On March 7th the Institute of European Studies at UC Berkeley hosted Dr. Rachel Jean-Baptiste, the Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden Family Professor in Feminist and Gender Studies at Stanford University. Jean Baptiste’s presentation, “I am French: Métis, French Africa, and the Reconfiguration of French Citizenship in the Twentieth and Twenty First Centuries,” showcased research findings from her 2023 book on Multiracial Identies to an audience of 10 students, visiting scholars and law professors.
Jean-Baptiste explored the experiences of African women who had mixed-race or métis children with French men in French colonial Africa. Although there are less then 5000 members of the métis population across her cases, Jean-Baptiste’s micro-history of this group shed light on macro-trends in French citizenship. Claims-making by multiracial Africans intent on accessing the benefits of French citizenship through European parentage relied on a hierarchical concept of EurAfrica. An EurAfrican sensibility and discourse expressed by French politicians and colonial administrators and echoed by métis upheld a vision of Africa as an important and dependent appendage of Europe. Jean-Baptiste underscored that while mixed-race Africans sought French citizenship, this was not an anti-colonial movement, rather rights were sought within the bounds of the colonial order and through appeals to cultural affinity with France. In short, these claims were not necessarily about political rights, rather they were based on social status and social benefits.
For example, Jean-Baptiste discussed the example of métis with records of military service from the first World War who had demanded to be organized with white army corps instead of among native (African) corps given their European parentage. The claims of métis thus revealed a color-conscious logic to French citizenship among colonial officials rather than a color-blind notion. Legal cases show that for mixed-race Africans to access French citizenship, it was not French paternity that was determinative rather, German, Belgian or any European “white” nationality of the father counted for claims recognized as legitimate in French courts.
Jean-Baptiste’s lecture also spotlighted the city of Brazzaville in French controlled Congo as home to several currents of social and political organizing. Mixed-race Africans such as Joseph Deemin founded the Amicale des Métis and rubbed shoulders with African nationalists such as Andrée Blouin (métis) and Sékou Touré who were developing anti-colonial movements against French rule. At the same time, Charles de Gaulle and other members of the resistance to Vichy dubbed Brazzaville the capital of Free France.