(Applause)
Good evening,
“Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. “
This motto reasons like music
both sacred and familiar.
She expresses our attachment
to a common political heritage,
that of human rights.
She is associated with Enlightenment
but she has shadows.
The most visible shadow
is the one that lies in the shift
between the proclamation of the principles and their difficult application,
between formal equality
and actual inequalities.
How to understand the persistence of these discrepancies?
How to understand these broken promises?
For that, we must not stick to the how,
but ask us the question
the meaning of these principles in their relationship.
Brotherhood :
is it the condition or the consequence
the application of the principles of equality and freedom.
Should we recognize ourselves as brothers
that is to say, as similar
because belonging to the same family
so that we are legitimized to be equal and free citizens?
Or do we become brothers
because we are brought up as equal and free citizens?
There is a real question here:
that of knowing who are the brothers and therefore who are the non-brothers.
If the motto was not for the brothers but for the sisters,
and was thus formulated as follows:
“Liberty, Equality, Sorority”,
I think you would be many to think
that sorority is neither universal nor neutral.
Raise the taboo of the original sin of the Republic,
this original sin of fraternity,
it is to see that women were not the only ones excluded
of the French Republic.
If women have been out of politics
of this community of free and equal citizens
by being returned to their mission and their vocation
allegedly natural mother,
those we call a color
but that are actually referred to a lack,
the “non-whites”,
have also been assigned to this inability to be
beings of reason while taking a distance
compared to their natural vocation of savages,
savages chained in their instinct or their traditions.
As Aimé Césaire said,
non-brothers refer to these citizens not in their own right
but entirely apart
because white men have been in a position to have
this exorbitant and fundamental power
to classify what is political and what is natural.
They of course put themselves at the very top of the pyramid.
Where are we today
in French society at the beginning of the 21st century.
We are no longer in an era of exclusion
but in that of inclusion.
Of course we can rejoice.
The second half of the 20th century
played a fundamental role
towards access to equal rights.
Women are no longer legally minors.
They have the right to vote,
to be eligible,
to choose their job,
to manage their own property
but remember that if the ordinance
granting the right to vote and to stand for election has been signed
in Algiers in 1944,
Muslims of French Algeria
had to wait until 1958 to vote.
So today the good news,
is that all the French are full-fledged French citizens,
that there are 22 criteria to fight against discrimination.
We are therefore in egalitarian legislation.
For all that, do we live in an equal, equal society?
We are all denouncing wage inequalities.
On average, men earn 23% more in France than women
with 11% remaining unexplained,
let’s say the word,
which are the result of discrimination.
There is racist discrimination
as the “Trajectories and origins” survey shows in particular.
Religious discrimination,
especially when hiring, are very important.
A report from the Montaigne Institute that did a test job
shows that same CV
with signs that the candidate is Muslim,
will be four times less likely to have a return
a resume showing that the candidate is a Christian, Catholic man.
So, how to continue this path towards equality?
How to overcome these inequalities?
The answer in vogue today
is to say that to fight against discrimination,
to include these historical non-brothers,
you have to show at the same time
that’s right, of course,
but above all else it’s profitable.
In particular, there is a report that was made last September
by the economic analysis council to the government
and shows that fighting against discrimination in employment
would win hundreds of billions of euros.
It looks like a Happy End,
to a French Hollywood ending,
where ethics, politics and economics would go
spontaneously in the same direction.
So why sulk the pleasure and efficiency of this win-win?
Why do I come here to spoil the party?
There are three reasons:
the first is that these works showing that the mix is successful
are scientifically discussed,
that they are ideologically meaningful
and finally that they are pragmatically limited.
Very quickly,
any political decision tends to show its legitimacy
based on surveys,
if possible scientists, numbers.
You have, of course,
heard
from the fact that if Lehman Brothers had been Lehman Sisters,
there would not have been the crisis.
It came in particular from a research linking
between testosterone levels and risk taking.
This research showed that the more testosterone you had,
the more you take risks,
which is good in times of profit,
which in times of crisis created faster descents.
In particular, policy makers have seized this study,
strongly questioned in its scientificity,
to justify the quotas on the boards of directors,
to include women in decision-making by saying:
“Here, like that, there will be complementarity
between those who will take risks
and the others who will manage as a good mother. “
You still see there
point an ideology that is discussed
but that is very questionable:
that of biological determinism.
The very tempting slogans, of the type
“Women do politics differently, management differently,”
are actually with a very strong weight,
which is that of benevolent sexism.
Benevolent, since it includes instead of excluding
but he stays on the same model,
which is to include non-brothers for the same reasons that they were excluded,
that is to say, for their singularity, for their difference,
for their complementarity
and not because they are recognized as brothers and sisters.
In the same way,
you’ve all heard that diversity is good for business.
What does it mean ?
It means that again, we are in benevolent racism
but who plays on stereotypes.
You will tell me, in a period of global crisis, such as the one we live.
the end justifies the means.
No.
The means condition the end.
If you include, under performance condition, the difference,
you carry complementarity
and not equality.
You are effective,
but you are not effective at moving towards equality.
Which explains that in a pragmatic way,
at best you justify a good number two position.
It helps to understand what appears irrational:
why have we never had women heads of state?
You will say to me, “It’s normal,
it would not be a good ‘Father of the Nation’. “
We do not have women at the head of a parliamentary chamber either,
whether it be the National Assembly or the Senate.
But,
I am dishonest,
we had a woman at the head of the most valued newspaper in France,
The world,
an editor-in-chief, Natalie Nougayrède,
in 2013.
Yes, but it’s strange, she was nominated in partnership with Louis Dreyfus.
Ah!
In 2016, we had the election of Isabelle Kocher at the head of Engie,
the only woman currently running a CAC40 company.
Ah!
She too was nominated in partnership with Gérard Mestrallet,
non-executive chairman.
It is symbolic, we are told, because he has no remuneration.
Yes, it’s also symbolic of something else.
It is symbolic of a “Papa-Maman” model, very hetero-normative
where women can not be autonomous number one.
They are well in pairs since they complement.
The application of the so-called laws on parity
voted following the constitutional reform of 1999
are quite illustrative of that.
We have been obliged, a country of human rights,
to put in place binding laws
for us to have more than 5% or 10% women in the National Assembly
in particular.
We find ourselves today with as many deputies as adjuncts
in municipalities with more than 1000 inhabitants.
But if we look a little more precisely:
there are 80% of finance assistants who are men
and 85% of Family and Social Affairs Assistants
who are women!
So we are in a horizontal and vertical division of labor
where daddy stays up
and the mother completes it.
Do not succumb
the temptation to put the cherry of performance
on the cake of inequalities.
He is, in fact, both naive and cynical,
to believe that we can remove the cherry if it spoils the taste of the cake.
It will be too late, the cherry will have eaten the cake.
We are changing the model without assuming it.
Even the principle of equality is subject to market conditions and profitability.
Prove that the inclusion of non-brothers is profitable,
that the mix is powerful,
that the fight against discrimination is effective,
it’s justifying,
it is thinkable to prove that discrimination is profitable
and that, therefore, they become legitimate.
To resist that is to resist a double movement,
that of our heritage,
complementarity
and that of this pragmatism of times of crisis.
If we want to avoid delegitimizing equality,
let us have the courage to take the narrow door of unconditional equality,
neither brotherhood nor profitability.
It’s not about redoing or fraternity,
but to go beyond fraternity
to think of a republic
for all
which allows not to be locked in this equality under condition.
So what kind of alternative to this term fraternity?
We can think of “solidarity”,
we can think of “camaraderie”,
we can think of “adelphité” which comes from a Greek term
which is not connoted of these exclusions.
The challenge is to think of a living republic,
a republic that is not sacralised but is critical and constructive.
Do not lock us in a currency that is a currency
in the form of a republican mantra.
For that to live
a republic where freedom and equality are the thing of all,
let us liberate the equality of fraternity.
Thank you.
(Applause)
”
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