Pergamon History of European Ideas, Vol. 19,Nos 1-3,pp, 71-78,1994 Copyright (0 1994 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0191-6599/94 17.00+ 0.00 zyxwvutsr ATAVISMS AND NEW CHALLENGES: (RE)NAMING THE ENEMY IN CONTEMPORARY FRENCH POLITICAL DISCOURSE VIRGINEE GUIRAUDON* INTRODUCTION zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWV Que dire, si cette chosen’estpas t!trangPre seulementet d@ rente, maisennemiel Jules Michelet, Le ParpIe’ In February 1992, a hundred prominent political figures stated in a petition that they no longer wanted the national anthem to include lyrics thr~tening to “drench our fields” with the “tainted blood” of foreigners who, “cut the throats of sons, wives and kin.” The controversy is representative of France’s wrestle with the exclusionary character of the Revolutionary heritage which, notwithstanding, constitutes the basis of its notion of citizenship and national identity. It was during that time that the terms “enemy” and “foreigner” blossomed in the rhetoric of the nation-state. Phrases such as the “enemy of the people”, the “‘enemy of the patrie”, were interchangeably used to designate adversaries of the Revolution abroad and at home. Robespierre, for instance, warned: “Are the most numerous and dangerous of our enemies at Koblenz? No, they are in our midst.“2 Even Jean-Marie Le Pen duly exploited the reliance of the republican idea of nation on enemies and he appropriated the vocabulary of the Revolution: “TO denounce the foreign menace of two centuries ago is commendable . . .as long as one does not forget the dangers threatening citizenship and the French nation today.“3 French politicians are faced today with a new deal on the inte~ational scene. Enemies abroad have been elusive although some atavisms persist as is exemplified by the French concern that Germany, the old enemy, the necessary friend, could become a new threat in the European balance of power. However, it is the treatment of the “enemies within” which has dominated political debate in 1980s France via the immigrk issue.4 The 1980s in France have displayed the convergence of two types of French nationalism, a Republican and an extremist one-or, as Michel Winock put it, an “open” and a “closed” one.s This is not the first time in French history that, in times of crisis, bridges have been built between the two yet one must examine the causes and features of this particular tacit rapprochement.6 One needs to relate the evolution of the discourse on immigration to the questioning of the historical paradigm of French integration known as “the Republican model” from within the state apparatus and from new political forces. In this fashion, one may *Department of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.