Reinventing the Republic: Gender, Migration, and Citizenship in France

"Raissiguier makes a passionate and rigorus contribution to the contemporary debate on how traditionally universalist France treats and defines subjects who do not fall neatly within republican categoris. This is a compelling and timely study about who the right or power to symbolize Frenchness, showing exactly, how a Western democracy is forced to reevaluate its core values as it seeks to respond to significant changes in its social fabric."---Mireille Rosello, University of Amsterdam

"What a smart, engaging book, By taking seriously the experiences, ideas, and strategties of African women in France, Raissiguier makes visible the women activists inside the vibrant sans-papiers immigrant rights movement. She shows us why social movements cannot be understood without a feminist curiosity."---Cynthiaenloe, Clark University

"This book provides an insightful and much needed analysis of the sans-papiers-the women of the sans-papiers movement. Raissiguier persuasively argues for the exclusionary nature of French republicanism by exposing the links between the struggles of the sans-papieres and chose for parite and Pactes Civils de Solidarite; in the process, she shows how racism, homophobia, and sexism work together to create outsiders within."---Miriam Ticktin, The New School

Early one morning in 1996, the sanctuary of a Parisian church was suddenly disrupted by a police raid. A group of undocumented immigrant families had taken refuge in the church under threat of deportation due to the French state's increasingly restrtictive immigration policies. Rather than disperse and hide, these sans-papeirs---literally, people without papers---came together to bring to light the deep contradictions in the French states immigration policies and practices.

Reinventing the Republic chronicles the struggle of the sans-papiers to become rights- bearing citizens, and links different social movements to reveal the many ways in which concepts of citizenship and nationality intersect with debates over gender, sexuality, and immigration. Drawing on in-depth interviews and a variety of texts, this disquieting book provides new insights into how exclusion and discrimination operate and influence each other in the world today.

Catherine Raissiguier is Associate Professor of Womens and Gender Studies at New Jersey City University. She is the author of Becoming Women/Becoming Workers: Identity Formation in a French Vocational School (1994).