Impossible intersectionality? French feminists and the struggle for inclusion

This paper looks at the specificity of intersectionality in Europe, using France as a case study. It argues that the fact that in Europe and France intersectional struggles are structured around gender, migration and religion poses specific problems for feminists and for their practices of inclusion inside their movement. Indeed, migrant status and Islam are perceived as the most salient differences among women, which may require specific separate organizations (e.g. by migrant women) or the articulation of specific intersectional interests. The paper looks at how French women’s organizations perceive these issues. First, the paper shows that these organizations use various political repertoires of intersectionality that have contrasting political consequences, but that there is a dominant repertoire, especially among mainstream women’s rights advocacy organizations. Indeed, data from interviews with French women’s organizations show the prevalence of a universalist frame, which approaches intersectional issues through a “universal women’s rights” lens. The paper then explores how institutional incentives and the history of the French women’s movement dramatically influence the ways in which feminist organizations understand intersectionality and use, or avoid, this vocabulary to address the burning issue of the inclusion of racialized/minority women’s needs on their political agenda.