Le Point: Instead of talking about ” great ethnic replacement “, a topic on everyone’s lips today, you prefer to talk about ” great experience “. Aren’t these two sides of the same phenomenon, one pessimistic, the other optimistic?
Yascha Mounk: The great exchange contains three ideas: that the ethnic diversity
of our societies will come to a bad end; that it is a conscious decision by the elites to eliminate the “ethnic” people; that it can be reversed if you change your policies. While the demographic change we are experiencing is a crucial challenge, its outcome can be positive if responded to appropriately. Second, the Great Experience is not a test on our population, but rather a process that has been set in motion since the 1950s without anyone making a conscious decision to do so.Thirdly, it is unrealistic to attempt to undo history.
Is this irreversible?
Our countries are already multi-ethnic. The only way to put an end to this movement would be extremely cruel: civil war or the expulsion of our compatriots. The big picture experiment is to realise, as we did after the French Revolution, that we don’t know exactly how it should work, but that it must work. The philosopher Pierre Manent has proposed in “Situation de la France” to make a treaty with French Muslims – a departure from the republican view.
Is this a way to make the great experience a success?
No. The idea that a citizen’s social status should depend on his or her ethnic origin or religious beliefs would amount to what the French are sometimes quick to point out: a betrayal of the values of the Republic. And if you look at history, conflicts do not become milder in societies where the civic status of individuals depends on their ethnic or religious background. We have seen what this has led to in Lebanon. Not least because it makes permanent social divisions that are tied to a particular era. Instead, we should interpret our basic principles in such a way that ethnic or cultural minorities can really be part of a society – for example, that one can feel fully French without feeling that one cannot be fully Muslim at the same time. Le Point