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How the landmarks of French politics became blurred | Julien Etienne Recent politics in France provides many examples of 'ambiguation' – giving immoral acts a second meaningShortly after French president Nicolas Sarkozy took office he took the decision to increase his own salary by 170%. In a time of crisis, massive unemployment and quickly rising public debt, the fairness of this decision was questioned. To make it appear less immoral, Sarkozy's spokesmen explained that this was a measure of "transparency" to make the head of state's earnings known to all, and replace a habit of secrecy.This is an example of ambiguation, the process by which an immoral act is given a second meaning, which attenuates the act's immorality. Ambiguation makes judgment on what is immoral behaviour – and what is not – more difficult, and enables violations of moral principles to happen and remain by and large uncontested. The term was coined by Lawrence Lessig, currently a professor at Harvard University, who argues that producing ambiguity can help to weaken moral rules.Politics in France over the past few years provides many examples of ambiguation designed to justify and enable the successive blows the current French government has struck against the principles of separation of powers, press independence, rule of law, fairness, or separation of church and state. The long-lasting apathy of the French vis-à -vis these attacks on the country's fundamentals, quite unlike their response to pension reform, suggests that ambiguation efforts have been generally effective.Another recent case involves a legal change voted in last year, which gave the French president the power to choose the head of public TV and radio. Many emphasised there was a danger for the freedom of the press, as there would be a direct hierarchical link between government and important TV and radio channels, with audiences of several million. Again, Frédéric Lefebvre, the UMP spokesman, explained at length how this was an act of "clarity" to replace a nomination process rigged with "opacity" and subject to suspicions of political influence. This change was therefore a "true democratic progress", he argued.The greatest success of ambiguation in France to date is the whole debate that preceded the prohibition of the Islamic veil in all public schools in March 2004, one that began while the Socialists were still in power, but has been further developed by the right ever since. To make the ban morally acceptable, both leftwing and rightwing politicians and so-called "intellectuals" redefined the act of wearing a veil at school as a threat to "secularity". The meaning of secularity in French politics was defined in law in 1905, which demands from the French state and its representatives an absolute neutrality towards all religions. Though pupils are not representatives of the state, that did not matter to those who argued in favour of the ban: they claimed that the veil violated the principle of secularity anyway.One of the reasons why ambiguation was so successful in this case was repetition. In the same way that repeating time and again that Barack Obama is a Muslim has convinced a significant minority of Americans that these statements are true, repeating that wearing a veil was a violation of the principle of secularity has convinced a large proportion of the French that it truly is one. And thus secularity has become a principle that applies to pupils and other civilians, who are now also expected to conform with the principle of religious neutrality that applied previously only to civil servants. Religious freedom or tolerance, invoked by opponents of the ban, have been framed as beside the point: the point is the defence of secularity.Because they invented a link between secularity and civilians wearing a veil, a link that did not exist before in France, politicians and "intellectuals" have successfully "ambiguated" not one but two types of behaviour. On the one hand, wearing a veil has become an ambiguous act, bordering on defiance. On the other hand, discriminating against veiled women has also become an ambiguous act. Consider the case of a policeman who last April fined a female car driver because she was wearing a veil, or the recent case of a kindergarten's head who fired a member of staff for the same reason and in the name of secularity, or the even more recent one of a French woman who tore a veil from the face of an Emirati tourist in Paris. Are they racists or activists at the forefront of secular progress? Nothing is quite clear anymore.Ambiguation has not only made discrimination against Muslim women easier because it is seen as less immoral. It has also considerably blurred the landmarks of French politics. Historically, secularity had been mostly defended by the left and the centre, and challenged by the Catholic right. But during the campaign for the March 2010 regional elections, Marine Le Pen, daughter and likely successor of the leader of the far-right party Front National, could claim she was "one of the last defenders of secularity in France", while the party's campaign was all about banning minarets and burqas.This evolution is unprecedented, suggesting that the successful engineering of moral ambiguity may be one of the key processes that enable the current shift of France – along with many other European countries – to the far right.FranceIslamReligionNicolas SarkozyJulien Etienneguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
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