Negroes of the French Republic – Part 1

With a rare courage, Negroes and the French Republic exposes the ambiguities of race relations in France. Testimonies in the film reflect deep-seated misunderstanding and frustration. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Economist and the Financial Times, to name just a few, recently noted France’s unease if not hypocrisy about race relations (the myth of an egalitarian Republic that integrates individuals and does not recognize communities). Rokaya Diallo, one of the speakers, was identified by Times Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in France. Instead of heeding the complaints of people of African and Caribbean descent, mainstream France condemns those claims as “communautarism” and even separatism. By comparison, nobody in France has ever mentioned “separatism” during the yearlong insurrection of the Gilets Jaunes and the demonstrations of the nurses, while those protesters too were asking for more social justice and economic opportinity.