Intersectionality Against the Racialisation of Sexism? Feminists’ Reactive Use of Intersectionality in the French Femonationalist Context

This paper critically investigates how French feminists attempted to resist femonationalist developments in a context marked by colour-blindness (Mazouz 2021, Beaman 2022) and the relatively recent adoption of intersectionality (Lépinard 2020, Calderaro and Lépinard 2021). Focusing on the tensions surrounding the criminalisation of street harassment adopted in 2018, this study analyses how feminist activists adapted their strategies in response to the growing racialisation of sexism. It draws on 39 semi-structured interviews with feminist activists and policymakers as well as on critical document analysis. Findings suggest that feminists’ reactive use of intersectionality to resist the racialisation of sexism proved insufficient to address these challenges tied to an intensification of femonationalism. Initially employing a ‘gender-only’ approach when launching their campaign in 2014, feminists later reoriented their discursive and action-based strategies to incorporate intersectionality. In a context of racism denial (Mazouz 2021, Beaman 2022), particularly pronounced in policy debates over street harassment (Calderaro 2023), this shift served a twofold purpose: (1) reintroducing antiracist concerns into policy discussions that overlooked the risk of racial targeting associated with the criminalisation, and (2) countering the racialisation of sexism perpetuated by both policymakers and far-right political actors in the post-adoption phase of the policy. However, this late and reactive incorporation of intersectionality failed to overturn both exclusionary discourses and the appropriation of street harassment by the far-right. This underscores the limitations of using intersectionality as a tactical reactive tool rather than a transformative framework. Ultimately, the growing appropriation of street harassment by far-right actors led feminists to disengage from the cause, raising critical questions about the construction of both feminist campaigns and sustainable strategies to resist and reclaim feminist agendas from increasing femonationalist appropriations.