How Race Repertoires Shape the Prevention of Femonationalism: A Comparative Approach of Anti-street Harassment Policies in Britain and France

This article analyses the policy-making process around public sexual harassment in France and Britain by focusing on the role of ideas on race and racism (Bleich 2003, Ciccia and Lombardo 2019). Building on the insight that “new policies creates new politics” (Schattschneider 1974), it tries to understand why British and French policies gave rise to different framings and anti-street harassment politics. When, in France, the debate around street harassment has displayed various forms of racialisation of sexism both by policy-makers and nationalist and far-right actors, the political discussion in Britain has not shown such a salient racialisation of sexism as in France. Why have the two countries taken such different directions on the very same issue? To understand the contrasting policy framing of public sexual harassment in France and Britain, this article proposes to explore how conceptions around race and racism contribute to shaping the policy in terms of racialization of sexism, upon which femonationalism relies. In particular, it aims to demonstrate that a blind spot on racism in policy-making against gender-based violence is more likely to lead to femonationalism. To this end, the article first relies on an interview fieldwork with policy-makers, institutional actors – including “femocrats” (Eisenstein 1989) – and feminist activists in both contexts (N=54). Second, it draws on a long-term participant observation carried out as a volunteer in a UK-based feminist collective campaigning for the criminalisation of public sexual harassment. The data is complemented by a critical document analysis and social media postings. The article shows that the race-neutral repertoire in France (Bleich 2003) has led to ignoring the risk over racial targeting in the criminalisation of street harassment. Such a context paved the way to femonationalist appropriations (Farris 2017) and provided an opportunity for far-right activist to advance their agenda. In contrast, the race-conscious model prevailing in Britain, alongside the anti-racist machinery, has led to greater consideration of this potential racialised outcome in the policy-making process.