Christian Skaug Under et intervju som Emmanuel Macron søndag gav til Margaret Brennan under programmet «Face the Nation» på CBS News, sa den franske presidenten at Europa må dekonstruere sin egen historie. Som bakgrunn for det nevnte Macron at Europa består av land med kolonihistorie og mange innvandrere.
CBS-intervjuet av en snau halvtimes varighet berørte mange temaer, som koronapolitikk, klimapolitikk, Big Tech og krisen i Ukraina. Men også den pågående raseuroen ble berørt, og Brennan konfronterte da Macron med en tidligere uttalelse der han blant annet hadde sagt at Frankrike ikke er som USA:
MARGARET BRENNAN: OK, understood. Mr. President, race is a very heated topic in this country right now. And I want to ask you about something you recently said. France is a former colonial power, but you said in comparison of our two countries, «I’m sure of one thing, we are not the United States of America. We have a preference for equality that is not found in the US. Our values are not quite the same. We have an attachment to social democracy, to more equality.» What do you mean by that?
Brennans spørsmål gjaldt altså Frankrike, men Macron innledet svaret med å snakke generelt om at USA og Europa har «felles utfordringer» med spenninger i samfunnet:
PRESIDENT MACRON: I think the United States and Europe are – are facing common challenges, arrays of inequalities and hatred speeches and so on, and tensions in our societies.
Rase kommer på toppen av alt dette, sier Macron, og vi – fremdeles på Europas vegne – har ikke «fikset dette problemet», slik amerikanerne gjorde på 1960-tallet:
And race arrives, I would say on top of that, because we didn’t fix this issue. And this is an existing question in our society. In your society, you had segregation and you managed to precisely react and reorganize your society in the 60s with positive and affirmative action and new clear policies, in order to deal with this phenomenon.
Vår historie er annerledes fordi vi var kolonimakter og er land med mange innvandrere fra tidligere kolonier, fortsetter den franske presidenten:
Our history is very different because we were colonial states and we are now we are at the center and we were and we are still countries of immigration with a lot of people coming from former colonies and from, for instance, African continent.
Dette skaper spenninger, rasisme og diskriminering, erkjenner Macron:
And we have definitely this question of race, which is at the very core of our society, and creating a lot of tensions where when people basically are victims of discrimination and when people are pushing racist speech, racism or unacceptable speeches.
For å hanskes med dette foreslår presidenten flere tiltak, der det ene består i å dekonstruere vår historie:
My conviction is that we have to address this issue by first transparency and fair assessment. This is why I launched new platforms to fight against discrimination, racism and so on. Second, a quiet and open dialogue to understand how it happened and in a certain way to deconstruct our own history.
Både USA og Europa har traumer, konkluderer Macron. Europeerne må behandle sine traumer på sin måte:
But without any confusion, our histories are very different. The way we behaved in the past, the way we built our own trauma are very different, even if we have common phenomena. So I think we have – we need basically to go to the very roots of this phenomenon.
Man må eliminere rasismen og gjenoppbygge våre samfunns enhet, sier Macron, og i den oppgaven står bekjempelse av diskriminering sentralt:
But we need to launch new, concrete and determined policies to get rid of racism in our society. This is critical. But third, we have to rebuild the unity of our societies. And one of the big risks today is to be inefficient in dealing with discrimination and to, in a certain way, to push to the fragmentation in all societies by, I would say, encouraging a sort of construction where a nation would be the addition of different races or addition of different minorities.
Vi må ha enhet i mangfoldet, der all forskjelligheten anerkjennes, fastslår Macron.
I don’t think so. I think a nation is based on unity with differences, is based on unity of projects, and we should never accept the fragmentation of this project through all this difference and specificities. So what we need in a certain way on both sides of the Atlantic is a policy of recognition, building our unity by being more efficient against inequalities, against discrimination, and working for unity and recognizing all the differences. This is a huge challenge, but this is one of the critical challenge of our generation.
Den franske presidenten har altså et prosjekt for flerkulturell enhet, ikke bare i Frankrike, som var landet CBS spurte spesifikt om, men i hele Europa.
At flere europeiske statsledere for mange år siden fastslo at multikulturalismen har mislyktes, ser ikke ut til å gjøre inntrykk på Macron. Presidenten er klart tøffere mot islamismen enn sine europeiske kolleger, men han lever ikke desto mindre i en nesten utrolig ideologisk boble.
Mer politisk relevant er det kanskje at Macron har en essensielt antifransk innstilling til Frankrikes historie. Det kan koste ham dyrt politisk om et års tid.
