The Colonial Essence of a Contemporary Policy: Towards a Fanonian Approach of Positive Discrimination in France

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to consider the trans-historic dimension of the discussions around positive discrimination in France with the aim to emphasize the origins and continuities of the phenomenon. Firstly, I consider how this practice of differentiation has a dialectic and contradictory relationship with the universalist and republican principles of France. I then demonstrate that some of the historical basis for this relatively recent policy are found in colonialism and slavery. Ultimately, I will face these issues from the vantage point of the concept of "reconnaissance" in Fanonian proposing an analysis through which positive discrimination is inscribed within a dynamic, not at all anachronistic, that insidiously reinforces and perpetuates the cultural and social hegemony of the traditional elites.

Keywords

• positive discrimination
• reconnaissance
• diversity
• history
• colonialism
• slavery
• modernity
• postcolonialism
• frantz fanon