state is doing wrong and to really push ideas of being anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, showing all of the ways that the French state is failing these people, and all of the ways that the communist, local officials can step in and, and fill that gap. so you've got this, this, this way that a politics of opposition is, is really important. So we have urban renewal ideas, which are, are, are largely racist in, in, or in their, underpinnings. You've got these sort of political calculation
00:16:42 - the next set, you know, I mentioned Empire a few times already, and, and empires is really at the heart of the book, the way that the empire kind of is the attempt, the French attempt to hold onto the empire and the way that we oppose the empire. So chapter three and four are, are those two sides. Chapter three looks at pro imperial stances, a whole bunch of local officials, whether it's the Rome prefect who's actually, you know, a representative of the French Republic, of the French State, or some, you know, some, some local folks who are running,
00:17:16 - complexes for these North African migrants. And what was really fascinating to me is that a number of the, these folks at this, again, very ground level, they're talking about the French Empire as something that they themselves are working for. The reason that we need to change housing policies for North Africans in Leo and the surrounding cities is because we have to hold on French, French Algeria.
00:17:44 - but that's very much what they're talking about, right? Like the glory of the French Empire is being protected by the police who are out surveilling the North African migrants who are working in the Leon region. and so, so that connection, you know, we know that the French state is interested in the empire. We know that there are these connections between Algerian welfare and, and trying to win the Algerian war, but really seeing how this plays out in the day-to-Day, and the fact that it just permeates so much of the, the,
00:18:14 - and the decision making for these local officials was, was really fascinating to me. The flip side to that, takes us back to, to Sanden, where again, have these communists who are staunch anti-imperialist, and, the, the mayor of Senni in 1951 starts talking about the need for Algerian nationalist, independence, which is, you know, that's before the Algerian war breaks up. That is way ahead of anything. The, the National Communist Party does. The, the French Communist Party does not necessarily have a, a a, easy

Local Activism and North African Migration Politics

00:18:47 - throughout this entire period. But the mayor of Senni actually does and is, is constantly understanding, you know, using, again, the idea of North African welfare as a way to critique the French imperial state right there, the French Empires failing these people on, on, on really basic level. but something else that's interesting that starts to happen in Nee is that their anti-war protests also become, anti-police protests. They start to, to really explicitly target
00:19:17 - So, racial discrimination, racial profiling that they see happening with North African workers, pro policies of detainment for these North African workers. And so they see and understand the police as being part of the French imperial forces in their city and their role as anti-imperialist as anti-war, activists. And as they understand it, at least, allies to, to, to, to local Algerians and other North Africans that keep being pulled up into the mix because of the racial profiling that their role as the,
00:19:50 - and oppose the French state. So both pro and imperial, pro and anti imperial motivations for getting involved with North Africans. Chapter five is about profit. you know, most migrants come looking for, for greater income for themselves, right? They're looking for economic opportunities. a number of North African migrants set up their own businesses, whether it's hotels or cafes, kind of the most common, but they do other things well. you have all of the folks
00:20:21 - you know, the better, the more stable these workers are, the better workers they will be. and finally, you have, one of my favorite cases in the whole book is this, landowner, right? You've got the people who are housing, like, who actually own the property that houses some of these North Africans. And there's this, businessman in, in one of the suburbs, suburbs of ol who in the, the late Sixties and seventies starts to become this amazing
00:20:53 - and what happens is that he was this landowner, he ends up building this set of housing, towers, that a whole lot of North Africans come and live in. and that set of, of housing tides called the Olivia DeSay Complex. this, this housing complex becomes a target of so much local anxiety. Like neighbors are freaked out, the mayor is really upset, the prefix is worried. there's this whole set of ideas about how concentrated migrant populations are really problematic
00:21:24 - And having a place that has, I think it's over 300 housing units, almost all of which are filled by North African families with something that they just couldn't handle. And so we started to go through all of these things trying to close this housing complex down, and in response, you have this businessman who I wanna be clear, he is trying to save his bottom line, right? Like he doesn't wanna go out of business. But the way he starts to argue, for this, he starts to launch this really, detailed critique of, of French migration policy and starts to make all of these claims about, you know, the,

Exploring Solidarity and Rights for Migrants

00:21:58 - with discrimination and prejudice and speaking for the need for, you know, much more racial inclusion. and so it's this, you know, kind of fabulous way that you see how powerful the language of, of migrant rights is of North African rights is in this moment, and it's being used for, for, for a reason that that's maybe not actually in the best interest of North Africans see fairly extortionist and its business practices. but, but that idea is still right. He's still making that that case in ways that are interesting. the final chapter is, is the one that looks at,
00:22:32 - We've got five chapters looking at ways that people are really using North African rights and welfare as a way to support their own sets of interests. the last chapter is on solidarity, and it looks at, primarily, a set of, Christian mostly Catholic, though some Protestant organizers, mostly around the Leon region, again, sort of thinking about communists. and then also looking at the new, more radical leftists that are emerging in the 1960s. and, and the way that all of these groups who
00:23:06 - beyond the nation state, right? They all have larger understandings of what community is and should be, and that all of them are, are trying to work, for the benefit of North Africans with at least some sense of, of real solidarity and, and some kind of human commonality. so there, there are some people who are at least trying to do to the right thing or, or acting, in the best interest of the, the North Africans. There are a couple of major takeaways that I, I really want
00:23:37 - one of the first ones kind of a broader theoretical one, which is that it's both important and useful to connect the super local to the transnational and the global. And if we wanna understand really big global processes. So there's a number of major takeaways that, that I hope people leave the book with. the first is, is a really broader, almost theoretical one, which is that to understand things that are happening at a global or transnational level, one of the best
00:24:08 - That there is a deep connection between very local lived everyday experiences and what's going on in kind of bigger world processes, whether that's migration or imperialism or decolonization or capitalism, that we get to see the way those play out, in a very local neighborhood, community, person to person interaction setting. and that that can tell us a lot about these bigger things and, and how folks manage moving through the world. Because we are both very local
00:24:42 - I think that it helps, you know, asking why people are motivated to do these kinds of things, to speak out on behalf, or work on behalf of, of migrant rights and welfare. understanding those motivations can actually help us towards better activism. So I think people reading this, a view to the present, should think about, you know, what are the main motivations of, of the folks in power and how can those ideas be used to get sort

Decolonization and Structural Imperialism in France

00:25:10 - And, and the, the book has a number of, of instances of, of North African migrants and their allies sort figuring out how to, how to make their case in the best way, knowing what kind of, what, what things are mattering to the, to the people around them or the people in power around them. Something that I think, should be clear through all of these answers, right, is how important the empire is. and that even after decolonization, France continues to experience what I call structural imperialism. We've gotten kind of used to the idea of structural racism, the way that, all of these, sort
00:25:45 - into laws, into policies. The same thing goes for empire. It's, it's really critical to me to, trace again, not only the way that, that the French migration system is built on top of this system that was created for Algerian and then other post-colonial migrants, but also that, that experience of empire at the local level, right? Folks who are again, on the ground running a housing association, running,
00:26:18 - They are taking some of these imperial ideas and they're putting them into the very ways that they are interacting, again, on a practical concrete, on the ground, daily level. And so imperialism, despite decolonization, despite all of the claims that, that the French Republic can make in the 21st century, right? There are still all of these imperial ideas and practices that are really deep inside, the way that urban policy, housing policy,
00:26:50 - Finally, those sort of two, two related things. I said earlier that one of the things I really wanted to do with this project was explore with alternatives to, to the kind of colorblind, supposedly colorblind French Republican universalist view of citizenship. it turns out that, that folks in these neighborhoods, in these communities, they understand their, their community, they understand their identity, they understand their belonging in much more
00:27:19 - and so there's not just one way to be French. There's not just one way to be, a member of, of any of these cities. there's lots of different ways, right? The suburbs out there and the history of these suburbs are like kind of a laboratory for, for, for French identity. They give us lots of other examples of the way people can interact and the way people can, can work together. And what I hope that really kind of pushes us to think about is the way that that meaningful solidarity has strengthened these
00:27:52 - enhanced, become stronger, become more inclusive, become more flexible, and able to manage 21st century problems. in Sini, one of the, there was conference held many years after I started this research, but they held a conference. The title was My Is Not the problem, it's the Solution. And I really think one of the, the biggest takeaways from, from this project should be the ways that the suburbs themselves and these experiences, these on the ground day-to-day

Building Solutions in French Suburban Communities

00:28:33 - and officials as the title has it, and their North African neighbors, right? The way that they work with each other. That gives us a lot of potential solutions to any kind of, you know, problems or issues or tensions that we're seeing in the French suburbs today.

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