Liberté. Égalité. Fraternité. What is widely admired as France’s motto has been “swindling” everyone. Following the French Revolution, religion was outlawed, and France was “dechristianized” partly with the enactment of laws in favor of the State’s laicity. Yet, the people had replaced it with another opium in which they find comfort––the religion of “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”, an illusion, in which I do not quite believe. If a religion in any form is still present to pervasively blind our thinking, how can the people of France aspire to a so-called “Liberté”? The French Revolution has yet to occur or at least another one may be needed. Certainly, proponents of the Revolution will argue that it has led to the abolishment of slavery in France’s colonies and gave civil rights to some marginalized communities. I do not question this.
But I still do not believe in the “glowing” motto––carved everywhere in the marble of public monuments and schools––because no meaningful sense has been given to the words so loudly proclaimed. In support of this view, I will assert three observations.
First, Liberté we shall have, as long as it is constrained. France is drowning with stringent regulations. In a dirigiste economy, heavy tax levels weigh it down; inflexible labor laws make it harder for graduates; the cultural aversion to risk and inability to value failure disincentivize entrepreneurialism. Beyond that, the State regulates our freedom of movement: during the COVID pandemic, people were forced to fill out a paper authorizing and tracking their movements. More so, the government created a digital COVID-pass in an application that was supposedly created to protect our health. Rather it was a spy we carried from outside to our home. As Robinson remarked, the system crushes people. As a citizen, it makes us surrender to the State’s control. Some absence would benefit. As a child at school, it makes us surrender to the God-like teacher. At a French law school, there are no dissents but only the highest court. Have lawyers surrendered their voice?
Second, Fraternité we shall seek, as long as we are alike. While liberty and equality are defined as per rights or statutes, Fraternity stems from Judeo-Christian roots (Hebrews 2:12
“I will tell of your name to my brothers”). Ironically, despite the motto’s religious connotation, the State declares itself to be neutral (laicity). If brotherhood were ever embraced, how do we explain that some racial communities cluster together in the same neighborhood? Take Paris: the residents of the 18th, 19th and 20th arrondissements are almost all of Algerian and Maghrebi descent while the 16th arrondissement has exclusively residents from the French white “petite bourgeoisie.” This pattern is also replicated at university: friends of similar descent often tend to form a “clan” and stick together. It is also present in jobs from the delivery person to the member of the government. There are, occasionally, few exceptions. Consider Minister of Justice Christiane Taubira, born in the overseas department of French Guiana. Although she was offered an equal opportunity to others as a minister regardless of her race, she still faced racist attacks as her “equal” opportunity to rise in national politics expanded. Where was the brotherhood? Do we apply it to certain people and not to others? Is it a selective one? We pick with whom to be brothers and sisters despite a common nation.
Third, Égalité we shall be granted, as long as we fit in the standardized “can.” Here, I admit equality after fraternity seems like a confusing repetition. But let us say that equality is some strange variant of the fraternity principle. Botherhood might look at our interactions with others in society to embrace them as equal whereas equality focuses on how the government sees us as all “equal.” France’s model, as presented by politicians and varied institutions such as universities, is to provide everyone the same opportunities, regardless of any distinction based on race, origin, and religion. Such reluctance to recognize any difference is envisioned to protect “l’égalité de tous devant la loi.” (i.e., everyone’s equality before the law). This proposition naively assumes that equality before the law will lead to one in our social interactions, educational and professional possibilities. Aligned with a certain constitutional interpretation of its Republic, France has long been against granting specific rights or measures to “minorities” such as the American affirmative action (before
the Students for Fair Admissions, Inc., 600 U.S. (2023)), thereby rendering them non-existent. Invisible minorities remain inside the standard “can” in the equal or rather identical way as everyone else and struggle to fit in a can either too small or too big for them. Since in theory distinction is not supposed to exist, how is France able to combat discrimination and uncover underlying biases? In fact, it is not. Recent terrorists’ attacks and riots amid international events have divided the French society, fueling the population’s fear or hate towards minorities. As a result, there is growing tension between the so-called blind “égalité” and the racial, gender and cultural backgrounds faced with prejudice. The proposition that equal opportunities are offered to everyone is just illusion. For instance, it falls easily when looking at the consistent low percentage of women students
(roughly 30%) enrolled at l’ENA – the university for the members of the government (Liberation, 2020). If so little people from minorities enter university, does that mean that, despite equal opportunities to learn, these voluntarily chose not to enter? Is being given an equal opportunity, enough to be able to take it? There might be reasons not to, especially if the baseline is to become standardized and leave behind the richness of each individual’s background.
Liberté: I will be free, so long as limited in mind and ability
Fraternité: I will be your sister, so long as your twin in mind and body
Égalité: I will be your equal, so long as we both fit in the same can, can we?
Limited. Twin. In A Can.
I will never be far from evil.
This draft does the basic job well: it tells us what your idea is, and sets the range of your artillery. Your writing is clear and forceful. The routes to improvement therefore seem to me substantive.
Reducing the French Revolution to three words is surely impossible. There have been two empires and five republics since the calling of the Estates General. History is quite a bit more than a slogan. So perhaps the frame should be adjusted to fit the scale of the drawing. Similarly, to describe laďcité as the prohibition of religion seems to leave out rather a good deal of the last quarter-millennium in the hexagon.
Any society's primary myths are mythical. None will, or can, withstand a deliberate unpacking of its baggage. Every poem is hypocritical, if that's the way you want to read. A look at Raymond Williams' Keywords and Thurmond Arnold's Folklore of Capitalism might be good starting places for an effort to take interpretation in more sympathetic directions. I too have little sympathy for the bombastic quality of French self-assessment, much as I prefer the tragedies of Shakespeare to those of Racine. But we can make more for our own educations out of listening actively, despite the drums and the trumpets, than by responding as would Falstaff, with a fart.