But this binary logic cannot adequately explain the intricacies of the Republican position, for as

Gary Wilder has argued, French Republicanism simultaneously contained both universalizing and
particularizing elements. This doubled vision of the citizenry is reflected in the medico-scientific
communitys concurrent use of assimilationist and organicist metaphors. As a result, men of science
could assert the irreducible differences of people of colour and the impossibility of their assimilation,
while at the same time maintaining that the French race was a mixed race, and that traditionally
Republican methods of assimilation would suffice for white Europeans Reproducing the French
Race, Elisa Camiscioli. P 92

Parit book review by Catherine Raissiguier
Scott reminds us that focusing on difference (or similarity for that matter) is always a flawed strategy
within the logic of the Republic, which historically has seen difference as not amenable to
abstraction and therefore not intelligible within French universalism
By figuring the abstract individual as always already sexed, the paritaristes managed to write women
into the logic and the reach of universalism. And, by insisting that the abstract individual is always
male or female (an invocation of universal anatomical dualism), they succeeded in erasing sexual
difference from the list of meaningful categories within French politics. In a strikingly original and
paradoxical move, Scott writes, the paritaristes sought to unsex the national representation by
sexing the individual
- what of trans people? Women are made sense of as sexed but abstract individuals very easily
placed into a single pigeon hole, with the attendant social rules and expectations. Its easy to make
sense of women like that, women as mother, women as other. Whereas trans people pose a much
bigger threat to French republicanisms reliance on the binary they exist outwith the binary,
therefore how are we supposed to regulate their citizenship?
McCaffrey argues that sexual citizenship can existin theory and in practiceby removing sexuality
from the private sphere and, in the process, exploding the privatepublic prerequisite to republican
citizenship (lesbian and gay folks in France are free to be gay in the private domain but cannot claim
representation and inclusion on the grounds of their sexual orientation and/or specific experiences
of discrimination)


The French Republic resting as it does on the three central tenets of libert, galit, fraternit as
enshrined in the second article of the constitution, raises the questions: libert for who? Egalit of
what? And fraternit (under what condition?). My primary concern in what follows will be to show
that French republicanism relies on a universalism that in turn relies on an unfaltering commitment
to binary divisions; male/female, heterosexual/homosexual, self/other. Beginning with an
examination of the experience of French women, I hope to illustrate that rather than a broad
egalitarian outcome, this binary divide privileges one and punishes the other, constructing the other
as deviant compared to the original before reincorporating this abstractly constructed subject back
into the universal. This reincorporation of an sexed but abstract subject, as Christine whasserface
calls it, means that the Republican state can make a kind of uneasy peace with initiatives like parit,
but I hope to go on to demonstrate that issues of gender and sexuality which challenge the
fundamental binary on which the Republic is built, in fact challenge the structure of French society
and have therefore not been so easily dealt with on a legislative level.
Amy Mazure
No intervention in terms of parental leave only just introduced daddy month. Only way the state
has ever intervened in the gender dynamics of families. Actually this re-universalising of women has
meant that they are still treated as mothers (so family policy never aimed at men before this daddy
month = a month that has to be taken out of the 3 years after the 2
nd
child, otherwise it is lost).


https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/776/3/Sexualities%20PACS%20final%20pdf.pdf.txt
This is due to the vexed question of the status
accorded to all minority groupings within the French Republic, insofar as these
groupings are viewed as having any influence or effect on broader societal structures
and developments. Broadly speaking, this vexed question arises from the possibility
for two interpretations of the famous constitutional requirement for all citizens of the
Republic to possess equality before the law which forms part of Article 1 of the
Constitution of the Fifth Republic.
On the one hand, there is a strict interpretation of republicanism, and Article 1
in particular, which recognises no cultural difference on any grounds and, indeed,
which envisages any such difference as a threat to the cohesion of the nation
On the other hand, however, there is also a body of thought which seeks to
work towards a renewal or a renegotiation of French republicanism in order to ensure
its relevance to the realities of contemporary French society (Fassin 2001; Fabre and
Fassin 2003; Foerster 2003). This view has been articulated by a number of figures in
the political and public arena, resulting in a belief that France must rethink itself
3
(Dahomay 2002) According to the sociologist Michel Wieviorka (1996): The French
republican model is less and less workable, its values of equality and solidarity can
only be applied with difficulty. Wieviorkas aim is not to offer a single possible route
for French republicanism to follow, but rather to encourage a lively and open debate
on its contemporary evolution and reinterpretation which he considers crucial to a
broader renewal and revitalisation of the political sphere in 1990s France




Can and should a woman friendly state exist?

, Fraser distinguishes between three different visions for achieving gender equality within welfare
states. Frasers rst ideal type is the universal breadwinner model, which aims to universalise the
breadwinner role., thus emphasising gender sameness. The second ideal type, according to Fraser, is
the caregiver model, which keeps care work in the family context and seeks to revaluate informal
care work through public assistance, such as caregiver allowances. It preserves the gendered division
of caregiving and breadwinning, but seeks to make gender difference costless and to upgrade
women to the status of citizen caregivers. The third ideal type, the universal caregiver model, aims
at removing gendered segregation by making womens life patterns the norm for both women and
men

France displays elements of the universal breadwinner model (helping mothers get back into work,
etc.) = universalising = gender sameness. But this is considering citizenship through the lens of a
capitalist productive workforce model.