Oiseux debate on national identity in France
The French population numbered 64.3 million inhabitants on January 1, 2009 (mainland and overseas territories). The fertility curve, which had reached two children per woman in 2006, had fallen very slightly in 2007, a decline with no future since French women broke a record again in 2008, with 2.02 children per woman, which brings France’s natural generation renewal threshold ( 2.07). Just two children per woman would not be enough, because more boys than girls are born each year, and some of them die before reaching childbearing age. France confirms its place as European champion of babies, with Ireland. The European average is around 1.5 children per woman, with several countries below this average such as Germany, Spain, Portugal and Poland having a rate close to only 1.2. This dynamism led to a number of births in 2008 never reached since 1981: in 2008, 801,000 children were born in mainland France and 33,000 in the overseas departments. The natural balance, that is to say the difference between the 834,000 births and the 543,500 deaths, is therefore very high, at 290,000 people. The increase in the French population, estimated at 64.3 million inhabitants on January 1, 2009 (mainland and overseas territories), is mainly explained by this natural balance, to which is added the migratory balance of 76,000 people. Immigration also plays little role in France’s fertility rate, according to INSEE, where the contribution of mothers of immigrant or foreign origin to the fertility rate is estimated at 0.1 point. fertility of 2.02. In fact, their number of children is slightly higher. (Le Soir 01/17/2009)
This is a very suspicious demographic report. INSEE, let us remember, is a state body in a quasi-monopoly position, and perfectly susceptible to manipulation.
This report is suspect first of all because it fuels the populationist and pronatalist campaigns of the French state. These ideologies, let us remember, believe in numbers as a factor of power. If the French campaign was lost in 1940, it was due to an insufficient number of men. It does not matter if History has demonstrated that the expansion of the State is itself the cause of demographic decline. It doesn’t matter if war has become a technological affair. It was necessary to fill the barracks and factories, then later lower wages and recreate a proletariat docile to the leaders – even if it ultimately proves unstable -, which allows them to perpetuate the old modes of authoritarian governance.
Then, this type of report is accompanied by chatter which is intended to be reassuring as to the scale and consequences of immigration. INSEE regrets that the prevailing image is of a France in demographic decline, taken by storm by a rising wave of immigration. And yet, its report does not report “French fertility”, but the fertility of women living in France. However, it is necessary to distinguish families of European origin from families of African origin, the latter having a fertility rate greater than 3, which implies a rate corrected downwards for the former (the only valid reference rate in relation to other European countries). You also have to look elsewhere than in INSEE statistics to discover, for example, that the department with record fertility is Seine-Saint-Denis, and that in this department 40% of births are to foreign mothers. In addition, the ethnicity of the father is not taken into account in this fertility calculation. However, inter-ethnic unions where the woman is of European ethnicity are much more frequent than those where the father is of European ethnicity. This is the sordid side of the Phocaean myth – ethnic disloyalty becomes the founding myth and common practice of a city, a people, a nation. We can therefore assume that a large proportion of these so-called “French” births are largely attributable to mixed couples where one parent is from an immigrant background.
Finally, ethnic statistics, confused by the legal system, are incomplete or poorly documented, given the prohibitions imposed on them and the absence of quality social science research. They do not count a Turk of German nationality who came to settle in France, for example, and do not take into account the second or third generation resulting from immigration.
Evaluating on the contrary, as Gérard Pince did, the current stock of ethnic French and Europeans, seems more relevant. We indeed have a precise starting point: that of the population in 1946 (40,246,742), knowing that foreigners and immigrants were then 88% of European ethnicity. We add to this initial population the natural increase (excluding immigration) until 1974, the date of family reunification, and we obtain 49,105,699 in 1975. We then apply to this last figure, the natural increase rates of three French departments where immigration has until now remained negligible (Manche, Deux-Sèvres and Vendée). In 2008, we thus reached 53 million inhabitants for the population of European ethnicity. As INSEE estimated the overall population of France at 62 million in 2008, the result is that black, Arab and Asian ethnic groups represent 9 million people at that date, to which must be added some 500,000 illegal immigrants.
The result of this method corresponds to daily observations. The real demographic assessment is that of a population substitution.
In this context, we can only smile at the French government’s new initiative on “national identity”. Does he really believe that a series of conferences in the prefectures will convert “young people” from the suburbs to “republican values”? It would still be necessary to show how these so-called values would distinguish this country from any other Western country. France is a country that has represented the nation-state par excellence – it is the oldest of them. It suffered a rapid reduction in status which made it a medium power, whose attributes of sovereignty have almost all disappeared: borders, the franc, military service… It is experiencing in a very painful way its insertion into a European whole that she had conceived unconsciously as an extension of herself, and to which she must in fact comply. Add to this the massive arrival of populations who are difficult to submit to the norms of traditional Frenchness and you see that the country combines with rare intensity all the parameters of an identity disorder. National identity is a political fiction created by nation-states. But to bring this fiction to life, we need a plausible basis of ethnic identity. However, the latter no longer exists today.
