6 ms·

> In addition to winning this illustrious competition, Bouattour and M’Seddi have a few other things in common. Both forewent the traditional trade school that

> In addition to winning this illustrious competition, Bouattour and M’Seddi have a few other things in common. Both forewent the traditional trade school that many aspiring French bakers enter at age 16. Both have been professional bakers for less than a decade (as has this year’s winner, former engineer Fabrice Leroy). And both are first-generation Frenchmen with what Bouattour euphemistically dubs ‘origins’: family backgrounds from elsewhere – or in their cases, Tunisia. > “I stopped thinking of myself as a foreigner a long time ago, but my origins make me the person I am today,” he said. “We all start with the same tools, the same teachers, but some people are going to understand things differently. That has nothing to do with origins; that’s just talent.” For all the rhetoric on the right about how people from other cultures are not "suitable" for "western" countries - some of the proudest citizens and torch-carriers for tradition, are foreigners. It also absolutely works both ways - Australia was virulently anti Italian and Greek in the 50s and 60s. Now we almost couldn't imagine brunch without espresso and feta on our smashed avocado. The diversity made us better.

charles_f 7y ago
What I've always found interesting as a Frenchman living in North Americ, is that there's no real equivalent to "black american" or "afro American" or "hispano American" in French. The closest you'll find is "of Tunisian origins", but that's usually left out, and not really the same. The "official" results[0] don't mention anything about his origins. The local press[1] does say his parents are from Tunisia, but only after introducing him as a Parisian. The right national press[2][3] does mention that he is... a chemist, which seems more relevant to the story than the country in which his parent were born. Surely this is an anecdote, but it does match the general observation I've made. (although be sure that would he have killed a person rather than cooked a baguette, his origins would be of the utmost importance for the story telling). [0] https://www.paris.fr/pages/goutez-et-choisissez-la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris-6640 https://www.paris.fr/pages/goutez-et-choisissez-la-meilleure... [1] http://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris-il-fait-la-meilleure-baguette-de-tradition-parisienne-13-04-2018-7662258.php http://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris-il-fait-la-meilleure... [2] https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris-se-trouve-dans-le-14e-arrondissement-1418199.html https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris... [3] http://www.lefigaro.fr/sortir-paris/2018/04/13/30004-20180413ARTFIG00155-la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris-se-trouve-dans-le-xive.php http://www.lefigaro.fr/sortir-paris/2018/04/13/30004-2018041...
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  Thank you for the information! The idea that the rest of the press did not mention his origins reminds me of another part of the original article: > “Sometimes we get clients coming in saying, ‘The neighbourhood is full of Tunisians – thank God you guys are here!’” he said, referring to him and his wife, who works alongside him in the bakery. “But we have Tunisian origins too.” That's another interesting thing to me - which makes me also think about what you said: > What I've always found interesting as a Frenchman living in North Americ, is that there's no real equivalent to "black american" or "afro American" or "hispano American" in French. The closest you'll find is "of Tunisian origins", but that's usually left out, and not really the same. I think the core truth here is that even though the effects of racism and xenophobia are quite pronounced, and cannot be dismissed, that all these terms are "made up". I was trolling /pol/ one day and I had someone say to me that the French people weren't "white" which is, truly, consistent with some conceptions of whiteness. But, the most strict original conceptions of whiteness that were made in the 1800s said that Scottish and Irish people weren't white!!! It seems that these sorts of identities twist and change over time, because there's no underlying truth to them. Imagine the rage and fury of those who see white purity as possible when they encounter white hispanic people, or white slavic people, or southern Italians (who made up most american-italian immigrants) saying they are white. So I think the identity of "Tunisian origins" is just as valid as any other racial identity, and just as indistinct. I don't think the American categories are any better or worse, but it is an interesting point of difference.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    Neither were Swedes white in the USA when they first immigrated. A generation later, they were.
    - Xylakant 7y ago
      Neither were the refugees displaced from the eastern parts of the german reich after WWII. They were dismissed as Polacks (pejorative for polish people) and worse. Sometimes they were from a town no further than 30 or 40 kilometers away - just on the other side of the new border. These sorts of identities are twisted and made up in ways to suit the narrative.
homonculus1 7y ago
>For all the rhetoric on the right about how people from other cultures are not "suitable" for "western" countries - some of the proudest citizens and torch-carriers for tradition, are foreigners. That's not quite right--the premise you're I think you're alluding to is that certain cultures themselves are not compatible with the values of Western society. But people like the bakers featured here, who choose to assimilate headfirst instead of creating an enclave of the country they left behind, can prosper. >“Whoever wins the contest is a winner,” M’Seddi said. “He’s a champion, whether he’s descended from immigrants or not... That’s someone who’s passionate about French culture, who has become integrated as a French person. We need to make people proud to be French.”
- tomlockwood 7y ago
  What do you think isn't quite right? The article states that the bakery was in an area with a large "tunisian origin" population - which I think the right might say is an enclave - and if their views had more nuance they might say was a cheap area where immigrants tended to settle.
  - homonculus1 7y ago
    Rent is surely one of many factors but there are other factors and consequences of a population group concentrating in one area, it's not in a vacuum. If those immigrants by and large do not assimilate into French/Western culture, then in that case they are indeed forming an enclave. Since the individuals in this story are eagerly assimilating, they are independent of the questions of whether these immigrant enclaves are real or whether they're compatible with French culture. They're only a counterexample if you conflate mainstream right-wing expectations of immigrants with hardcore Stormfront narratives, e.g. that foreigners are mentally inferior and incapable of adapting to a different culture.
    - tomlockwood 7y ago
      I'm eager to hear what you think I'm incorrect about. Clearly the baker in the story, who wins, lives in what most people would call an ethnic enclave (if such a thing exists). There's an expectation on the right that it's easy to identify when an immigrant is "one of the good ones" but that identification tends to be done at a comfortable distance, that doesn't tell people on the right anything about the people they're actually judging. As a result, the default view is that immigrants often aren't integrating, and that's bad. That's not a stormfront view - that's a very mainstream right wing view. The truth is that immigrants often desperately want to integrate, and that culture, and even celebrating and maintaining one's culture, is not incompatible with integration. People can and do have both. St Patrick's day doesn't stop people from celebrating the 4th of July. The difference between integrating and not integrating, from the signals given off by the right, is approximately 50-60 years. Suddenly, the Irish in NYC have all mysteriously integrated for some reason, when back in the 1850s they weren't integrated. So strange how that works, right?

charles_f 7y ago

What I've always found interesting as a Frenchman living in North Americ, is that there's no real equivalent to "black american" or "afro American" or "hispano American" in French. The closest you'll find is "of Tunisian origins", but that's usually left out, and not really the same. The "official" results[0] don't mention anything about his origins. The local press[1] does say his parents are from Tunisia, but only after introducing him as a Parisian. The right national press[2][3] does mention that he is... a chemist, which seems more relevant to the story than the country in which his parent were born. Surely this is an anecdote, but it does match the general observation I've made. (although be sure that would he have killed a person rather than cooked a baguette, his origins would be of the utmost importance for the story telling). [0] https://www.paris.fr/pages/goutez-et-choisissez-la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris-6640 https://www.paris.fr/pages/goutez-et-choisissez-la-meilleure... [1] http://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris-il-fait-la-meilleure-baguette-de-tradition-parisienne-13-04-2018-7662258.php http://www.leparisien.fr/paris-75/paris-il-fait-la-meilleure... [2] https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris-se-trouve-dans-le-14e-arrondissement-1418199.html https://www.bfmtv.com/societe/la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris... [3] http://www.lefigaro.fr/sortir-paris/2018/04/13/30004-20180413ARTFIG00155-la-meilleure-baguette-de-paris-se-trouve-dans-le-xive.php http://www.lefigaro.fr/sortir-paris/2018/04/13/30004-2018041...

tomlockwood 7y ago
Thank you for the information! The idea that the rest of the press did not mention his origins reminds me of another part of the original article: > “Sometimes we get clients coming in saying, ‘The neighbourhood is full of Tunisians – thank God you guys are here!’” he said, referring to him and his wife, who works alongside him in the bakery. “But we have Tunisian origins too.” That's another interesting thing to me - which makes me also think about what you said: > What I've always found interesting as a Frenchman living in North Americ, is that there's no real equivalent to "black american" or "afro American" or "hispano American" in French. The closest you'll find is "of Tunisian origins", but that's usually left out, and not really the same. I think the core truth here is that even though the effects of racism and xenophobia are quite pronounced, and cannot be dismissed, that all these terms are "made up". I was trolling /pol/ one day and I had someone say to me that the French people weren't "white" which is, truly, consistent with some conceptions of whiteness. But, the most strict original conceptions of whiteness that were made in the 1800s said that Scottish and Irish people weren't white!!! It seems that these sorts of identities twist and change over time, because there's no underlying truth to them. Imagine the rage and fury of those who see white purity as possible when they encounter white hispanic people, or white slavic people, or southern Italians (who made up most american-italian immigrants) saying they are white. So I think the identity of "Tunisian origins" is just as valid as any other racial identity, and just as indistinct. I don't think the American categories are any better or worse, but it is an interesting point of difference.
- jacobush 7y ago
  Neither were Swedes white in the USA when they first immigrated. A generation later, they were.
  - Xylakant 7y ago
    Neither were the refugees displaced from the eastern parts of the german reich after WWII. They were dismissed as Polacks (pejorative for polish people) and worse. Sometimes they were from a town no further than 30 or 40 kilometers away - just on the other side of the new border. These sorts of identities are twisted and made up in ways to suit the narrative.

homonculus1 7y ago

>For all the rhetoric on the right about how people from other cultures are not "suitable" for "western" countries - some of the proudest citizens and torch-carriers for tradition, are foreigners. That's not quite right--the premise you're I think you're alluding to is that certain cultures themselves are not compatible with the values of Western society. But people like the bakers featured here, who choose to assimilate headfirst instead of creating an enclave of the country they left behind, can prosper. >“Whoever wins the contest is a winner,” M’Seddi said. “He’s a champion, whether he’s descended from immigrants or not... That’s someone who’s passionate about French culture, who has become integrated as a French person. We need to make people proud to be French.”

tomlockwood 7y ago
What do you think isn't quite right? The article states that the bakery was in an area with a large "tunisian origin" population - which I think the right might say is an enclave - and if their views had more nuance they might say was a cheap area where immigrants tended to settle.
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Rent is surely one of many factors but there are other factors and consequences of a population group concentrating in one area, it's not in a vacuum. If those immigrants by and large do not assimilate into French/Western culture, then in that case they are indeed forming an enclave. Since the individuals in this story are eagerly assimilating, they are independent of the questions of whether these immigrant enclaves are real or whether they're compatible with French culture. They're only a counterexample if you conflate mainstream right-wing expectations of immigrants with hardcore Stormfront narratives, e.g. that foreigners are mentally inferior and incapable of adapting to a different culture.
  - tomlockwood 7y ago
    I'm eager to hear what you think I'm incorrect about. Clearly the baker in the story, who wins, lives in what most people would call an ethnic enclave (if such a thing exists). There's an expectation on the right that it's easy to identify when an immigrant is "one of the good ones" but that identification tends to be done at a comfortable distance, that doesn't tell people on the right anything about the people they're actually judging. As a result, the default view is that immigrants often aren't integrating, and that's bad. That's not a stormfront view - that's a very mainstream right wing view. The truth is that immigrants often desperately want to integrate, and that culture, and even celebrating and maintaining one's culture, is not incompatible with integration. People can and do have both. St Patrick's day doesn't stop people from celebrating the 4th of July. The difference between integrating and not integrating, from the signals given off by the right, is approximately 50-60 years. Suddenly, the Irish in NYC have all mysteriously integrated for some reason, when back in the 1850s they weren't integrated. So strange how that works, right?