# Metropolitan Privilege? Judges, Prosecutors and the Construction of “Metropolitanity” in French Overseas Territories

*Le privilège métropolitain ? Magistrat·es et construction de la métropolitanité dans les outre-mer français*

*¿Privilegio metropolitano? Los magistrados y la construcción de la metropolitanidad en los territorios franceses de ultramar*

Stéphanie Guyon

Translator: Alexandra Poméon O'Neill and Katherine Booth

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

OpenEdition
Journals

**Electronic version**

URL: https://journals.openedition.org/remi/28388
DOI: 10.4000/15arc
ISSN: 1777-5418

**This article is a translation of:**

Le privilège métropolitain ? Magistrat·es et construction de la métropolitanité dans les outre-mer français - URL : https://journals.openedition.org/remi/26318 [fr]

**Publisher**

Université de Poitiers

**Printed version**

Date of publication: October 1, 2024
ISBN: 978-23-81940-27-4
ISSN: 0765-0752

**Electronic reference**

Stéphanie Guyon, "Metropolitan Privilege? Judges, Prosecutors and the Construction of "Metropolitanity" in French Overseas Territories", *Revue européenne des migrations internationales* [Online], vol. 40 - n°2 et 3 | 2024, Online since 01 November 2025, connection on 09 December 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/remi/28388; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/15arc

This text was automatically generated on December 9, 2025.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

The text only may be used under licence CC BY 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be subject to specific use terms.
# Metropolitan Privilege? Judges, Prosecutors and the Construction of “Metropolitanity” in French Overseas Territories

Le privilège métropolitain ? Magistrat·es et construction de la métropolitanité dans les outre-mer français

¿Privilegio metropolitano? Los magistrados y la construcción de la metropolitanidad en los territorios franceses de ultramar

Stéphanie Guyon

Translation : Alexandra Poméon O'Neill and Katherine Booth

<footnote n="1">1 The concept of migratory “privilege” was initially developed in the context of North-South migration, and highlights the way in which post-colonial asymmetries between nations are reflected in migratory flows. Research on expatriates has shown the hierarchy of nationalities that favour or limit migration, and the advantages enjoyed by privileged migrants from the North in host societies in the South. These studies have demonstrated that nationality, and more broadly the possession of a “Western” passport, shapes hierarchies of skills and remuneration (Leonard, 2010; Lundström, 2014; Le Renard, 2019; Cosquer, 2019). Until recently, this concept had been little explored in relation to the French overseas territories (Ihaddadene, 2022; Lehuger, 2022; Cosquer et al., 2022). Examining the overseas experience of judges/prosecutors from a migratory perspective, and in line with the research on privileged migration, allows for an exploration of the nature and extent of migratory benefits, referred to here, in the context of intranational migration, as “metropolitan privilege”. This article focuses on the construction of a dominant position linked to origin, race and class in local overseas spaces, and how this judicial elite perceives and adjusts to this position in a post-colonial context.</footnote>
Box 1: A sample reflecting the profile of judges/prosecutors in the French overseas territories?

This article is based primarily on a series of interviews with judges/prosecutors who currently hold or have held at least one position in the French overseas territories, as well as an interview at the Ministry of Justice concerning human resources management in the judiciary.

I conducted interviews with judges/prosecutors from September 2020 to March 2021, mostly remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. My initial contacts came from judges/prosecutors I had met during a previous study in 2015 at the regional courts in Cayenne and Fort-de-France, who referred me to other colleagues. The two main unions of judges/prosecutors later helped me diversify my sample in terms of territories of assignment, type of court and functions exercised (public prosecutor's office, bench, specialised functions), although experiences in French Guiana, Martinique and New Caledonia are slightly over-represented. My sample included thirty-six respondents, twenty-three men and thirteen women. Of these, three were born in the French overseas territories, four were born abroad (including two with foreign parents), and twenty-nine were born in metropolitan France. None of the judges/prosecutors born in metropolitan France had parents born in the overseas territories and only one had an immigrant parent. Fourteen had held at least two positions in the overseas territories and seven had held three or more. The profile of "overseas specialist", often emphasised in interviews is thus over-represented in my sample, which also results in an over-representation of men, as they are more likely to have held multiple overseas posts. The interviews provided insight into their career paths and how they perceive their overseas assignments, but also into their family lives, leisure activities and spaces for social interaction in overseas societies, as well as their self-perception in these territories.

The interviews are supplemented by statistical data processed by Marine Haddad (INED) using a database derived from the directory of judges/prosecutors. This database lists the 41,757 positions (including 1,584 overseas) held by the 9,202 judges/prosecutors in office in 2019, since the start of their career. For each position, it provides information on the function, start and end dates, court, judge/prosecutor's rank, gender, date and department of birth, and method of entry into the judiciary. Only 11% of judges/prosecutors in office in 2019 had held a position overseas. The proportion was higher for men (16%) than for women (9%), indicating that the feminisation of the judiciary is more limited in the overseas territories than in mainland France. In contrast, this experience concerns the majority of judges/prosecutors originating in the overseas territories (51%), although they represent only a very small proportion of the judiciary (0.7% of judges/prosecutors in this database, i.e. 67 individuals). Among the judges/prosecutors who had worked overseas, they held an average of 1.5 positions and remained for five years, with some holding up to eight positions.

<footnote n="2">2 Economic and symbolic advantages, while important, are rarely cited as the primary reasons for migration to the French overseas territories. The judges/prosecutors interviewed more often mentioned a desire to travel, a taste for diversity and</footnote>
professional fulfilment (Lehuger, 2022; Guyon, 2023). Yet, migrants moving from metropolitan France to the overseas territories benefit from both economic and symbolic structural advantages, in particular a presumption of competence and prestige. As shown by Ihaddadene (2022), in the case of Guadeloupe, and Célestine (2022), in the case of Martinique, the construction of skills portrayed as "metropolitan" is embedded in colonial and post-colonial relations that disqualify workers from the DROMs.¹ Nevertheless, the privileges associated with "metropolitanity" are ambivalent: the "metropolitan label" can be a source of prestige and access to resources, but it can also be stigmatising (Célestine, 2022). Individuals categorised as metropolitan, both white and non-white, are criticised for their privileged access to employment, especially management positions, their "entre-soi" (self-segregation), their lack of knowledge of local societies and their sense of superiority (on Martinique, Célestine, 2022; on Mayotte, Lehuger, 2022).

The category of “metropolitan”, whose origins and overlap with the category of “white” will be discussed further below, encompasses different realities depending on the specific DROM-COM.² On the one hand, economic advantages vary in absolute terms, since salary bonuses differ between the DROMs and COMs, and in relative terms, depending on the gap between these salaries and the standard of living of the local population. On the other hand, the vertical segregation of labour and the concentration of metropolitans at the top of the professional hierarchy also differ from one territory to another (Haddad, 2023). Finally, the historical trajectories of each DROM-COM have produced specific ethno-racial segmentations. By examining these various configurations of professional practice and the way they are subjectively experienced by judges/prosecutors, this article highlights the mechanisms through which their overseas experiences constitute spaces for renegotiating their status and self-perceptions.

Despite their dominant social status, whose economic and symbolic dimensions will be explored, overseas migration exposes judicial elites, who are mainly from metropolitan France, to the experience of being a numerical minority and to forms of destabilisation of this dominant position. This article examines the subjective dimension of this overseas experience, showing how judges/prosecutors reflect on and adjust to this ambivalent privilege.

## An Ambivalent Metropolitan Privilege

What status do judges/prosecutors posted from metropolitan France have in the overseas territories? What are the economic and symbolic benefits they derive from this migration, and what social relations underpin metropolitan privilege?

### The Origins of the "Metro" Category: Metropolitanity and Whiteness

The opposition between “metropolitans” and “overseas citizens” is prominent in all the DROM-COMs, but takes different forms in each territory. In French Guiana, the French West Indies and Réunion, this divide is rooted in a reconfiguration of the socio-professional inequalities that structured the colonial order. These inequalities distinguished, on one side, individuals not originally from the colony with the administrative status of *cadre métropolitain* (metropolitan regime), civil servants
seconded by the Ministry of Colonies; and, on the other, officials under the cadre local (local regime), whose careers depended on the governor's discretionary power. Following departmentalisation, there was a shift from "personnel under the metropolitan regime" to "metropolitan", and this category became prominent in social and political life in French Guiana at the end of the 1950s (Maurice, 2014). In the French West Indies, as the proportion of metropolitan-born men and women increased significantly in the 1960s and 1970s, with some settling permanently, the category of "metro" also emerged, enjoying a distinctive value on the labour market. However, it is difficult to estimate statistically the white and non-white components of this population, which includes the children of French West Indians born in metropolitan France (Condon, 2020).

7

In ordinary categorisation, “metropolitan” or “metro” overlaps considerably with “white” (on French Guiana, Hidair, 2007), reflecting the majority status of “whites” in metropolitan France (Cohen and Mazouz, 2021). However, metropolitan is not strictly synonymous with white. For example, in French Guiana and Guadeloupe, people distinguish between “péyi” whites and “metropolitans”. This distinction is based less on birthplace than on integration into local society, speaking Creole or socialising with members of local rather than metropolitan groups. In addition, black people or those of North African descent born in mainland France can be included in the same category as white metropolitans, if they hold high social status. Among the Maroons of French Guiana, expressions referring to whiteness either denote power differentials (bakaa) or skin colour (wetiman). For example, black people occupying positions of authority—especially within the state—are described as white (bakaa) people of colour (Léglise et al., 2022). According to Célestine (2022: 79), Martinican identity is less “tied to phenotype and external racial identification, but rather to a bodily hexis, a command of Creole and forms of socialisation in Martinique during childhood”. As a result, “whites” born in Martinique to metropolitan parents can claim to be Martinican, while the children of French West Indians born in metropolitan France may be perceived as outsiders. However, she notes that contemporary modes of identity construction are not free from racial components based on phenotype, as these children are “referred to as *négropolitains* and not as *métropolitains*, which in fact designates ‘whites’ from metropolitan France” (Célestine, 2022: 80).

**Box 2: A reflection of the metropolitan condition**

As a white metropolitan academic working in French Guiana and Martinique, I was often questioned about my position as a white researcher born and based in metropolitan France, conducting research in the postcolonial context of French overseas territories. Metropolitan privilege and the coloniality of knowledge were reproduced both in interactions with respondents and in relationships with colleagues in overseas institutions who, quite rightly, sometimes pointed out this dynamic. Beyond these reminders, as in any ethnographic study, the reflexive effort necessarily places the effects of social distance at the centre. My outsider status—class-based, cultural, phenotypic and linguistic—produced effects that shaped the research dynamic. This led me to reflect on the impact of my racial, class and gender identity on my various fields of research.

I also experienced the discomfort associated with being aware of this privilege and implemented strategies to cope with it, to conduct my research and demonstrate
that I was not just a transient researcher, but also at a personal level, to maintain a
sense of moral dignity. In short, I felt some of the discomfort experienced by
judges/prosecutors about their own privileges, and I too implemented some of the
responses, the ways of negotiating metropolitan, white identity in French overseas
territories that I describe in this article.

8 The category of “metropolitan” is a social condition very widely associated with whiteness, but it does not strictly coincide with the category of “white”. This article examines how judges/prosecutors from metropolitan France position themselves and are positioned in the various overseas social spaces, where they may be labelled or may self-identify as “metro” and/or “white”. It focuses on these shifting labels, and the ways in which judges/prosecutors navigate them.

Economic Privilege and Statutory Privilege

9 Increased salaries and lower taxes: judges/prosecutors, like other public officials, enjoy a higher standard of living overseas, regardless of their place of birth. In addition, they experience a level of social esteem in these territories that they consider to be significantly higher than in metropolitan France.

10 They receive an overseas bonus, an increase on their gross salary (from 40% in the French West Indies and French Guiana, to 54% in Réunion and up to 108% in Polynesia or Saint Pierre and Miquelon) to reflect the high cost of living. However, the actual price differential (10-15%) bears no relation to the scale of these bonuses, and DROM residents also benefit from tax reductions (from 30% in the French West Indies and Réunion to 40% in French Guiana and Mayotte). While public officials from metropolitan France do not have a monopoly on these bonuses, the fact that they are proportional to salaries means they are of greater benefit to the upper tiers of the judicial hierarchy, where metropolitan officials are over-represented. In addition, officials who previously worked in mainland France are entitled to a geographical hardship allowance when they take up a post in French Guiana, Mayotte, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy (equivalent to sixteen months' salary). Finally, retirement annuities are increased for services in the French overseas territories.

11 Judges/prosecutors said little about the substantial economic benefits associated with overseas migration. One judge/prosecutor, who had been posted both to the French West Indies and French Guiana³ cautiously acknowledged the attractiveness of these bonuses:

"It's a bit of an underlying issue with the Guianese court clerks: 'But I've seen your pay slips'. Generally speaking, it creates differences between people, with rents going through the roof for a regular house. Dairy products are bought by whites, at fifteen euros a pack because there's a clientele that doesn't look at the price. I know it made me think, 'Are you doing it for that too?' I don't think so, but maybe, because after all you get an extra eighteen months' salary depending on how long you've been doing it, and that's a lot. Plus 30% or 40% extra salary every month, and lower taxes. It's a golden opportunity."

12 He highlighted the comparative advantage this bonus gave him in relation to local court officials, the “Guianese clerks”, and to the local population, who have significantly lower purchasing power. The dominance of metropolitans over local groups is intertwined with origin and class dynamics, reflecting divides in status that exacerbate inequalities in pay and purchasing power. As a vector of major economic
inequalities within the court system and, as he described it, between “whites” and the local population, bonuses are a source of tension and put this active member of the *Syndicat de la magistrature* at odds with his political principles. The discomfort caused by these economic advantages was palpable in his questioning, doubts and hesitations; it was also evident when he talked about the lifestyle afforded by this salary bonus:

> *"The houses, the cleaning lady, the swimming pool with a man who comes to clean it, somehow you ease your conscience by saying: 'I have to give local people work. I'm not going to hoard it all.' Sure, we could say 'I don't want this', but we don't, and I don't actually know if we even could."*

13 This judge/prosecutor expressed discomfort about these material advantages overseas—the house, the swimming pool—and the domestic service relationships that went with them. Like French public service volunteers in Senegal and Madagascar, judges/ prosecutors hire service personnel for just a few hours a week. However, some feel uncomfortable about this, as they see domestic service as embodying forms of neo-colonial domination from which they wish to distance themselves (Quashie, 2016). Beyond these material benefits, the privileged environment of the overseas territories—the beaches and coastlines of the Caribbean islands, Oceania and the Indian Ocean, the rainforest in French Guiana—also provides judges/prosecutors with access to leisure activities unavailable in metropolitan France. The extraordinary nature of these journeys is particularly marked in Oceania, as described by a judge/prosecutor working in New Caledonia:

> *"The main attraction of New Caledonia is the opportunity to travel. We visited the neighbouring territories, then Australia, New Zealand, China, Vanuatu, Japan, we travelled a lot, and we explored all of New Caledonia."*

14 In terms of living conditions, overseas migration—at least to the majority of French overseas territories—is partly lifestyle migration (Benson and O'Reilly, 2009), in which migrants gain a better quality of life through increased purchasing power and leisure opportunities usually associated with tourism. However, these opportunities vary from one territory to another, partly shaping a desirability differential among the overseas territories.

15 The lifestyle of metropolitans, especially their residential and leisure practices, is a social marker and establishes boundaries between them and local groups. Aspirations for cultural exchanges that motivated departure overseas are frequently disappointed, as noted by a woman judge/prosecutor posted to New Caledonia:

> *"When I first arrived, I was deluding myself a bit, thinking: 'We're not just going to be among ourselves, I really want to have friends from all backgrounds.' Except that, in reality, we stay among ourselves. Even when we go out into the bush. I was with quite a few of my judge and prosecutor friends. And we made friends with some Caldoches who lived nearby. But that's something that didn't happen to me much in metropolitan France: I had friends with totally different professions. One was a beautician, another a tiler. These are professions that I'd never had the opportunity to mix with elsewhere.'"*

16 As a result of the segregated nature of work, leisure and residential spaces, these privileged migrants, who aspired to immerse themselves in local groups, especially those groups that most embody cultural otherness, such as the Kanak, do not manage to do so, as implied here. Judges/prosecutors mainly associate with metropolitans, and in New Caledonia they may also connect with members of the local middle and upper classes, the “Caldoches”⁴ who are whites. As the above interviewee reflected in relation to her socially unlikely friendship with a beautician and a tiler, racial boundaries lead
to greater social openness within the white group, echoing similar patterns observed in Mayotte (Lehuger, 2022).

17 In addition to economic advantages and lifestyle, judges/prosecutors often contrast the prestige of their overseas position with the downgrading of their status perceived in metropolitan France. As Ihaddadene (2022) has shown in Guadeloupe, young French national public service volunteers from mainland France benefit from the naturalised recognition of their competence compared to their Guadeloupean counterparts. Their metropolitan origin defines their skills and guarantees their recognition. In the penal and judicial space, the work of overseas court clerks and police officers, associated with low productivity and informality, is also frequently contrasted with the work of metropolitan court clerks, police officers and especially gendarmes, associated with rigour (Guyon, 2023: 134-136). Since the proportion of judges/magistrates from mainland France is very small, the judicial body is not divided in this way. Instead, the judiciary as a whole enjoys greater prestige and authority in the overseas context compared to metropolitan France.

18 The majority of interviewees emphasised the politeness shown to them by court users in the French overseas territories and, beyond that, their respect for the state authorities. For example, a woman judge/prosecutor posted to Réunion explained:

> "Here, despite transport difficulties and isolation, people show up. How can I put it? They're very respectful of the law, because we still represent real authority—the justice system and the law, what they call 'the law'."

19 These comments about the respect or deference shown by court users towards judges/ prosecutors are common in accounts from French Guiana, Réunion, New Caledonia and Polynesia, and to a lesser extent the French West Indies. In most cases, judges/ prosecutors use metropolitan France as a benchmark to express the prestige of their position in overseas territories, as illustrated by this judge/prosecutor in relation to Martinique:

> "They confessed readily. And I would add that they are extremely respectful of the justice system. Unlike what you see in a court like Bobigny, where the only thing the guys want to do is insult you and roll around on the floor. Here, people are respectful. In fact, they are very polite towards authority. Which is quite surprising because it may seem less legitimate than in metropolitan France, but there you have it."

20 The judge/prosecutor underlined the paradox between the foreignness of the judicial institution in French overseas territories and the greater respect for judicial authority there compared to metropolitan France. Beyond the courtroom, judges/prosecutors spoke of the prestige they enjoyed in the overseas context. They often work more closely with high-ranking representatives of the state, such as prefects, and are more visible in the media, regularly invited to participate in official ceremonies organised by decentralised administrations or local authorities. Although they are not *notables* in the sense that their social prestige cannot be converted in the political space,⁵ they nevertheless enjoy social esteem that extends beyond the judicial arena. Importantly, this recognition is linked to the institution they embody, and judges/prosecutors from the French overseas territories benefit from it as much as judges/prosecutors originating from outside these territories. Yet it remains difficult to fully disentangle the two, as recruitment into these elite positions is largely from metropolitan France.

21 Despite these economic and symbolic benefits, in some contexts judges/prosecutors express a sense of vulnerability, both in their daily lives and in the professional space.
Reconfigured Privilege: Experiencing Otherness

The experience of recurrent social and political crises in French overseas territories highlights the ambivalence of their condition. The recent history of the various territories is marked by crises such as the “taui” of 2004 in French Polynesia,⁶ the protests against the high cost of living in 2008 and 2009 in French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, as well as in Mayotte in 2011, the general strike of March and April 2017 in French Guiana, that of January to May 2018 in Mayotte, the *gilets jaunes* (yellow jackets) movement in Réunion in 2018 and 2019 and more recently mobilisations against the Covid health pass in the French West Indies. Despite their diversity, all of these social and political crises, largely disconnected from social mobilisations in metropolitan France, challenge the relationship between these territories and the French state. French sovereignty is sometimes contested, and judges/prosecutors, like other metropolitan public officials, may be ascribed to stigmatising categories they had never previously encountered.

In these highly conflictual contexts, judges/prosecutors subjectively experience a reconfiguration of their privileges.⁷ Their metropolitan identity exposes them for the first time to derogatory stereotypes and sometimes to mild discrimination. A judge/ prosecutor posted to French Guiana in 2017 recounted the transformation of relations between metropolitans and Guianese in the context of the general strike:

> "I felt a bit of a shift. It was the first time I'd heard Guianese people say: 'Yeah, the metros are a bit of a pain.' And that's when I felt some tension between the metros and the Guianese."

Similarly, an older judge/prosecutor posted in Martinique during the 2009 protests against the high cost of living explained how metropolitanity, most often associated with whiteness, became a salient dimension of ordinary interactions, whereas it had not seemed that way before:

> "We didn't hang around in town, but apart from that one episode when it was a bit tense... You soon realise that the look in people's eyes isn't very friendly. Especially when it's been friendly from the start. Or at the market because there was a bit of a shortage, when you're queuing and the lovely lady who serves you every week decides that day to let all the people behind you go ahead of you. You get the feeling that you're not quite as welcome as you used to be."

Another woman judge/prosecutor, originally from overseas and posted to French Guiana at the time of the general strike, expressed her anger at how certain people from metropolitan France were treated by protesters:

> "There was one lawyer who was told he couldn't say anything because he was metro. And he had to say, 'Wait a minute, my son's mother...' I don't know if she's Creole or African. It was just insane!"

This judge/prosecutor condemned the stigmatisation of metropolitans; she was particularly shocked that, when asked to defend his metropolitanity, the lawyer used ethnic references, referring to his son's "Creole or African" mother, which is also a way of euphemising the fact that he was in a relationship with a non-white person. It was the mobilisation of this ethnic and racial dimension of identity that she found "insane".

Overseas migration is a peculiar experience for these judges/prosecutors, who find themselves abruptly reduced to their metropolitan identity. This identity is tied to their metropolitan origins and lifestyle but is not devoid of a racial component. In the
professional space, the dominant position of judges/prosecutors is also destabilised when confronted with certain local elites.

28 Cosquer (2020), in her fieldwork in the United Arab Emirates, shows how whiteness is challenged through confrontation with a local elite perceived as exceptionally wealthy and politically powerful. In the French West Indies, and to a lesser extent in French Guiana, some lawyers stigmatise the metropolitan origin and even the whiteness of judges/prosecutors. For example, a judge posted successively in French Guiana and Martinique described the strained relations between some black Martinican lawyers and metropolitan judges/prosecutors:

> "The lawyers would say, 'You can't understand. You come here with your white people principles.' Sometimes they'd just say 'white', like that, right there in court, and it wouldn't be a problem. The court users weren't as outspoken because they didn't dare. But they made it clear that we weren't at home here and that we couldn't understand them, and that's why we delivered justice badly, whereas I'd never heard that in French Guiana."

29 In metropolitan France, whiteness is most often “unnamed” in relation to the majority group, because minority groups, for whom whiteness is not invisible, are less numerous.⁸ Ethno-racial categorisations, perceived as illegitimate, have to remain unspoken, especially in state institutions, which does not mean that they do not operate (De Rudder et al., 2000; Mazouz, 2017; Bereni and Noûs, 2020). As in other postcolonial contexts where race-based power relations and inequalities cannot be ignored, migration to the French overseas territories acts as a revealer of whiteness (Leonard, 2022; Célestine, 2022). The mention of race by lawyers from Martinique was particularly shocking because it occurred in the republican context of the court hearing and because the judges/prosecutors are the ones ascribed to a racial category. The overseas context no longer guarantees invisibility, and whiteness becomes not only visible but also derogatory. It is associated with allochthony—“We weren’t at home”— and with a form of cultural otherness seen as unsurpassable—“Your white people principles”. Such processes of othering have been described in the experience of privileged migration in other post-imperial contexts (Fechter, 2005). The criticisms addressed by Martinican lawyers to judges/prosecutors are commonly directed at metropolitans in Martinique (Célestine, 2022), but they use a racial and anti-colonial grammar that destabilises the judges/prosecutors.

30 Judges/prosecutors therefore experienced being categorised and stigmatised as white. They also denounced the exorbitant political power wielded by lawyers in the French West Indies. A judge/prosecutor posted in Fort-de-France highlighted the reversal of the balance of power between the judicial authorities and lawyers, and the complacency of the judicial hierarchy towards this local elite:

> "The architecture of a courtroom is such that judges/prosecutors are positioned on a raised platform. The public prosecution service represents society; we are a party to the trial, but we are not a party like any other. We are judicial officers, guardians of individual freedoms, and so we are rightfully elevated. When the Fort-de-France courthouses were built, the courtroom was designed like other courts in metropolitan France. Shortly before the inauguration of the building, the President of the Bar declared that lawyers would never plead their cases in the courthouse unless the public prosecution service [public prosecutor and deputy public prosecutors] was lowered... And that was that. The Chancellery delayed the inauguration by two months. The public prosecution service was lowered to ground level. It's the only court in France where the prosecutors are on the same level as lawyers."

31 This anecdote highlights the power of the local bar, which obtained a modification of the republican ritual that symbolises the judicial order across the entire French
national territory (Garapon, 2001). Through the presence of “overseas advisers” in the offices of the Minister of Justice, the Prime Minister and the President, high-level elected representatives from the French West Indies have privileged access to government bodies. This channel to central administration of the Ministry of Justice enables lawyers, some of whom hold political office, to prevail over local judicial authorities. The possibility of appealing to the central authorities against local state representatives is rooted in the specific socio-political configuration of the overseas territories, referred to as the “overseas state” (Guyon, 2016). A number of studies have highlighted the specialisation and relative autonomy of the overseas sector within the state apparatus, where high-level overseas elected representatives hold unique power (Beauvallet et al., 2018).⁹ Moreover, this area of public policy is highly permeable to economic and social interest groups that are specific to French overseas territories (Beauvallet et al., 2016; Joltreau, 2023).

32 Judges/prosecutors are thus, in a sense, compelled to adjust to their metropolitanity and in the overseas context, and the privileges that go with it.

## Negotiating Dominant Status, Adjusting to Metropolitan Privilege

33 Metropolitanity refers to economic and symbolic structural advantages, as well as to a set of representations of self and others. Research on whiteness has mainly focused on how individuals adhere to a rewarding white identity (Cervulle, 2012), but what happens when that identity is more ambivalent, both rewarding and stigmatising? Frankenberg (1993) analyses the many ways in which white British women think of themselves and express themselves as white. In particular, she looks at whether, and in what ways, they ignore or acknowledge their position of dominance. In the same vein, we examine the various discursive repertoires of metropolitan and white identity among judges/prosecutors in the French overseas territories.

## Putting Privilege into Perspective

34 In these contexts, one way of adjusting to metropolitan privilege is by putting it into perspective, whether in economic or status terms. Many interviewees mentioned the high cost of living in the overseas territories, citing objectively high rents and prices of certain everyday goods, thereby downplaying the economic advantage of migration. Others, like this judge/prosecutor in New Caledonia, highlighted other economic costs resulting from their move overseas:

> "There's an index-linked salary bonus that is not insignificant, and is also part of the appeal. But bear in mind that often spouses can't find work... In New Caledonia, there's even a local employment law. Something we wouldn't dare do in France, because everyone would be up in arms, New Caledonia did it with ease."

35 This judge/prosecutor minimised the economic benefits of overseas migration by pointing out that his wife interrupted her career during their first experience overseas and stopped working for good after the second. Among the couples interviewed, and in privileged migration more broadly, migration often reinforces traditional gender roles, with men becoming the main or even sole breadwinners and women taking on parental and domestic responsibilities (Arieli, 2007; Fechter, 2007; Yeoh et al., 2000). The judge/
prosecutor also downplayed the privileges enjoyed by metropolitans by highlighting the local employment law adopted in New Caledonia as part of the 1998 Nouméa Accord,¹⁰ a measure that disadvantages non-Caledonians in accessing jobs in the territory.

36

Another way of downplaying the advantages enjoyed by metropolitans in the overseas territories is to point to other categories of non-white privileged groups. Many of those interviewed raised the issue of the role of French West Indians in the civil service and local social configurations, which serves to put metropolitan privilege into perspective:

> "The issue of taking benefits without giving anything in return, of taking more from French Guiana than we give back, is one that transcends the metro/Guianese divide. Many civil servants and judges/prosecutors move there to get the last end-of-career benefits, and this includes French West Indians, who cannot return to their territory of origin. And the Guianese have a different position towards the metros than towards the French West Indians, towards whom they often harbour even more resentment."

37

As noted by this judge/prosecutor, the hierarchies between territories inherited from colonisation are not limited to the mainland/overseas dichotomy. Due to the significant economic and social inequalities between them, overseas territories and their residents are themselves ranked hierarchically. Judges/prosecutors downplay and morally justify their dominant position by distinguishing themselves from other locally dominant figures. They claim that the metropolitan group has a better image than the French West Indian group.

38

In addition to putting privilege into perspective, and without completely withdrawing from metropolitan social life, judges/prosecutors also show a concern for demonstrating their local integration.

## Being a Well-Integrated Metropolitan

39

Some judges/prosecutors emphasise their knowledge of and integration into local society. Certain cultural practices seen as emblematic of the cultures of the different territories, such as the pirogue or Tahitian dance in Polynesia, or the carnival or Amerindian games in French Guiana, are embraced by some metropolitans who have settled there as a sign of their adaptation to the local society,¹¹ as in the case of this judge/prosecutor in Polynesia:

> "Well, it's something very Polynesian, it's really at the heart of Polynesian culture, the pirogue... I wanted to try it, and then I got hooked! It was like a drug. Between twelve and two, I'd go pirogueing, with Polynesians, of course... and so I'd leave the courthouse with my oar, my shorts, all that, and go pirogueing with the teams. It was a totally Polynesian activity, to the point that after a few years, when I met people in the street, I was identified as an oarsman, as someone who did va'a,¹² and they would start to speak to me in Tahitian, but I couldn't understand a word. And many of my female colleagues did Tahitian dancing, and that enabled them to integrate well."

40

In French Guiana or the French West Indies, attending Catholic churches or playing football, which is very popular, can be ways of asserting local roots and distancing oneself from metropolitanity. Local integration is also often facilitated by the spouses of judges/prosecutors, either because they have a more mixed professional environment, or through their voluntary or leisure activities, as described by this woman judge/prosecutor:
"I was lucky because my partner was at the university, and there were people of all ages. It was easier for him than for me actually, but I benefitted from his social circle. It was really diverse—mainly Guianese, but also some metropolitans who had been there a long time."

41 Many interviewees, where possible, mentioned the special friendships they made in the host society as evidence of their efforts to integrate locally. Using terms specific to local societies or certain vernacular terms also helped to perform their local anchoring and knowledge.

42 The duration of residence in the territory divides the metropolitan group. Long-established metropolitans have more resources to distance themselves from the figure of the transient metropolitan and assert their local roots: property assets, friends from local populations, integration into social networks that are not exclusively metropolitan. Furthermore, opportunities and methods of local integration vary greatly according to class and age. A judge posted in French Guiana underlined the heterogeneity of the group:

"For gendarmes on six-month assignments, it's a different story. It's not easy to see how grievances are prioritised. And the few times I've walked around Saint-Laurent with Guianese people, I've noticed a particular way of looking at young teachers, nurses and mixed couples who may form in the immediate aftermath of the arrival of young metropolitans."

43 This judge/prosecutor illustrated the fragmentation of the metropolitan group in French Guiana according to occupation and socio-professional category—the examples of occupations he gave are intermediate occupations with less prestige than judge/prosecutor—but also age and duration of residence. Gendarmes are seen as transient whites, and youth makes metropolitans more susceptible to certain stigmas, particularly those linked to consumerism.¹³

44 Certain practices, such as learning languages or gaining knowledge of local cultures, were described by respondents using very different registers. For some, like the judge/prosecutor mentioned above, learning local languages is a way of recognising the cultural diversity of overseas societies and building more symmetrical relationships with members of local groups. For other respondents, these same practices were framed in terms of territorial control and from a more managerial perspective. The aim is to ensure greater acceptance of their professional position and legitimacy among both local court staff and court users.

45 Judges/prosecutors rarely learn local languages; they have little time to devote to it and are often posted to the territories for short assignments. When they do, it is a powerful way of distinguishing themselves and asserting their position, as this judge/prosecutor posted to Oceania explained:

"In Tahiti, we had some training to give us the basics of Tahitian culture, which is important. When I arrived at work in the morning, for example, I always started with a few words of Tahitian: 'Hello! How are you? Ia orana, tuo vo?' And it's appreciated, it puts people at ease. Sometimes in court, if there was noise at the back of the room, I'd use a Tahitian word. I'd say, 'Mamu!' which means 'silence' in Tahitian. People understand it straight away, and it's more accepted."

46 This judge/prosecutor emphasised how even minimal mastery of local languages can foster respect and authority. This linguistic knowledge and know-how resembles what Steinmetz (2004) calls *ethnographic sagacity*, the ability to “capture the characters”, “ways of life” and “subjectivities of the colonised”, which was a key resource for colonial administrators.
47 As we have seen, migration to the overseas territories is a unique experience, often the first, where mainly white, metropolitan judges/prosecutors are labelled and sometimes stigmatised as whites. How do they speak about and adjust to this social attribute that takes on such prominence in this new living space?

## Dealing with Whiteness

48 Do they refer to themselves as “whites”, or do they use the various local terms such as “zoreilles” or “mzungu”, or terms that euphemise the racialised dimension, such as “metro”?

49 As the reference, the majority white condition in metropolitan France is not conducive to thinking and speaking about oneself as white. The white condition is characterised by its tendency to universalise its position; it is “a comfortable, privileged and unnamed place of enunciation from which one has the illusion of seeing without being seen” (Sovik, 2009: 368, quoted in Viveros Vigoya, 2018: 140). In contrast, in the majority of overseas territories where whites are demographically in the minority, whiteness becomes more thinkable and sayable. Judges/prosecutors often recount their experience of the shift from being part of a white majority in metropolitan France to a numerical minority overseas, as a former judge/prosecutor in Fort-de-France explained in relation to his children:

> “We enrolled them in state school. So we took our children, who had been at school in Besançon. And they got there, and I remember my eldest son, he was the only one, the only white among lots of black children.”

50 Having been considered a banal and invisible trait, whiteness became unusual and distinguished his son as the “only white” in his school. Another judge/prosecutor also mentioned that there were only a few of them—“I think there were 150 of us whites”—in Wallis and Futuna. This experience of being a statistical minority heightens their awareness of being white and becomes something they can talk about because the vocabulary of race or ethnicity becomes commonplace. Another judge/prosecutor stressed the normality of ethnic categorisation in French Guiana, whereas it is relatively taboo—at least in court—in metropolitan France:

> “For example, human groups—I’m not sure what to call them without offending our metropolitan friends, but here we easily refer to them as ethnic groups. It doesn’t bother anyone.”

51 These judges/prosecutors are therefore compelled to depart from the French republican model based on blindness to racialisation (De Rudder et al., 2000; Bereni and Noûs, 2020; Mazouz, 2021) and to refer to race and/or ethnicity.¹⁴ However, not everyone uses the vocabulary of race in the same way. For example, the men in my sample tended to use phenotypic terms, while the women—with two exceptions—more often used “metros”. Use of this racial grammar, which remains transgressive for officials who embody republican institutions, may be easier for men than for women, whose gendered socialisation makes them more prone to correctness. For a number of judges/prosecutors, all male and left-wing, use of the term “white” is part of a political grammar condemning the privileges of “whites” in the overseas territories and the colonial nature of the situations they observe. A judge/prosecutor in Martinique, for example, used the term “whites” when criticising the lifestyle of “metropolitans” in overseas territories:
"That premium really stands out if you, little French white people, want to live over there like you do at home, like buying your low-fat Danone yoghurts, because over there you pay a crazy price for them."

52 Among the respondents, those racialised as non-white in metropolitan France—there were only four of them in my sample—were the most reluctant to use the vocabulary of race, even in the overseas context. None of them referred to “whites” and preferred to speak of “metros” or “metropolitanes”. They were also among those most offended by the categorisation of metropolitan residents as “whites” by members of local groups. These non-white judges/prosecutors thus exhibit the “minority republicanism” highlighted by Mazouz (2021: 132) among prefectural officials in metropolitan France. She shows that these non-white officials are even more compelled to demonstrate loyalty to the “colour-blind” republican ideology because their ascribed racial minority status means they are suspected of not being universalist.

53 While in the context of life in metropolitan France, whites can obscure or remain silent about their privilege,¹⁵ the questioning they face overseas on this subject forces them to name whiteness, even if in euphemised terms. References to the colonial legacy were, for the most part, absent from the respondents' discourse, but a minority of them—often politically engaged and unionised with the *Syndicat de la magistrature*—had a postcolonial interpretation of their overseas host societies. Some of the interviewees expressed a keen awareness of racial inequalities in the host society, which they linked to colonial history, and were eager to distinguish themselves from colonial authority figures. One judge/prosecutor, who has been posted overseas twice, recounted how his first overseas experience in Martinique transformed his understanding of the colonial legacy:

"You realise, and it's a real revelation, that slavery is part of their lives. It's hard to imagine when you're a well-off little white guy from the Hexagon [metropolitan France]."

54 This judge/prosecutor, a member of the *Syndicat de la magistrature*, used the French term "Hexagone/hexagonal" frequently heard in the French West Indies and French Guiana to avoid the term "metropolitan", which carries colonial connotations. Indirectly, he referenced his own privileged status as a "well-off little white guy from the *Hexagone*". He described how his encounters with people from Martinique transformed his understanding of racial issues and the legacy of slavery, about which he now has a more intimate understanding.

55 This heightened awareness of power relations stemming from colonisation also permeates professional practices and ways of thinking about them. Another judge/ prosecutor, posted in French Guiana, aimed to break away from a colonial approach in his dealings with court users:

"I would explain why I was sending someone to prison who says he's innocent, and when I explain, I can see clearly that people don't think I'm just some white judge putting someone in prison who's not guilty. When I explain things, I can say that at a given time, there's a factor that justifies putting him in prison, and that at a later time, that factor is no longer present."

56 While relations with court users are necessarily embedded in a power dynamic, he sought to limit the perception of the public justice system as an external and arbitrary institution by using a pedagogical approach. Through his attitude towards court users, the time and attention given to explaining sentences, he aimed to reduce the distance between himself and them and avoid being perceived as a "white judge". This sense of a stronger duty to set an example overseas than in metropolitan France—to avoid
criticism and not to contribute to the reproduction of inequalities between metropolitan France and overseas territories—was very widespread in the discourse of those interviewed, even if it does not always adopt, as in this case, the grammar of decolonisation.

57

Different ways of understanding metropolitanity and whiteness were thus identified among interviewees, based on their discourse on racial inequalities and their positioning in relation to them: ranging from denial of positional asymmetries, to intermediate forms of adjustment where the metropolitan subject is integrated and informed about local society without fundamentally challenging local power relations, to acute awareness combined with a commitment to fighting these inequalities.

## Conclusion

58

Privilege in migration involves a subjective dimension. In his book *Black Skin, White Masks*, Fanon (1952) examines colonised subjectivity, the effect of being the object of colonial racism on the subject. In contrast, French sociology has largely neglected white experience and subjectivity (Cohen and Mazouz, 2021), apart from studies of the *Béké* groups in Martinique and the “gros blancs” and “petits blancs” in Réunion, as though the issue only affected a few limited groups in overseas territories. Recent articles by Gordien (2021) and Célestine (2022) focus on socio-racial positions that crystallise ambivalences among local whites and migrants returning to Martinique. Populations labelled as “metropolitan” and “white” are only just beginning to be the subject of a series of individual and collective studies¹⁶ and publications (Lehuger, 2022; Cosquer et al., 2022).

59

While in mainland France these “white” populations are the majority group, in the DROM-COMs they experience their condition in a unique way that forces them to define themselves as such and to justify themselves. The migration experience reshapes the relationship between “majority” and “minority” groups. It undermines the association of whiteness with neutrality. In accounts of overseas experiences, whiteness becomes particularly salient in two ways: through confrontation with a local elite perceived as exceptionally politically powerful, namely lawyers; and in highly conflictual contexts, where judges/prosecutors may be subjected to stigmatising racial assignments which they had never previously encountered. It is not only because these individuals cease to be part of the numerically majority group that they become aware of their whiteness—which had previously gone unexamined because it was both dominant and commonplace. It is also because the privilege it confers on them, amplified by a metropolitanity that can only exist outside mainland France, is challenged by the contestation of certain local groups. There is therefore a triple movement revealing this condition: numerical reversal, intensification of socio-economic advantage, and the transposition into words (and into practice) of everyday privilege, by those who hold it but also by those who contest it.

60

As a result, they come to put into words their position of dominance, which is intertwined with class, origin and race, whereas the racial component was taboo in metropolitan France. However, not all of them express it openly or in the same way. This study also highlighted how these judges/prosecutors adjust to the privileges associated with their metropolitan and often white condition. They employ various tactics: downplaying their privileges and normalising their position, attempting to
establish more symmetrical relationships with members of local groups, and
demonstrating their local integration to distance themselves from the image of the
“transient white”. This article thus approaches the judicial institution from a rarely
explored perspective. Although still scarce in France, several studies have shown how
the judicial institution contributes to the racialisation of minority groups (Bessière
et al., 2018) and the discriminatory effects of the use of racialising categories (Vuattoux,
2021). However, there has been little research into the position of the judicial elite.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Arieli Daniella (2007) *The Task of Being Content: Expatriate Wives in Beijing, Emotional Work and Patriarchal Bargain*, *Journal of International Women's Studies*, 8 (4), pp. 18-31.

Beauvallet Willy, Célestine Audrey et Roger Aurélie (2018) Des assemblées au centre du jeu ? Les parlementaires dans « l'État outre-mer », *Colloque Les parlements en question : La permanence d'institutions subordonnées ?*, Paris, Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique.

Beauvallet Willy, Célestine Audrey et Roger Aurélie (2016) L'État outre-mer : la construction sociale et institutionnelle d'une spécificité ultramarine, *Politix*, 4 (116), pp. 139-161.

Benson Michaela and O'Reilly Karen (2009) *Migration and the Search for a Better Way of Life: A Critical Exploration of Lifestyle Migration*, *The Sociological Review*, 57 (4), pp. 608-625.

Bereni Laure et Camille Noûs (2000) La valeur professionnelle de l'identité. Racialisation, genre et légitimité managériale à New York et à Paris, *Sociétés contemporaines*, 1 (117), pp. 99-126.

Bessière Céline, Biland Émilie, Bourguignon Abigail, Gollac Sibylle, Mille Murielle et Steinmetz Hélène (2018) « Faut s'adapter aux cultures, Maître ! » : La racialisation des publics de la justice familiale en France métropolitaine, *Ethnologie française*, 48, pp. 131-140.

Célestine Audrey (2022) La transformation des identifications raciales en Martinique sous l'effet des migrations vers la France hexagonale, *Critique internationale*, 2 (95), pp. 66-85.

Cervulle Maxime (2012) La conscience dominante. Rapports sociaux de race et subjectivation, *Cahiers du Genre*, 2 (53), pp. 37-54.

Cohen Mathilde and Mazouz Sarah (2021) A White Republic? Whites and Whiteness in France, *French Politics, Culture & Society*, 39 (2), pp. 1-25.

Condon Stéphanie (2020) Continuité coloniale et gestion démographique des Antilles françaises, 1950-1980, *Mobilities Société*, 182 (4), pp. 43-57.

Cosquer Claire (2022) « Expat' » blancs, nouveaux riches arabes. Anxiétés « expatriées », distinction blanche et fractions racialisées des classes dominantes à Abu Dhabi, *Sociétés contemporaines*, 2 (126), pp. 121-149.

Cosquer Claire (2021) Looking for the Authentic Other: Cosmopolitan Ethos and Orientalism in French Migrants' Experiences in Abu Dhabi, *Critique of Anthropology*, 41 (4), [online]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X211059658
Cosquer Claire (2019) *L'expatriation révélatrice. Être blanc à Abu Dhabi*, La vie des idées, [en ligne].
URL : https://laviedesidees.fr/L-expatriation-revelatrice

Cosquer Claire, Le Renard Saba et Paris Myriam (2022) Devenir « métro » : ce que les migrations vers les outre-mer font à la blanchité, *Critique internationale*, 2 (95), pp. 10-19.

De Rudder Véronique, Poiret Christian et Vourc'h François (2000) *L'inégalité raciste. L'universalité républicaine à l'épreuve*, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France.

Fanon Frantz (1952) *Peau noire, masques blancs*, Paris, Le seuil.

Fechter Anne-Meike (2007) *Transnational Lives. Expatriates in Indonesia*, London, Routledge.

Fechter Anne-Meike (2005) The “Other” Stares Back: Experiencing Whiteness in Jakarta, *Ethnography*, 6 (1), pp. 87-103.

Frankenberg Ruth (1997) *Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism*, Durham, Duke University Press.

Frankenberg Ruth (1993) *White Women, Race Matters. The Social Construction of Whiteness*, Minneapolis, Minnesota University Press.

Garapon Antoine (2001) *Bien juger. Essai sur le rituel judiciaire*, Paris, Odile Jacob.

Gordien Ary (2021) “White” Guadeloupeans of “Mixed” Ancestry Complicating Analyses of Whiteness and White Supremacy, *French Politics, Culture & Society*, 39, pp. 95-115.

Guillaumin Colette (1972) *L'idéologie raciste. Genèse et langage actuel*, Paris/La Haye, Mouton.

Guyon Stéphanie (2023) *Le privilège métropolitain ? Magistrat·es outre-mer et hiérarchies postcoloniales*, Manuscrit original, Habilitation à diriger des recherches, Paris, Université Paris 8.

Guyon Stéphanie (2016) Trajectoires postcoloniales de l'assimilation, *Politix*, 4 (116), pp. 9-28.

Haddad Marine (2023) *Emploi public en outre-mer : une préférence pour les métropolitains ?*, The conversation, [en ligne]. URL : https://theconversation.com/emploi-public-en-outre-mer-une-preference-pour-les-metropolitains-199024

Hidair Isabelle (2007) Images fantasmatiques de l'immigration métropolitaine : Regards sur la dialectique des représentations stéréotypées, in Serge Mam-Lam-Fouck Dir., *Comprendre la Guyane d'aujourd'hui : un département français dans la région des Guyanes*, Matoury, Ibis Rouge Éditions, pp. 617-642.

Ihaddadene Florence (2022) Volontaires au service de l'État en Guadeloupe : la construction paradoxale de la blanchité des jeunes Français·es de l'Hexagone, *Critique internationale*, 2 (95), pp. 44-65.

Joltreau Thibaud (2023) *Gouverner l'agriculture ultramarine : une économie politique de l'agro-industrie canne-sucre-rhum des départements français d'outre-mer*, Thèse en science politique, Bordeaux, IEP de Bordeaux.

Korpela Mari (2010) A Postcolonial Imagination? Westerners Searching for Authenticity in India, *Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies*, 36 (8), pp. 1299-1315.

Lavanchy Anne (2018) Taire la race pour produire une société incolore ? Les contours du régime racial en Suisse, *Sociologie et sociétés*, 50 (2), pp. 151-174.

Léglise Isabelle, Léobal Clémence et Migge Bettina (2020) Dire la blancheur chez les Businenge(e) en Guyane : pratiques de catégorisation et racialisation des rapports sociaux, *Cahiers des Amériques Latines*, 93, pp. 73-92.
Le Renard Amélie Saba (2019) *Le privilège occidental. Travail, intimité et hiérarchies postcoloniales à Dubaï*, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po.

Lehuger Clémentine (2022) *L'État « magnégné » : imaginaires, pratiques et rapports à l'État à Mayotte*, Thèse en science politique, Université Paris 1.

Leonard Pauline (2022) Identités migrantes : genre, blanchité et britannicité dans le Hong Kong postcolonial, *Critique internationale*, 2 (95), pp. 86-108.

Leonard Pauline (2010) *Organizing Whiteness: Gender, Nationality and Subjectivity in Postcolonial Hong Kong*, Gender, Work & Organization, 17 (3), pp. 340-358.

Lundström Catrin (2014) *White Migrations. Gender, Whiteness and Privilege in Transnational Migration*, New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Maurice Edenz (2014) Vers l'État post-colonial : enseignants créoles et pouvoir local en Guyane (années 1950-1960), *Revue d'histoire moderne & contemporaine*, 61 (1), pp. 147-172.

Mazouz Sarah (2021) *A White Race Blindness? Abstract Universalism and the Unspeakable Making of Race*, *French Politics, Culture & Society*, 39 (2), pp. 116-135.

Mazouz Sarah (2017) *La République et ses autres. Politiques de l'altérité dans la France des années 2000*, Lyon, ENS Éditions.

Quashie Hélène (2016) Débuter sa carrière professionnelle en Afrique. L'idéal d'insertion sociale des volontaires français à Dakar et Antananarivo (Sénégal, Madagascar), *Cahiers d'études africaines*, 1-2 (221-222), pp. 53-80.

Quashie Hélène (2009) Désillusions et stigmates de l'exotisme. Quotidiens d'immersion culturelle et touristique au Sénégal, *Cahiers d'études africaines*, 49 (193-194), pp. 525-549.

Sovik Liv (2009) Aqui ninguém é branco: hegemonia branca e media no Brasil, in Vron Ware Dir., *Branquidade: identidade branca e multiculturalismo*, Rio de Janeiro, Garamond, pp. 363-386.

Steinmetz George (2004) L'écriture du diable. Discours précolonial, posture ethnographique et tensions dans l'administration coloniale allemande des Samoa, *Politix*, 2 (66), pp. 49-80.

Viveros Vigoya Mara (2018) *Les couleurs de la masculinité. Expériences intersectionnelles et pratiques de pouvoir en Amérique latine*, Paris, La Découverte.

Vuattoux Arthur (2021) *Adolescences sous contrôle. Genre, race, classe et âge au tribunal pour enfants*, Paris, Les Presses de Sciences Po.

Weber Max (1971) *Économie et Société, tome 1*, Paris, Plon.

Yeoh Brenda, Huang Shirlena and Willis Katie (2000) *Global Cities, Transnational Flows and Gender Dimensions: The View from Singapore*, *Tijdschrift Voor Economische en Social Geografie*, 91 (2), pp. 147-158.

## NOTES

1. French overseas departments and regions.

2. French overseas departments and regions and overseas local government authorities.

3. To preserve respondents' anonymity, specific functions and certain socio-demographic characteristics that would easily identify are not specified here.
4. The *Caldoches* are Caledonian citizens who are descendants of colonisers, as well as French metropolitan citizens permanently settled in New Caledonia, who integrate the group by adopting its spaces and lifestyle.

5. According to Weber's definition (1971), notables are "persons whose economic position permits them to hold continuous policy-making and administrative positions in an organisation without (more than nominal) remuneration; who enjoy social prestige of whatever derivation in such a manner that they are likely to hold office."

6. The “taui” (change, in Polynesian) refers to the overthrow of Gaston Flosse’s government in 2004.

7. On the subjective experience of vulnerability or anxiety of other privileged migrants, see Cosquer (2022).

8. In *L'idéologie raciste. Genèse et langage actuel*, Guillaumin (1972: 224) deconstructs the numerical dimension of a minority. Minority status can only be understood in relation to the majority, and through the power relations that structure this relationship. The majority functions as the "referential norm", while the minority is "reduced to its membership of a category" and is merely the embodiment of its group.

9. Through the mediation of the French Ministry of the Overseas, the institutions dedicated to overseas territories within the state apparatus and the "overseas advisers" in the offices of the Prime Minister and the President, the high-level elected representatives of the overseas territories have the capacity to influence interministerial decision-making (Beauvallet *et al*., 2018; Joltreau, 2023).

10. This local preference scheme is intended to give priority to Caledonians for certain jobs. It was designed to reduce the economic inequalities stemming from the colonial period—a goal referred to as “rebalancing”.

11. For a discussion on the search for authenticity in other postcolonial contexts, see Korpela (2010) and Cosquer (2021).

12. The Polynesian pirogue.

13. On the stigma associated with tourists, even in the case of medium- or long-term stays, see Quashie (2009).

14. This culture of silence is not exclusive to France; see, for example, Lavanchy (2018).

15. In a review article on whiteness, Cervulle (2012) shows that “ordinary practices of averting one’s gaze, wait-and-see attitudes or silence” are central to the ordinary modes of subjectivation of the white subject.

16. Such as that of ANR Etom (ANR 20-CE41.0003) on the overseas careers of prefects and judges/prosecutors (see https://etom.hypotheses.org/a-propos).

ABSTRACTS

Drawing on an interview-based study, this article explores the ambivalent nature and contours of privilege linked to origin, race and class of judges/prosecutors in the French overseas territories. With higher salaries and lower taxes, judges/prosecutors in these territories enjoy a higher standard of living, providing them with material conditions and a lifestyle unattainable in metropolitan France. In addition, they enjoy a presumption of competence and a level of prestige that they perceive as greater than in metropolitan France. Privilege in migration also has a
subjective dimension. White metropolitans who make up the majority group in mainland France experience their white condition in a unique way that renders it visible and forces them to define and justify themselves. This article underscores the diversity of metropolitan, white subjectivities in a context of demographic minority.

À partir d'une étude par entretiens, cet article interroge la nature ambivalente et les contours du privilège lié à l'origine, à la race et à la classe des magistrats dans les outre-mer. Salaire majoré et impôt minoré, les magistrats bénéficient dans les outre-mer d'une élévation de leur niveau de vie qui leur offre des conditions matérielles et un style de vie inaccessibles en métropole. Elles et ils bénéficient aussi d'une présomption de compétence et d'un prestige qu'elles et ils jugent supérieurs à la métropole. Le privilège en migration engage aussi une dimension subjective. Les métropolitaines blanches qui constituent le groupe majoritaire en France hexagonale éprouvent leur condition blanche d'une manière singulière qui la rend visible et les contraint à se définir et à se justifier. L'article met en évidence la diversité des subjectivités métropolitaines et blanches en contexte de minorité démographique.

A partir de un estudio basado en entrevistas, este artículo examina la naturaleza ambivalente y
los contornos del privilegio ligado al origen, la raza y la clase de los magistrados de ultramar. Con
salarios más elevados e impuestos más bajos, los magistrados de ultramar disfrutan de un nivel
de vida más elevado, que les proporciona unas condiciones materiales y un estilo de vida
inalcanzables en la Francia metropolitana. También gozan de una presunción de competencia y
prestigio que consideran superiores a los de la Francia metropolitana. El privilegio en la
migración también tiene una dimensión subjetiva. Los metropolitanos blancos que constituyen el
grupo mayoritario en la Francia metropolitana viven su condición de blancos de una manera
singular que la hace visible y les obliga a definirse y justificarse. El artículo pone de relieve la
diversidad de subjetividades metropolitanas y blancas en un contexto de minoría demográfica.

INDEX

**Keywords:** privileged migration, French overseas territories, post-colonial, whiteness

Palabras claves: migración privilegiada, territorios franceses de ultramar, poscolonial, blancura

Mots-clés: migration privilégiée, outre-mer français, post-colonial, blanchité

AUTHORS

STÉPHANIE GUYON

Political Scientist, University Professor, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, CNRS, CURAPP-ESS,
Amiens, France; stephanie.guyon[at]u-picardie.fr

TRANSLATORS

ALEXANDRA POMÉON O'NEILL

KATHERINE BOOTH