Dr. Brezault presented a paper

Eloïse Brezault has just presented a paper on the representations of racism in France, “Debout-Payé or the pangs of French (in)hospitality” (CIEF, June 2021). She discussed a novel, Debout-Payé (2014), by Franco-Ivoirian writer, Gauz. The conference was organized online by the Council of International Francophone Studies. Inspired by Montesquieu’s seminal work, Lettres Persanes or Dadié’s iconic novel, Un Nègre à Paris, Gauz examines with humor the paradoxical traps of French society through the eye of three security guards who arrive in France in the 1970s, in the 1990s and in the 2000s to make a living. The security guard, because he is completely invisible to the French society, is thus able to question our representations of alterity and racism with a lot of irony and sarcasm to better subvert the dominant/dominated narratives entrenched in the current French society.