Le Politiquement Correct Dans le Monde Français

The discoursal evidence in Le Monde in a recent year (June 2000 to June 2001) suggests that the metropolitan French media, and by extension the readership it serves, conceive of and use le politiquement correct in ways rather less `charged' and sharply political than in North America or the UK. Occasionally, it is invoked with respect to foreign political trends, almost never to domestic ones; much more often it is invoked in the course of cultural or sociological critique or discussion: of gender roles, sexual practices and artistic representation. But even in these fields, perhaps owing in part to its recent and much-noted non-French origins, the phrase seems to be used without great animus: it implies mild and detached disapproval (`a general conformism') rather than intimating self-righteous hypocrisy or absolutism. It is also noticeable, and seemingly not fortuitous, that the phrase politiquement correct occurs chiefly in cultural commentaries on `events' that are themselves sociocultural responses and commentaries, such as films, books, exhibitions and TV programmes. Here the late-modern multi-layered reflexivity that political correctness reflects and sponsors is palpable.