Your ancestors the Gauls: a short anthology of racist thought in France La Revue des Ressources - Home

“College students in the 4th grade in France are the victims of historical falsification. Anti-black philosopher writers are presented in their "French book" as men who fought against slavery. In reality, they are racists of the "Age of Enlightenment" like Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot and many others. Falsification, at the level of school books, is not a new thing (we have learned, for example in the West Indies, even the blackest of us, that our ancestors were the Gauls; there was even a Negro, Henri Salvador, who was singing a song: Our ancestors, the Gauls...). We take advantage of this return to school to draw the attention of our readers to a habitual drift. No one doubts that the authors of these books have a real contempt for black people, because they know the truth”. (René-Louis Parfait Etilé, Historical falsification: Our children learn nonsense at school, www.africamaat.com, November 2004).

Awareness Self-awareness would be one of the concepts that defines man, who believes that the species that are psychologically and ethologically closest to him are those sensitive to their image when they confront it in the mirror. Like that of life and death, this notion of being oneself is therefore probably as old as man. Other realizations which make the man in his humanity seem on the other hand to date from yesterday. I mean the procession of those who make the front page of our time, as if we had just been touched by the grace of common sense.

We have never taken up the challenge against xenophobia, anti-Semitism, negrophobia, racism, sexism, homophobia, the suffering imposed on animals, mistreated Nature, etc., as much as since the 1970s. correct opinion with regard to these subjects would therefore only have intervened very recently, whereas human thought and the quest for justice have been developed for a few thousand years. We deliver an inexorable and legitimate fight against all that is against nature, a real challenge that we take up with regard to our deep and harmful nature. We surpass ourselves! We can ask ourselves this question: what if these awarenesses were only points of view of the time, all relative and subjective? The war has only been badly rated for the most part recently, it was previously covered with heroism and patriotism, feelings that have become pejorative. No offense to those who would like to put pacifism on trial, the same people who denigrate the French "anecdotes" of May 68 and who speak nostalgically of national identity. Slavery and apartheid still occupied, in complicit silence, a good part of the previous century, and the majority of public opinion hardly cared about it. Supernumerary fertility was a virtue and birth control, still condemned by the theocrats of the great monotheisms, had long been in trouble. The practice of the death penalty is no longer the prerogative of rogue states. The silence on domestic violence and abject marital domination has only just been broken. The mentally and physically handicapped have only recently found their place by our side, to stop being reduced to marginality, to begging, even to displaying a bell around their necks to make the crowds laugh. Tortures, atrocities, genocides, ecocides from here and elsewhere have only recently prompted international outcry. Laws to combat homophobia, anti-Semitism, machismo have only just appeared. Before the end of the 20th century, there were only a few great minds to denounce our vile attitude towards other animals, to question the carnivorous diet and to praise the vegetarian diet. Faced with the adversity of conservative reluctance, these fights have always been complacently relegated to a leftist counter-culture. They were common to the same movements, whether women's struggles against violence or for the freedom of abortion, against racism, for ecology and the animal cause. We can, all the same, recognize that right-wing politics has never helped these developments and that the better life for all groups that are not strictly composed of heterosexual white men owes its breaths of fresh air to progressives. protesters and that it owes nothing to the Conservatives whose relics of stale air are the prerogative. One comes to wonder if the only obsessive right-wing militancy is not narrowly confined to economic causes and unchallenged growth. Hence the scandal in renewing one's democratic confidence in such people.

So, before us, “they” had it all wrong! And we would have "everything good"? What a beautiful time when there is not a people who is not humanitarian, chivalrous, militant of great causes, devoted to famines, to new or orphan diseases. The last of the fights would only be to open our "humanity" to our brothers or cousins ​​the great apes, to finally admit that the status synonymous with the gorilla animal and the hen animal could be discussed, modulated, not not to continue to subject the hens to the hell of our farms and to the fate of our plate, but to feel in family with the men of another culture such as the chimpanzees or the orangutans. A bonobo is not an anchovy! Decried by those claiming the despotic heritage of the obscurantists, the Spanish parliament recently (July 2008) passed a resolution in favor of the Great Ape project aimed at protecting chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orangutans on a more affinity to human rights than to the unsatisfactory one usually reserved for other animals. In Spain, the project was initiated by Pedro Pozas, disciple of the Australian philosopher Peter Singer, author among others of the book entitled Animal Liberation and whose bioethicist work is the founder of modern animal rights movements. Everything suggests that the resolution will become law and that Spain will be a pioneer in the defense of "our evolutionary comrades" (Pedro Pozas sic) by extending to all higher apes most of the legal rights usually reserved for humans. The bill calls for ensuring the protection of great apes from "abuse, torture and death". The law will thus make illegal any “painful” medical experiment on monkeys, as well as their use in advertising or circuses. Keeping them in a state of detention in zoos will however remain authorized, but the inherent and currently sub-human living conditions will have to be improved. It would be time, it would be time for Europe, then the UN, to vote for a declaration of the rights of great apes, granting legal personality to all our hominoid cousins.

The last of the egalitarian battles would also be to respect the cetacean people by putting an end to these new circuses that are the dolphinariums, just as we have (almost) eradicated most of the other exploitations for the pleasure of kept animals, or at least the combat is no longer derided. To live by respecting all that lives, by categorizing only in the right way, by not even arguing anymore to find out whether there are good or bad weeds, whether the conditions of detention of a gibbon or a sperm whale are acceptable or bad, if the veil that this woman must wear is religious or political, is it impossible? There are only good herbs, there is no question of keeping any species for any reason whatsoever (and especially not scientific or ecological!), neither sex must respond to the other for its actions. We must fight with all our might against the abuses of this monotheistic and imperialist man, at least to end in style!

“I'm not a notary / It's Voltaire's fault / I'm a little bird / It's Rousseau's fault. »Victor Hugo

So, we who are so proud of our Enlightenment, apart from perhaps Rousseau the ecologist and his thought of the noble savage, we should not count on our philosophers to contribute to a good light on anti-racism. Unless the term and its notion had not yet taken on its full meaning at that time. At this very Linnean time, we had just discovered systematics and its orthodox classification, and it could seem lucid to be racist as we are in taxonomy. In the scientific hour of appreciating differences, labeling is the path that leads to segregation. We can therefore consider the lesser evil of these people who sought to understand in order to classify, value, categorize. So, should we excuse the racist Voltaire? There was perhaps a before and after to "SOS racism", just like to the women's liberation movement, to the initiatives of Brigitte Bardot, to the anti-vivisection or anti-fur movements, as there will be one at Les Chiennes de garde and SOS force-feeding, and other awareness movements, no offense again and once again to the detractors of revolutions and libertarian movements? Human rights are bound hand and foot to all movements for the respect of all forms of life. It is illusory to separate the freedom of man from that of the rest of the living. This is yet another recent achievement on which pioneers have been speaking out for centuries, to the great disdain of the well-meaning and very evil gallery.

Anthology of Racist Thought in the Country of France

With Voltaire, we inherited this sublime declaration, apocryphal which is attributed to him: "I disapprove of what you say but I will fight so that you have the right to say it". But how to accept this point of view: "I see monkeys, elephants, negroes, who all seem to have some glimmer of imperfect reason" (Treatise on Metaphysics)? This is perhaps the reason for such a conclusion from Victor-Hugo: “But what is Voltaire? Voltaire, let us say it with joy and sadness, is the French spirit”.

Are Voltaire, Kant or Hegel frequentable? In any case and so that they are assuredly so, for example when it comes to teaching them in high schools and universities of the African Francophonie, their texts are well and truly purged of their "shameful parts" by the make-up artists of the past ! Here is an anthology of so-called Voltairian assertions, to make the hair of the most conservative bald monotheists stand on end, to straighten the "wool" of the skull of Africans (sic!). Voltaire's central idea was the perversity of the Christian religion, particularly of Catholicism. Dogmatic teaching is based first on an erroneous postulate, that all men descend from Adam and Eve, that we have all these parents as ancestors. According to Voltaire, the human races are disparate and their origins are therefore different. Secondly, Christianity is harmful because it prolongs the Jewish religion, which is that of an odious nation and enemy of the human race. Judeo-Christianity thus inherited the flaws of Judaism. Adherence to Christianity defined the limits of anti-Semitism, and the notion of a common ancestor fixed the limits of racism. Voltaire was not wrong, but he goes beyond the accepted limits and, by appealing to reason, opens the way to unbridled xenophobia. It is in his Treatise on Tolerance that he will then make amends and, without denying any of his disagreement with Catholicism and Judaism, he will propose a cultural antidote. But the damage was done, "it's Voltaire's fault" and racism will flourish in the totalitarianism of the 20th century.

Racist Voltaire In the Essay on mores: "Their round eyes, their flat nose, their always thick lips, their differently shaped ears, the wool of their heads, the very measure of their intelligence, put between them and other species of men of prodigious differences. And what demonstrates that they do not owe this difference to their climate is that Negroes and Negresses transported to the coldest countries always produce there animals of their own species, and that the mulattoes are only one bastard race of a black and a white, or a white and a black. (Volume 1, p. 6). "(Volume 1, p. 11). "The same providence which produced the elephant, the rhinoceros and the Negroes, gave birth in another world to moose, condors, animals whose navel was long believed to be on the back, and men of a character that is not ours. » (Volume 1, p. 38).« The whites and the Negroes, and the Reds, and the Lapps, and the Samoyedes, and the Albinos, certainly do not come from the same soil. The difference between all these species is as marked as between a greyhound and a barbet. (Volume 2, p. 49).

In Traite de Métaphysique: “I therefore imagine myself having arrived in Africa, and surrounded by Negroes, Hottentots, and other animals. “Finally, I see men who seem to me superior to these Negroes, as these Negroes are to monkeys, and as monkeys are to oysters and other animals of this species. »

Anti-Semitic VoltaireIn Treaty of Metaphysics: "If we read the history of the Jews written by an author of another nation, we would have difficulty in believing that there was indeed a fugitive people from Egypt who came by express order of God sacrificing seven or eight small nations that he did not know; cut the throats of women, old men and infants without mercy, and reserve only little girls; that this holy people had been punished by their God when they had been criminal enough to spare a single devoted man from anathema. We would not believe that such an abominable people (the Jews) could have existed on earth. But as this nation itself reports all its facts to us in its holy books, we must believe it. "(Volume 1, p. 158). "Always superstitious, always greedy for the good of others, always barbaric, crawling in misfortune, and insolent in prosperity, this is what the Jews were in the eyes of the Greeks and Romans who could read their books. (Volume 1, p. 186). “If God had answered all the prayers of his people, there would have remained only Jews on earth; for they hated all nations, they were hated by them; and, by constantly asking that God exterminate all those whom they hated, they seemed to ask for the ruin of the whole earth. (Volume 1, p. 197). They know neither hospitality, nor liberality, nor clemency. Their sovereign happiness is to exercise usury with foreigners; and this spirit of usury, the principle of all cowardice, is so rooted in their hearts that it is the continual object of the figures they employ in the species of eloquence which is proper to them. Their glory is to burn and bloody the small villages they can seize. They cut the throats of old people and children; they reserve only marriageable girls; they murder their masters when they are slaves; they never know how to forgive when they are victorious: they are enemies of the human race. No politeness, no science, no art perfected in any time, in this atrocious nation. "(Volume 2, p. 83)." When, towards the end of the fifteenth century, one wanted to seek the source of Spanish misery, one found that the Jews had attracted to them all the money of the country by the trade and by wear. There were in Spain more than a hundred and fifty thousand men of that foreign nation so odious and so necessary. (...) The Jews have always disfigured the truth with absurd fables. They implemented false medals, false inscriptions; this species of deceit, joined to the other more essential ones with which they were reproached, contributed not a little to their disgrace. (Volume 5, p. 74-76).

Racist and eugenic thought in science, literature, theology...

“One cannot imagine that God, who is a wise being, put a soul, especially a good soul, in an all-black body. (...) It is impossible for us to assume that these people are men, we would begin to believe that we ourselves are not Christians. »Montesquieu (1689-1755, The Spirit of the Laws).

“The African black is guided by fantasy; European man is guided by customs. »Carl von Linné (1707-1778, naturalist, founder of modern systematics, Systema naturae).

“I suspect Negroes and other human species in general to be naturally inferior to the white race. There has never been a civilized nation of a color other than white, nor an individual illustrious by his actions or his capacity for reflection... There is among them neither manufactured machinery, nor art , nor science. Without mentioning our colonies, there are Negro slaves scattered throughout Europe, the least sign of intelligence has never been discovered among them. »David Hume (1711-1776, English economist).

“Nature has not endowed the African Negro with any feeling that does not rise above silliness (...) The Blacks (...) are so talkative that they must be separated and disperse with sticks. »Immanuel Kant (1724-1804, Essay on diseases of the head, Observation on the feeling of beauty and the sublime).

“The purchase of Negroes on the coasts of Africa, to transfer them and then resell them in the possessions of America, is it a legitimate trade and can it be done in conscience? ... The formulation of the question just discussed depends on one main point of view, it consists in knowing if one can legitimately have in one's possession slaves and retain them in servitude, Indeed, once well proven that 'one can legitimately have them and use them: it remains beyond doubt that one can buy and sell them... To this last question, I answer that one can lawfully have slaves and use it; this possession and this service are neither contrary to natural law, nor to the written Divine law, nor even to the law of the Gospel. »Bellon de Saint-Quentin (theologian, Dissertation on the slave trade and trade in negroes, 1765).

"Any feeling of honor and humanity is unknown to these barbarians... The negroes have no reasoning, no wit, no aptitude for any kind of abstract study... Their nature is perverse... .” Jacques-Philibert Rousselot de Surgy (General History of Travel, 1765).

“Through interbreeding, black blood would attack in France right to the heart of the nation by deforming the features and browning the complexion. » Louis Narcisse Baudry Deslozières (1764-1841, lawyer and writer, Les égarements du Négrophilisme).

“The Negro race is confined to the south of the Atlas, his complexion is black, his hair frizzy, his skull compressed and his nose flattened; her protruding muzzle and her thick lips clearly bring her closer to apes: the tribes which compose her have always remained barbarian (...) the most degraded of the human races, whose forms come closest to the brute, and whose intelligence has not risen anywhere to the point of arriving at a regular government.” Georges Cuvier (1769-1832, zoologist, Research on fossil bones).

“Africans, on the other hand, have not yet achieved this recognition of the universal. Their nature is self-folding. What we call religion, state, reality existing in itself and for itself, valid absolutely, all this does not yet exist for them. The abundant reports of the missionaries put this fact beyond doubt (...) What characterizes the Negroes, in fact, is precisely that their consciousness has not reached the contemplation of a solid objectivity, such as, for example, God, the law, to which the will of man can adhere, and by which he can come to the intuition of his own essence" and to go on to say that Africa is "an undeveloped ahistorical world, entirely prisoner of the natural spirit and whose place is still to be found on the threshold of the history of the universal. »Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831, Reason in History).

“The Bushman's brain (…) leads to that of the Simiadae (the monkeys). This implies a connection between the lack of intelligence and structural assimilation. Each race of man has its place, like the lower animals.”Charles Lyell (1797-1875, geologist, founder of scientific geology).

“The Negro is an intellectual monstrosity, taking the word here in its scientific sense. To produce it, nature has employed the same means as when she gives birth to those monstrosities of which our cabinets offer numerous examples. (…) It was enough to achieve this result that certain parts of the being stopped at a certain stage of their formation. From there, these fetuses without head or without members, these children who carry out the fable of cyclops (…). Well ! The Negro is a White whose body acquires the definitive form of the species, but whose entire intelligence stops along the way. »Armand de Quatrefages de Breau (1810-1892, naturalist and anthropologist, quoted by Léon Poliakov, in Racism)

"The stupidest, the most evil, the bloodiest of the human races", "No progress, no invention, no desire to know, no pity, no feeling", "The color black, the color of darkness is really the sign of their depravity. »Alfred Michiels (1813-1892, writer, Captain Firmin or the life of Negroes in Africa).

“I seem to see a Bambara assisting in the performance of one of the tunes he likes. His face glows, his eyes shine. He laughs, and his wide mouth shows, sparkling in the middle of his dark face, his sharp white teeth. The enjoyment comes... Inarticulate sounds make an effort to come out of his throat, which the passion compresses; big tears roll down her prominent cheeks; for a moment longer he will cry out: the music stops, he is overwhelmed with fatigue... The Negro possesses in the highest degree the sensual faculty without which there is no possible art; and, on the other hand, the absence of intellectual aptitude makes it completely unsuitable for the cultivation of art, even the appreciation of what this noble application of the intelligence of humans can produce of loftiness. To enhance his faculties, he must ally himself with a differently gifted race…” Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882, diplomat and writer, Essay on the inequality of human races).

“The intellectual character traits of the savage (…) are found in the civilized child.” Herbert Spencer (1820-1903, Darwinist philosopher, quoted by Jay Gould, in The bad measure of man). “Nature has made a race of workers is the Chinese race (...) a race of workers in the land is the Negro (...) a race of masters and soldiers is the European race. »Ernest Renan (1823-1892, the Discourse on the Nation).

“Colonization on a large scale is a political necessity of the first order… There is nothing shocking about the conquest of a country of an inferior race by a superior race…” Ernest Renan (The Intellectual and Moral Reform).

“These unfortunate savages have stunted waists, hideous faces covered in white paint, dirty and greasy skin, tangled hair, discordant voices and violent gestures. When one sees these men, one can hardly believe that they are human creatures… One often wonders what enjoyments life can procure for some of the lower animals; one could ask oneself the same question, and with much more reason, relative to these savages. »Charles Darwin (Voyage of a naturalist around the world, 1831 to 1836).

“Already the two colonizing peoples, which are two great free peoples, France and England, have seized Africa; France holds it from the west and from the north; England holds it by the east and the south. Now Italy is accepting its share of this colossal work. America joins her efforts with ours; for the unity of peoples is revealed in everything. Africa matters to the universe. Such suppression of movement and circulation hampers universal life, and human walking can no longer accommodate a paralyzed fifth of the globe. Bold pioneers ventured, and from their first steps this strange soil appeared real; these lunar landscapes become terrestrial landscapes. France is ready to bring a sea there. This fierce Africa has only two aspects: populated, it is barbarism; deserted, it is savagery (...). In the nineteenth century, the white man made the black man; in the twentieth century, Europe will make Africa a world. (Applause) Remaking a new Africa, making the old Africa manageable for civilization, that is the problem. Europe will solve it. Come on, Peoples! Take this land. Take the. Whose ? To no one. Take this land to God. God gives the earth to men, God offers Africa to Europe. Take the. Where kings would bring war, bring concord. Take it, not for the cannon, but for the plough; not for the sword, but for trade; not for battle, but for industry; not for conquest, but for brotherhood. (Long applause). Pour your overflow into this Africa, and at the same time solve your social questions, change your proletarians into owners. Come on, do it! Make roads, make ports, make cities; grow, cultivate, colonize, multiply. »Victor Hugo (Discourse on Africa, May 18, 1879).

“In Africa girls abound, but they are all as evil and rotten as the muddy liquid of the Saharan wells. »Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893).

“I challenge you to support to the end your thesis which rests on the equality, the freedom, the independence of the inferior races. Gentlemen, we must speak louder and more truthfully! It must be said openly that the superior races have a right vis-à-vis the inferior races. »Jules Ferry (Parliamentary Debates of July 28, 1885).

"When Negroes are overheated, an oily and blackish exudation emanates from their skin which stains linen and spreads an unpleasant odor." Grand universal dictionary of the 19th century, in the chapter “Nègre”.

“We will create among the races that inhabit the Earth, a real aristocracy, that of the whites, not mixed with the detestable ethnic elements that Asia and Africa introduce among us”.“After the elimination of the inferior races, the first not in the way of selection, it is the elimination of the abnormal ... They will call me a monster because I prefer healthy children to tainted children ... What makes a man is intelligence . A mass of human flesh, without intelligence, is nothing...” Charles Richet (1850-1935, doctor, 1913 Nobel Prize in physiology, he considered that civilization had perverted natural selection, giving advantages to degenerates who did not deserve to live).

“Our specific sensitivity for beauty and ugliness in our fellow human beings depends very closely on the symptoms of degeneration due to the domestication that threatens our race. It would be necessary, for the preservation of the race, to be attentive to an elimination of morally inferior beings, even more severe than it is today”.Francis Galton (1822-1911, physiologist, cousin of Darwin, his doctrine eugenics would inspire, fifty years later, Hitler and the Nazi regime).

“From a selectionist's point of view, I would regard as unfortunate the very great numerical development of the Yellow and Black elements which would be difficult to eliminate. If, however, the future society is organized on a dualistic basis, with a dolicho-blonde ruling class and an inferior racial class confined to the coarsest labor, it is possible that the latter role will fall to Yellow elements. and blacks. (…) We must not forget that there is nothing more abnormal about slavery than the domestication of horses or oxen. »Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854-1946, entomologist and anthropologist, father of Aryanism, he was the author of The Aryan and his social role, founding elements of Nazi anti-Semitism).

“No democratic government can ever work in Africa.” Bertrand Russell (1872-1970, mathematician, quoted by Paul Johnson, in The great lie of intellectuals).

"The principal of these circumstances is assuredly the privation of the light of Christ and even of any reflection of this light, which has allowed the evil Spirit to establish himself as master, on this deprived land of Africa... Black people have from time immemorial been given over unchecked to abject sensualism, cruelty and lies. (...) Negroes today live under the corrupting influence of so many impure generations that it would be astonishing to find them fit for an immediate high moral civilization.” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955, Jesuit and theologian, Upper Guinea and its missions, The causes of the inferiority of the Negro; His doctrine is still taught in seminaries in Africa…). race, être attentif à une élimination des êtres moralement inférieurs encore plus sévère qu'elle ne l'est aujourd'hui ... nous devons, et nous en avons le droit, nous fier aux meilleurs d'entre nous et les charger de faire la sélection qui déterminera la prospérité ou l'anéantissement de notre peuple.» Konrad Lorenz (1903-1989, biologiste et philosophe, ancien sympathisant nazi devenu militant écologiste, prix Nobel 1973 de physiologie pour ses recherches sur le comportement animal).

William Shockley (1919-1989, physicien, prix Nobel 1956 de Physique, co-inventeur du transistor) demanda à l'Académie des Sciences américaines : «que des recherches soient entreprises pour déterminer l'influence de la forte natalité des Noirs sur la qualité de la population américaine et propose de stériliser ceux qui ont un QI inférieur à 100 », et fut l'auteur d'une proposition de loi destinée à octroyer une prime financière à toutes les femmes noires qui accepteraient de se faire stériliser.

« L'Européen ne saura jamais à quel point est effroyable la vie de ces malheureux qui passent leur temps dans la crainte des sortilèges dirigés contre eux. Seuls, ceux qui ont vu cette misère de près comprennent que c'est un devoir d'humanité d'enseigner aux peuples primitifs une autre conception du monde et de la vie, pour les délivrer de ces croyances funestes (…) Quant à l'effort intellectuel que représentent les conquêtes techniques, l'indigène n'est pas capable de l'évaluer. Mais quand il a affaire à un Blanc, il sent avec une intuition infaillible si celui-ci est une personnalité, une personnalité morale (…) le primitif ne connaît que des jugements de valeurs élémentaires (…) quand il rencontre la bonté unie à la justice et à la véracité, la dignité intérieure derrière la dignité extérieure, il s'incline et reconnaît son maître. » Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965, théologien, philosophe, musicien et médecin missionnaire au Gabon, prix Nobel 1952 de la Paix, in À l'orée de la forêt vierge).

La pensée raciste de ceux qui ne le sont pasEt pour ceux qui voudraient les occulter, voici les véhémentes déclarations « contre-nature » de quelques responsables politiques, lesquels n'ont pas, cette fois, l'excuse du précepte « Autres temps, autres mœurs » ! Une preuve que la prise du pouvoir n'induit pas une prise de conscience universelle, loin s'en faut.

« L'émotion est nègre et la raison hellène. »Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906-2001, écrivain et président du Sénégal).

« C'est très bien qu'il y ait des Français jaunes, des Français noirs, des Français bruns. Ils montrent que la France est ouverte à toutes les races et qu'elle a une vocation universelle. Mais à condition qu'ils restent une petite minorité. Sinon la France ne serait plus la France. Nous sommes quand même avant tout un peuple européen de race blanche, de culture grecque et latine, et de religion chrétienne (…) Vous croyez que le corps français peut absorber dix millions de musulmans, qui demain seront peut-être vingt millions et après-demain quarante ? Si nous faisions l'intégration, si tous les Arabes et les Berbères d'Algérie étaient considérés comme Français, comment les empêcherait-on de venir s'installer en métropole alors que le niveau de vie y est tellement plus élevé ? My village would no longer be called Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, but Colombey-les-Deux-Mosquées! »Charles de Gaulle, 1959.

« Sur le plan ethnique, il convient de limiter l'afflux des Méditerranéens et des Orientaux, qui ont depuis un demi-siècle profondément modifié les compositions de la population française. Sans aller jusqu'à utiliser, comme aux Etats-Unis, le système rigide des quotas, il est souhaitable que la priorité soit accordée aux naturalisations nordiques (Belges, Luxembourgeois, Suisses, Hollandais, Danois, Anglais, Allemands, etc.) »Charles de Gaulle, 1945.

« Qu'est-ce que les Arabes ? Les Arabes sont un peuple qui, depuis les jours de Mahomet, n'ont jamais réussi à constituer un État... Avez-vous vu une digue construite par les Arabes ? Nulle part. Cela n'existe pas. Les Arabes disent qu'ils ont inventé l'algèbre et construit d'énormes mosquées. Mais ce fut entièrement l'œuvre des esclaves chrétiens qu'ils avaient capturés... Ce ne furent pas les Arabes eux-mêmes... Ils ne peuvent rien faire seuls. »Charles de Gaulle (cité par Cyrus Sulzberger, in Les derniers des géants).

« Les musulmans, vous êtes allés les voir ? Vous les avez regardés avec leurs turbans et leurs djellabas, vous voyez bien que ce ne sont pas des Français ! Ceux qui prônent l'intégration ont une cervelle de colibri, même s'ils sont très intelligents. Essayez d'intégrer de l'huile et du vinaigre. Shake the bottle. After a while, they separate again. Arabs are Arabs, French are French. Do you believe that the French body can absorb 10 million Muslims who tomorrow will be 20 million, and after tomorrow 40? » Charles de Gaulle, 1959(cité par Alain Peyrefitte, in C'était de Gaulle),

« Vous savez, cela suffit comme cela avec vos nègres. Vous me gagnez à la main, alors on ne voit plus qu'eux : il y a des nègres à l'Élysée tous les jours, vous me les faites recevoir, vous me les faites inviter à déjeuner. Je suis entouré de nègres, ici. (…) Et puis tout cela n'a aucune espèce d'intérêt ! Foutez-moi la paix avec vos nègres ; je ne veux plus en voir d'ici deux mois, vous entendez ? Plus une audience avant deux mois. Ce n'est pas tellement en raison du temps que cela me prend, bien que ce soit déjà fort ennuyeux, mais cela fait très mauvais effet à l'extérieur : on ne voit que des nègres, tous les jours, à l'Élysée. Et puis je vous assure que c'est sans intérêt. »Charles de Gaulle, 1968 (Mémoires, tome 2, Journal de l'Élysée : entretiens avec Jacques Foccart).

En février 1935, un étudiant nommé François Mitterrand participa activement à une manifestation de l'Action française contre les médecins étrangers autorisés à exercer sur le sol français, scandant « Mort aux métèques ! » et « La France aux Français ! ". Plus tard, devenu socialiste et élu président, il déclarait à propos du drame rwandais : « Dans ces pays-là, un génocide, c'est pas trop important », confidence faite à l'un de ses proches et rapportée par Patrick de Saint-Exupéry dans Le Figaro du 12 janvier 1998.

« Pour le moment, tout ça n'est pas bien grave. Il y a un type, Le Pen, que je ne connais pas et qui n'est probablement pas si méchant qu'on le dit. Il répète certaines choses que nous pensons, un peu plus fort et un peu mieux que nous, en termes plus populaires. »Jacques Chirac (extrait d'un entretien avec Franz-Olivier Giesbert, le 22 juin 1985).

« Notre problème, ce n'est pas les étrangers, c'est qu'il y a overdose. C'est peut-être vrai qu'il n'y a pas plus d'étrangers qu'avant la guerre, mais ce n'est pas les mêmes et ça fait une différence. Il est certain que d'avoir des Espagnols, des Polonais et des Portugais travaillant chez nous, ça pose moins de problèmes que d'avoir des musulmans et des Noirs (…) Comment voulez-vous que le travailleur français qui travaille avec sa femme et qui, ensemble, gagnent environ 15000 francs, et qui voit sur le palier à côté de son HLM, entassée, une famille avec un père de famille, trois ou quatre épouses, et une vingtaine de gosses, et qui gagne 50000 francs de prestations sociales, sans naturellement travailler... si vous ajoutez le bruit et l'odeur, eh bien le travailleur français sur le palier devient fou. Et ce n'est pas être raciste que de dire cela... »Jacques Chirac (extrait d'un discours du 19 juin 1991).

« Nous avons un devoir moral envers ces peuples..., c'est nous qui leur avons apporté la civilisation… »Édouard Balladur (1994, commentant le début des massacres au Rwanda, lors d'une émission télévisée).