France : A peaceful heaven ?

Chambre de commerce, Puducherry, Inde.

Dear South Asian, stop believing that France is a peaceful, social, economic and democratic heaven.
A life based analysis.

Why Indian people think that France is a wonderful country to live in and for ?

Born and raised in France with a strict and conservative Indian Tamil and Hindu upbringing, I always wondered why my parents would lie about France to their relatives in India.

It would physically manifest once a year. During the phase of packing for our 2 months of holidays. In June, my mother would accelerate into buying tons of items for her close relatives but also for people who would just pass by our home and for any necessity ie corruption.

The items bought fall into various but specific categories.

• Cosmetics : Nail polishes, scents from Yves Rocher, deodorants, hair clips, lipsticks, EAU DE COLOGNE

• Blue BIC pens

• Blue, pink and white dragées, chocolates : Suchards Rocher

• Tech stuff : Mp3 players

• Jewelleries : chains and small pendants
  
  

The random to-give package would consist of Eau de cologne, a handful of dragées and few BIC pens. For neighbors or distanced relatives.

There is a hierarchy in giving, sometimes my mother would give one or two BIC pens for drivers as I recall this souvenir, but not more.

Our suitcases would be full and match precisely the allowed weight in the aircraft. But still, we will all be stressed out until the hostess at the counter smiles at us and wishes us a safe journey.

The journey from home to the airport is itself a single topic to fully cover on its own.

To come back to the subject of this piece, all the items bought would come from markets, and cheap stores. My parents don’t buy from luxurious stores, not from Galeries Lafayette and other highly capitalistic brands. Not because they were conscious about it but they couldn’t afford it at all. They put all their yearly savings into buying their flight tickets. The rest of their purchases needed to fit in their budget.

They give to people back in India but struggle in France. Class/Race/Poverty dynamics ?

This is particularly striking to me because my mother would shower with gifts her relatives in India, but WE were living in a precarious state.

Every year this would repeat, buying all these gifts and items for friends and family. I saw changes in the requests that my aunt’s family - her sister- would make to my mother. They would request more expensive items every year.

One summer, my cousin asked for an Ipod which gave me the first signal that my relatives don’t have any clues about what they can ask. I do remember saying : “ An ipod ? Even ourselves don’t own one ?”

Another one, is from my uncle who asked my mother, shamelessly, to buy an expensive stethoscope to gift it to his friend and by that way to impress them with this “Veli naadu stethoscope*”

*(Abroad stethoscope).

As if this one would work better than what they have in India.

Every summer I would get angry at my mother who would keep bowing down to such ridiculous and selfish requests. Anger that expresses profound sadness and outrage.

Their requests wouldn’t take my mother's professional situation into consideration. Simply because they never knew what my mother was doing every month.

My mother works at the éducation nationale as cleaning lady in a high-school. She did climb up the social ladder, to some extent of course, from a small precarious contract to a fully stable one. My mother started to work for the very first time as a cashier at a supermarket. After that she entered the éducation nationale and worked as a cleaning lady through a precarious contract. In order to secure her stability she had to pass a national exam. I do remember helping her with studies and learning all about the several freezing norms for food used in cantins. She learned all the hygiene norms and the types of chemicals used to clean and so on.

She also saw a rise in her monthly revenues and saw it decline since she had to reduce her work to 80 %. Due to the hardships observed in her work, she developed serious hand pathologies that led to sometimes a paralysis of her right hand and arm.Through years I witnessed that evolution, it started with her finger and now covers up to her neck.

Thanks to who ? France ?

When my family members would ask my mother where she was working in France, she would give a blurry answer and would make people understand that she works in an office.

“Office work” in India is understood as sitting at a desk and behind a computer. Some intellectual and dignified work. No manual labour.

But all she did was hard manual labour.

She was ashamed of her daily job to the point that she never told the truth to her family.

As a kid, I was also ashamed of her profession, since society makes you think that there are undignified jobs such as cleaning. I would stay vague when it came to explaining her profession. Since she worked in various highschools, some of my friends knew what she was doing. We actually joined the same highschool at the same time. It was very complicated for me to see my mother almost everyday at work, I couldn’t breathe. I was under constant surveillance.

Going to work was not a choice of hers but a huge need since my father declined his part of his responsibilities and couldn’t bring more income to our home.

My family ,in India, still doesn’t know about all of it.

They think that my mother is comfortable in her job socially and economically. They think that we are rich and happy

I noticed that one of my uncles, her brother, never asked for stuff “made in France” in fact, he always rejected the French idea. My mother and aunt made us think that he had a poor mind and that he couldn’t appreciate this colonial gift of having a French passport privilege.

I heard recently that he saw the benefits that could procure such a passport and started to reclaim his rights for his daughters who seem to struggle in India. After all, he was elligible for it.

This idea of France is still hammered and resonates within more than one.

Of course, it is a classist point of view - but a conscious one- to say to people that they should stay in their country and find their own ways, locally. In a capitalistic society such ours, it is complex to cultivate what seems to be impossible. What is your paradigma, how do you see the world, success and economical growth ?

This is how most of tamil parents participate in the conservation of the image of a colonial France.

Abundance of healthcare, welfare and social benefits.

Relatives don’t know one single percent of what immigrants go through here. Systemic racism, constant humiliation, the economic glass ceiling, not being able to occupy high ranked positions without alienation etc…

I ,once, asked my mother, why doesn’t she simply tell the truth to her family. Her answer would be the same for all the questions I have asked.

“They will worry if they know how we suffer.”

Well, let them worry, because the situation is worrying. Why hide it? Pride, mmh makes sense.

Some people are ready to die for their pride but unable to see injustices and oppression around them. Life of most of the Indians from my family is built upon worries, rational and irrational ones.

I believe that it is actually better if her relatives know all the struggles and sacrifices so they start changing their mind about Europe and France. They can condition themselves into coming out of this French colonial prisma and think about how they can invest in their local environment.

This helps to think out of their poverty and survival schema.

Living in France is not a pleasurable experience for Indians and brown people, for anyone not white actually. This dreamy mindset is vastly found among Puducherry people. A former French colony, this city-state, has been the land of colonial experimentation and alienation.

A colonial administration that triggered people into selling their tamil names, identities and souls to France.

Stop believing that people live better in France than in India, types of oppressions are the same, forms of attacks happen differently.

Domestic violence, criminality, corruption, political dissidence, racism,sexism, classism, fascism, everything exists. Yes, you name it.

I was once asked if criminals existed in France.

A dimension that needs a full page of writing, is the pervasing antiblackness in the French society. South Asians and Asians don’t live the same oppression as black people do. In a country where being black equals to life discrimination, South Asian tend to fit and to erase their browness to match the white supremacy. Most of them are pro cops and security and don’t want to see the police state oppression. That’s what they are taught and this is what they want to see.

Alienation, Assimilation, Identity erasure.

I always say to myself, that it would have been better if my parents never came to France, they wouldn’t have suffered as much as they would in India. Like everywhere there are pro and cons.

In India, they would face casteism, interreligious struggles and poverty. Maybe it's better to deal with them in your own language. Seeking an answer to this question seems to be impossible.

By buying such cheap items, was it her way to counter her family. She used to say : “They won’t know, they will think it is only good since it's made in France*.”

*More like bought in France, because most of her stuff come from Morocco and China.

I don’t know how she sees people in India but is it possible that she might have adopted an occidental gaze ?

Well it’s not only her fault for perpetuating this way of thinking, it is anchored in the complex prisma of capitalism, racism, patriarchy, white supremacy and classism.

-nice serie of words that you should google-

Intergeneration trauma

French Indian children who grew up in such context, have also their classist and colonial gaze herited from their parents and the revolving values. It starts by despising their relatives and living conditions, saying that they don't know much in India.

The same children have integrated classism and casteism, they would display proudly their non dalit cast rank when talking to white French people. “ I am from xx caste, we are rich there”.

But when you ask them about casteism, they would tell you that they don’t know much, that we shouldn’t pay attention to this “archaïch system”. Lol. You can’t be that “anti-capitalistic” activist without learning what is going on in your “own” country around the caste system. It shows that children do repeat their parents behaviors, they perceive the class-caste ladder and the presence of such ranking but guess what, it is always easier to avoid that privilege discussion.

Where to start dealing with this "French Dream" ?

Stop believing that France is that untouchable pays des lumières where human rights aren’t violated. If you are new to this, monitor police oppression that is more and more covered in the media, it should bring you some sort of enlightenment.

Then inform yourselves about the French colonial empire. Don’t forget that France still possesses colonies.

Do you say Nouvelle Calédonie or Kanaky ? There you go.