12.07.2021 – 08:55
Elle magazine is best known for its beauty tips, fashion recommendations and recipe ideas, but the latest issue in France contains what could be one of this year’s most important political statements.
In an interview with Emmanuel Macron, REVISTA asked what he thought of ‘identity politics’. His response was strong, a welcome change. “I see a society that is progressively racizing itself,” said the French president, adding that “the logic of termination breaks everything.”
It is not the first time Macron has entered the culture war.
In June last year he was an exception among Western leaders at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests stating unequivocally that ‘the Republic will not erase any trace, or any name, from its history… you will not remove any statue . ‘
Then in the autumn he angered a large part of the Islamic world at the start of a determined defense of the principles of the Enlightenment after a teacher in France was beheaded by an Islamist for displaying a caricature of the Prophet in the classroom.
Unfortunately, Macron’s words were greeted with a stony silence by many of his British and European counterparts, reinforcing the impression that Macron was waging a single war against the Islamists.
His latest contribution will give him more respect among those concerned about where identity politics is leading the West.
“I’m on the universalist side,” Macron told Elle.
In particular, the president explained, he did not have time for the unfair concept of the much-loved ‘white privilege’ between identics in America and Britain.
“I can introduce you to young white people named Kevin, who live in Amiens (Macron) or Saint-Quentin, who have great difficulty – for various reasons – finding work,” he said. ai.
Macron then made a statement which would be considered heresy in the eyes of most social justice fighters claiming that, according to him, ‘social difficulties are not uniquely structured by gender and skin color, but also by social inequality. ‘
He was also questioned about the ongoing debate over whether teenage girls should be allowed to wear t-shirts at school. ‘Anything that creates an identity has no place in school.’
Some on the left, however, mocked Macron. Liberation – the Guardian’s Galician equivalent – was offended in his comments about the peaks of cultures, accusing it of being a ‘dilettante’ on the issue of feminism. The head of the far-left France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who earlier this year was called an ‘Islamo-Gauchist’ by Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer, said: ‘So now we have two thinkers about dressing up. women… Ayatollah Khamenei and Macron. ‘
None of them will bother Macron.
Anyone who is elected as the Republican candidate in next April’s election will know that the Wars of Culture will only gain a significance between now and the election, something that will suit Macron.
He sees the politics of identity for what it is – a dangerous, divisive and deceptive force and is not afraid to say so.
Translated and adapted by The Spectator / konica.al
