Abstract

The colonization of parts of Africa and the Caribbean has continued to greatly impact both France and these formerly colonized countries. In 1830, the French monarchy invaded Algeria. During the colonization of Algeria, France imposed its own culture and civil code, giving Algerians French citizenship in an attempt to force them to denounce Islam (543 Balch). 1954 saw the Algerian War of Independence, which ended in 1962. During the 1630’s, French religious orders began to develop colonies in the Caribbean or French Antilles (Peabody 114). Due to the propagation of the French language in these colonies, as well as the deplorable living conditions resulting from problematic governance in the wake of independence from France, large portions of formerly colonized populations immigrated to France. Unprepared for this influx of different cultures, immigrants were relegated to factory jobs and undesirable neighborhoods both in Paris itself as well as the surrounding suburbs. In this study, I will examine the difficulties facing these immigrants from lack of integration into French society; and how France’s relationship with immigrants is manifest in the ways certain films polarize diegetic spaces as either French or Other. This analysis argues that the spatial limitations facing the racial Other are not exclusive to the Parisian banlieue, or its subsequently named cinema genre. Different films from a variety of genres will demonstrate that limitations are set on immigrants in the city of Paris just as much as the urban/suburban divide that generalizes popular conceptions of postcolonial filmic representation.