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RACISM

France’s first mixed-race Joan of Arc hit by torrent of racist abuse

The French city of Orleans has for the first time named a mixed-race teenager to play folk heroine Joan of Arc for annual festivities, prompting a torrent of racist abuse from far-right social media users.

Published: 22 February 2018 16:14 CET
France's first mixed-race Joan of Arc hit by torrent of racist abuse
AFP/screengrab Est Republicaine

Mathilde Edey Gamassou was chosen among 250 girls Monday to play Joan for a spring festival marking the victory of the Catholic warrior saint in breaking the English siege of Orleans in 1429.

The 17-year-old, whose father is from Benin and whose mother is Polish, is set to ride horseback through the central city dressed in armour for an annual celebration dating back nearly six centuries.

But the announcement has been met with a flurry of posts on Twitter and on far-right websites branding her nomination an exercise in “diversity
propaganda” and an attempt to re-write French history.

“Joan of Arc was white,” read one Twitter post. “We are white and proud of being white, don't change our history.”

Another comment, on anti-Muslim site Resistance Republicaine, complained:

“Next year, Joan of Arc will be in a burqa.”

Women's equality minister Marlene Schiappa stepped into the row on Wednesday, offering her support to the student.

“The racist hatred of fascists has no place in the French republic,” she tweeted.





'Chosen for who she is'

Benedicte Baranger, president of the committee in charge of picking a girl for the honour, said she was saddened by some of the reactions.

“This girl was chosen for who she is, an interesting person and a lively spirit,” Baranger said.

“She responds to our four criteria — a resident of Orleans for 10 years, a student in an Orleans high school, and a Catholic who gives her time to others.

“She will deliver our French history to everyone, as have previous Joans before her.”

Orleans mayor Olivier Carre also rushed to the teenager's defence.

“In 2018 as for 589 years, the people of Orleans will celebrate Joan of Arc played by a young woman who shows her courage, faith and vision,” he wrote on Twitter.

“Mathilde has all these qualities.”

Aside from her school work, Gamassou is a student of opera at the prestigious Orleans Conservatory and is learning to fence.

When asked by the Est Republicaine newspaper whether it was important that this year's Joan of Arc was mixed-race Mathilde shrugged her shoulders and said: “It's not really important. She can be white or mixed race, but what is important is that she's French.”

The end of the brutal six-month Siege of Orleans was a turning point in the Hundred Years War between France and England and the first major French victory.

Over the course of the war between 1337 and 1453, England lost nearly all
its territories on the other side of the channel.

Joan of Arc, who was burned alive at the stake in 1431, is a heroine for many in France but is particularly venerated by the far-right as a symbol of national resistance.

DISCRIMINATION

‘Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority’: Truth commission releases report

The Swedish state should issue a public apology to the country's Tornedalian minority, urges a truth commission set up to investigate historic wrongdoings.

Published: 15 November 2023 14:14 CET
'Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority': Truth commission releases report

Stockholm’s policy of assimilation in the 19th and 20th centuries “harmed the minority and continues to hinder the defence of its language, culture and traditional livelihoods,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset said in an article published in Sweden’s main daily Dagens Nyheter.

“Amends must be made in order to move forward,” it said, adding that “acknowledging the historic wrongdoings” should be a first step.

The commission, which began work in June 2020, was to submit a final report to the government on Wednesday.

Tornedalen is a geographical area in northeastern Sweden and northwestern Finland. The Tornedalian, Kven and Lantalaiset minority groups are often grouped under the name Tornedalians, who number around 50,000 in Sweden.

The commission noted that from the late 1800s, Tornedalian children were prohibited from using their mother tongue, meänkieli, in school and forced to use Swedish, a ban that remained in place until the 1960s.

From the early 1900s, some 5,500 Tornedalian children were sent away to Lutheran Church boarding schools “in a nationalistic spirit”, where their language and traditional dress were prohibited.

Punishments, violence and fagging were frequent at the schools, and the Tornedalian children were stigmatised in the villages, the commission said.

“Their language and culture was made out to be something shameful … (and) their self-esteem and desire to pass on the language to the next generation was negatively affected.”

The minority has historically made a living from farming, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, though their reindeer herding rights have been limited over the years due to complexities with the indigenous Sami people’s herding rights.

“The minority feels that they have been made invisible, that their rights over their traditional livelihoods have been taken away and they now have no power of influence,” the commission wrote.

It recommended that the meänkieli language be promoted in schools and public service broadcasting, and the state “should immediately begin the process of a public apology”.

The Scandinavian country also has a separate Truth Commission probing discriminatory policies toward the Sami people.

That report is due to be published in 2025.

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