Troubling Mothers: Immigrant Women from Africa in France

Abstract

The father lives in cramped quarters with three or four wives and some twenty kids. He gets 50.000 francs ($7000) from entitlements (welfare) benefits without, it goes without saying, working. If on top of that you add the smell and the noise, the French worker – he loses his mind. — Jacques Chirac (Translation mine)

This outrageous statement uttered by a French elected official (the Mayor of Paris at the time) did not, like the recent comments of Senator Trent Lott in the United States, lead to his resignation from public office. Quite the contrary, in spite of the polemic the statement generated, Jacques Chirac not only retained his position but also went on to pursue his political career1 and to become the President of the French Republic in 1995. Jacques Chirac's successful run for office in the aftermath of his infamous "noise and smell" comment is telling in itself and warrants further analysis. Among other things, it highlights the deep contradictions (and hypocrisy) embedded within French politics and evokes what some commentators describe as the lingering blemish of French republican racism.2 In this paper, however, I want to focus on something else. Rather than analyzing Jacques Chirac's fate in French politics, I want to focus on a key, if evanescent character in the "noise and smell" story. Indeed, I want to zoom in on a background but extremely potent figure: namely the African Mother in the French-immigration-problem narrative evoked by Jacques Chirac in 1991.