do not present another faith, another reli-

gion—their threat is more a question of

their appearance, which helps explain why
they are so disturbing, despite their small
numbers. In a matter of years, representa-
tions of the tsiganes have shifted away from
musical talents, bohème, and free spirit to a
portrayal of Roma otherness. It is our de-
cision to see kinds that makes us sort kinds.”
For Sarah Carmona, a leading histo-
rian of the Roma in Europe, and herself
a Rom, the central issue in the Roma cri-
sis is French paranoia. Long-haired and
eloquent, she is not merely quadrilingual
but bi-academic: she speaks the abstract
language of French history, of Foucault
and Serres, with the same authority with
which she speaks in the blunt imagery of
the Romani language. “Yes, the European
vision of us can only be called paranoid
and schizophrenic,” she says. “They love
our Gypsyness, our folklore, but hate our
Romaniness. They claim to value our dis-
tinctiveness, and, at the same time, they
cannot bear our abnormality.”
She offers an instance of Romanipen. “YouTube’s one thing, but cats will never make it on the big screen.”
“Romani is a very metaphoric, richly illus-
trated language—a language uniquely
concrete in its visual sensitivity. So in Ro-
• •
mani when you tell someone that you love
him you might say, ‘I eat your heart’ or ered Sinti in another, family sphere. We The National Front is already expected to
‘I eat your belly.’ It’s an expression of can even become Gypsies, tsiganes, in be the largest single party in France dur-
affection. My daughter, when she was order to deal with non-Roma people. This ing the May elections for the European
ten, said to her friend, ‘I’d like to eat is a traumatic topic for official thought. Parliament. If an unashamed, “de-com-
your belly!’ I was called into the school— Imagine: a people multiple in themselves, plexed” agenda of national order and na-
the principal was shocked! Perhaps my not in solidarity with us.” tional security is not made plausible, the
daughter needed to see a psychiatrist.” argument goes, the middle classes will
On one subject, Carmona is categori-
cal. “France is the worst place for Roma to
be born. It suffers from centuries of ‘En-
O n the subject of petty crime, the
scholars of Romanipen all say more
or less the same thing: recognizing that a
continue their flight to the far right.
Yves de Kerdrel, the editor of Valeurs
Actuelles, turns out to be a man of this des-
lightenment,’ the many centuries that cre- social pathology persists within a minority perate middle. Discovered in his office
ated this Jacobin so-called ‘universalist’ group is not the same thing as imagining over coffee in the early morning, Kerdrel,
frame without any regard to subjugated that the social pathology is natural to the a former Sarkozy intimate, comes across as
knowledge or subjugated peoples. In minority group. Pressed to make a living in an elegant, fluent haut fonctionnaire type,
France, ethnic minorities are not even rec- the only way left to them after a long his- with a somewhat Americanophile rever-
ognized—there’s a process of negation of tory of oppression, the Roma, like the ence for focus groups and polls. Le Pen
identity that leads to the absurd category “usurious” Jews, are invariably reproached can be declawed, he thinks, only if main-
of ‘gens du voyage.’ To Valls, I would say for it by those who left them no alternative. stream politicians can learn to speak truths
that nobody should try to integrate him- Yet such rationales exasperate the that seem obvious to the stressed middle
self into a society that is entirely sick. The practical-minded politicians and pundits class.
Roma are offensive for one reason: be- who must deal with immigrants without “The problem is that we cannot make
cause we stand outside history. I mean papers and bundles without babies in the case strictly in terms of economics,”
History constructed with a big ‘H’—the them. For them, the spectre haunting he says. “When I decided to relaunch
history that fuses and strips away micro- France has nothing to do with the virtues Valeurs Actuelles, we did focus groups,
identity. We belong to micro-history. We of “micro-identities.” The spectre is, sim- and all the people we spoke with said,
are global, and we are also micro, and we ply, the extreme right—Marine Le Pen ‘We don’t want a political magazine, we
are the only ones who can manage this and her National Front—who will be the want a magazine that speaks about so-
concept in a healthy way. We can be beneficiaries of a French state that cannot cial issues. Family, environment, drugs,
Roma in the political sphere, be consid- control its borders and police its streets. school.’ The big problem in France is one
THE NEW YORKER, JANUARY 13, 2014 25