Beurgeois
Encyclopedia
Beurgeois is a portmanteau neologism created in France
from the words “beur
” (meaning a person of Arab
, Berber
or other North African
descent in verlan
) and “bourgeois” (meaning affluent). The word refers to a middle-class (and upwards) Muslim
born in a working class area of France to parents of North African origin, who continues to proclaim his roots and who is aged between 30 and 40 years old with a successful professional career, a high purchasing power and a demand for a certain quality of life.
Among the beurgeois themselves, opinion over the beurgeois designation is quite divided. While some people consider it as a sort of recognition of their success, the majority believe that this pejorative
term is once again expressing their stigmatization and discrimination as French people of foreign descent.
food and drinks. This has resulted in an increase in sales of halal products from the fast food
chain to major retail chains to some top restaurants- all opening in many French cities to accommodate these customers. These offer a wide range of halal products including alcohol-free champagne and foie gras
approved by Islamic law (an unexpected success first introduced into supermarket
chains across the country in 2008 at the end of the Muslim fast of Ramadan
). Thus the beurgeois have become a chosen marketing target that require to be treated as consumers having specific needs- which has been adapted to by a specific and growing market sector.
Yanis Bouarbi, an IT
specialist who started the website paris-hallal.com (a website which lists more than 400 halal restaurants in Paris
and its suburbs and is planning to expand to other French cities), who says young Muslims are at the heart of a mini social revolution
; "When our parents and grandparents came to France they did mostly manual work and the priority was having enough to feed the family. But second or third-generation people like me have studied, have good jobs and money and want to go out and profit from French culture without compromising our religious beliefs. We don't just want cheap kebabs, we want Japanese
, Thai, French food
; we want to be like the rest of you." A similar sentiment is echoed in Paris's 11th arrondissement Les Enfants Terribles restaurant, run by brothers Kamel and Sosiane Saidi, which serves halal French haute cuisine
; "Before, Muslims wishing to eat halal would go to a restaurant and it was fish or nothing. Now we have a choice," said Sosiane, 28, who worked in the property market before setting up the restaurant three years ago. "Young Muslims have money and want to eat out like everyone else but according to their religion. The food doesn't taste any different; we have many French customers who don't even know we're totally halal. To us, that is what integration is about."
The demand for halal products, which is increasing by an estimated 10% per year, has captured the attention of food distributors, growers, companies, and the like. Sales of halal products totaled 4 billion euros in 2009 and Solis (a consultancy that specializes in marketing to ethnic minorities) forecasts the market will expand about 10% in 2010, compared with a 2% growth in overall food sales. Antoine Bonnel, director of the 2010 Paris Halal trade show said, “It’s mostly driven by the second and third generations. It’s not a case of the Muslim community withdrawing into itself, but rather one of integration, since they want to be able to buy halal sauerkraut
or spring rolls”. French sales of halal food are forecast to hit 5.5 billion euros for 2010 and according to Bonnel, move “from the ethnic market to the mass market
” due to the beurgeois, who are forcing international food suppliers to cater for their demands and as one French website put it, halal is "very good business" for French companies.
In general, there have been many supermarket chains and packaged-food companies that find the demographic important enough to aim for a share of the halal market. But companies see a potentially lucrative business in supplying religiously sanctioned food to France's growing ranks of young, professional Muslims, who want to eat Western food that is halal. These include: Nestlé
’s French operations, supermarket chain Groupe Casino
, Pierre Martinet (France's biggest prepared salad maker), fast-food chain Quick
(which has a number of halal-only burger bars), Hal'shop (a new supermarket in a Paris suburb which sells only halal food- and plenty of French dishes), flourishing Muslim corner shops (selling exclusively halal foods and drinks including eggs, turkey and pork-free sausages as well as alcohol-free "champagne", known as Cham'Alal), as well as Carrefour
(the world's second-largest retailer by sales after Wal-Mart
), which is considering launching its own line of halal foods.
However, the expansion of halal offerings (that is occurring along with the rise of the beurgeois) is in some cases provoking a backlash. Claude Capillon, the mayor of Rosny-sous-Bois
, east of Paris
, where the fast-food chain Quick has an all-halal restaurant, sent the company a letter saying it was discriminating against non-Muslim customers. Therefore, some food companies are trying to give their halal products a low profile because of such reactions. After Labeyrie, France's biggest foie gras producer by revenue and a unit of food company Alfesca launched a halal foie gras, some bloggers accused it of funding Islamic extremists. As a result it sells its halal pâté
in a few stores and doesn't advertise it on the company website.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
from the words “beur
Beur
Beur is a colloquial term to designate French-born people whose parents are immigrants from North Africa. The word was coined by reversing the syllables of the word arabe, which means Arabic or Arab in French. For example, "arabe" becomes "a-ra-beu" then "beu-ra-a" and "beur" by contraction. The...
” (meaning a person of Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
, Berber
Berber people
Berbers are the indigenous peoples of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are continuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River. Historically they spoke the Berber language or varieties of it, which together form a branch...
or other North African
Maghreb
The Maghreb is the region of Northwest Africa, west of Egypt. It includes five countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Mauritania and the disputed territory of Western Sahara...
descent in verlan
Verlan
Verlan is an argot in the French language, featuring inversion of syllables in a word, and is common in slang and youth language. It rests on a long French tradition of transposing syllables of individual words to create slang words...
) and “bourgeois” (meaning affluent). The word refers to a middle-class (and upwards) Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
born in a working class area of France to parents of North African origin, who continues to proclaim his roots and who is aged between 30 and 40 years old with a successful professional career, a high purchasing power and a demand for a certain quality of life.
Among the beurgeois themselves, opinion over the beurgeois designation is quite divided. While some people consider it as a sort of recognition of their success, the majority believe that this pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
term is once again expressing their stigmatization and discrimination as French people of foreign descent.
Concerning cuisine
The "beurgeois" among France's estimated 6 - 7 million-strong Muslim community are an emerging economic demographic, being catered to by a market in halalHalal
Halal is a term designating any object or an action which is permissible to use or engage in, according to Islamic law. The term is used to designate food seen as permissible according to Islamic law...
food and drinks. This has resulted in an increase in sales of halal products from the fast food
Fast food restaurant
A fast food restaurant, also known as a Quick Service Restaurant or QSR within the industry itself, is a specific type of restaurant characterized both by its fast food cuisine and by minimal table service...
chain to major retail chains to some top restaurants- all opening in many French cities to accommodate these customers. These offer a wide range of halal products including alcohol-free champagne and foie gras
Foie gras
Foie gras ; French for "fat liver") is a food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. This fattening is typically achieved through gavage corn, according to French law, though outside of France it is occasionally produced using natural feeding...
approved by Islamic law (an unexpected success first introduced into supermarket
Supermarket
A supermarket, a form of grocery store, is a self-service store offering a wide variety of food and household merchandise, organized into departments...
chains across the country in 2008 at the end of the Muslim fast of Ramadan
Ramadan
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, which lasts 29 or 30 days. It is the Islamic month of fasting, in which participating Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking and sex during daylight hours and is intended to teach Muslims about patience, spirituality, humility and...
). Thus the beurgeois have become a chosen marketing target that require to be treated as consumers having specific needs- which has been adapted to by a specific and growing market sector.
Yanis Bouarbi, an IT
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
specialist who started the website paris-hallal.com (a website which lists more than 400 halal restaurants in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and its suburbs and is planning to expand to other French cities), who says young Muslims are at the heart of a mini social revolution
Social revolution
The term social revolution may have different connotations depending on the speaker.In the Trotskyist movement, the term "social revolution" refers to an upheaval in which existing property relations are smashed...
; "When our parents and grandparents came to France they did mostly manual work and the priority was having enough to feed the family. But second or third-generation people like me have studied, have good jobs and money and want to go out and profit from French culture without compromising our religious beliefs. We don't just want cheap kebabs, we want Japanese
Japanese cuisine
Japanese cuisine has developed over the centuries as a result of many political and social changes throughout Japan. The cuisine eventually changed with the advent of the Medieval age which ushered in a shedding of elitism with the age of shogun rule...
, Thai, French food
French cuisine
French cuisine is a style of food preparation originating from France that has developed from centuries of social change. In the Middle Ages, Guillaume Tirel , a court chef, authored Le Viandier, one of the earliest recipe collections of Medieval France...
; we want to be like the rest of you." A similar sentiment is echoed in Paris's 11th arrondissement Les Enfants Terribles restaurant, run by brothers Kamel and Sosiane Saidi, which serves halal French haute cuisine
Haute cuisine
Haute cuisine or grande cuisine was characterised by French cuisine in elaborate preparations and presentations served in small and numerous courses that were produced by large and hierarchical staffs at the grand restaurants and hotels of Europe.The 17th century chef and writer La Varenne...
; "Before, Muslims wishing to eat halal would go to a restaurant and it was fish or nothing. Now we have a choice," said Sosiane, 28, who worked in the property market before setting up the restaurant three years ago. "Young Muslims have money and want to eat out like everyone else but according to their religion. The food doesn't taste any different; we have many French customers who don't even know we're totally halal. To us, that is what integration is about."
The demand for halal products, which is increasing by an estimated 10% per year, has captured the attention of food distributors, growers, companies, and the like. Sales of halal products totaled 4 billion euros in 2009 and Solis (a consultancy that specializes in marketing to ethnic minorities) forecasts the market will expand about 10% in 2010, compared with a 2% growth in overall food sales. Antoine Bonnel, director of the 2010 Paris Halal trade show said, “It’s mostly driven by the second and third generations. It’s not a case of the Muslim community withdrawing into itself, but rather one of integration, since they want to be able to buy halal sauerkraut
Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut , directly translated from German: "sour cabbage", is finely shredded cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria, including Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus. It has a long shelf-life and a distinctive sour flavor, both of which result from the lactic acid...
or spring rolls”. French sales of halal food are forecast to hit 5.5 billion euros for 2010 and according to Bonnel, move “from the ethnic market to the mass market
Mass market
The mass market is a general business term describing the largest group of consumers for a specified industry product. It is the opposite extreme of the term niche market.-General:...
” due to the beurgeois, who are forcing international food suppliers to cater for their demands and as one French website put it, halal is "very good business" for French companies.
In general, there have been many supermarket chains and packaged-food companies that find the demographic important enough to aim for a share of the halal market. But companies see a potentially lucrative business in supplying religiously sanctioned food to France's growing ranks of young, professional Muslims, who want to eat Western food that is halal. These include: Nestlé
Nestlé
Nestlé S.A. is the world's largest food and nutrition company. Founded and headquartered in Vevey, Switzerland, Nestlé originated in a 1905 merger of the Anglo-Swiss Milk Company, established in 1867 by brothers George Page and Charles Page, and Farine Lactée Henri Nestlé, founded in 1866 by Henri...
’s French operations, supermarket chain Groupe Casino
Groupe Casino
Groupe Casino is a large French multinational corporation, formerly part of the CAC 40 index, whose main business is with retail and distribution in hyper and supermarkets. The company's head office is in Saint-Étienne....
, Pierre Martinet (France's biggest prepared salad maker), fast-food chain Quick
Quick (restaurant chain)
Quick is a Belgian chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. It is one of Europe's largest restaurants chains. In recent years, its worldwide expansion has accelerated.Quick is similar in theme to McDonald's...
(which has a number of halal-only burger bars), Hal'shop (a new supermarket in a Paris suburb which sells only halal food- and plenty of French dishes), flourishing Muslim corner shops (selling exclusively halal foods and drinks including eggs, turkey and pork-free sausages as well as alcohol-free "champagne", known as Cham'Alal), as well as Carrefour
Carrefour
Carrefour S.A. is an international hypermarket chain headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France. It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world...
(the world's second-largest retailer by sales after Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. , branded as Walmart since 2008 and Wal-Mart before then, is an American public multinational corporation that runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores. The company is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000...
), which is considering launching its own line of halal foods.
However, the expansion of halal offerings (that is occurring along with the rise of the beurgeois) is in some cases provoking a backlash. Claude Capillon, the mayor of Rosny-sous-Bois
Rosny-sous-Bois
Rosny-sous-Bois is a commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.It is the seat of the national centre of road information of the national gendarmerie.- Heraldry :-Transport:...
, east of Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where the fast-food chain Quick has an all-halal restaurant, sent the company a letter saying it was discriminating against non-Muslim customers. Therefore, some food companies are trying to give their halal products a low profile because of such reactions. After Labeyrie, France's biggest foie gras producer by revenue and a unit of food company Alfesca launched a halal foie gras, some bloggers accused it of funding Islamic extremists. As a result it sells its halal pâté
Pâté
Pâté is a mixture of ground meat and fat minced into a spreadable paste. Common additions include vegetables, herbs, spices, and either wine or cognac, armagnac or brandy...
in a few stores and doesn't advertise it on the company website.
Concerning politics
The beurgeois are not only a useful demographic to retailers but also to French politicians- and somewhat unlike their previous generations, the group does not intend have higher levels of apathy when it comes to the relationship of the sector to the country's government. It has been noted that the demographic has a greater interest in domestic politics, in order to make their voices heard as French citizens contributing to the culture and political climate of their country.Beurgeois people
Among the hundreds of prominent beurgeois (i.e. not including less prominent beurgeois) that are senior civil servants, entrepreneurs, artists, doctors etc., some include:- Mourad BoudjellalMourad BoudjellalMourad Boudjellal is a French businessman, the proprietor of comic publisher Soleil Productions.He was born on 5 June 1960 in Toulon, France. He is currently the President of the Toulon Rugby Union club.-References:...
- owner of Soleil ProductionsSoleil ProductionsSoleil Productions is a French publisher of both original and imported comic books.-Partnerships and collaborations:In 2004, Soleil and Delcourt created a joint venture called "DelSol", a partnership distribution society for France, Belgium and other Francophone countries.In 2008, Marvel Comics is...
, publishers of some of France’s favourite cartoonists, has been presented in a documentary on television as the beurgeois prototypePrototypeA prototype is an early sample or model built to test a concept or process or to act as a thing to be replicated or learned from.The word prototype derives from the Greek πρωτότυπον , "primitive form", neutral of πρωτότυπος , "original, primitive", from πρῶτος , "first" and τύπος ,...
. - Jamel DebbouzeJamel DebbouzeJamel Debbouze is an actor, comedian and producer of Moroccan descent.-Biography:Debbouze is the oldest of five brothers. He was born in Paris, France, but his family moved to Morocco the following year...
- one of the best-paid actors in French show business. - Tahar RahimTahar RahimTahar Rahim is a French actor of Algerian origin. Born in Belfort, France, his family is originally from the region of Oran, Algeria....
- the first Frenchman of North African descent awarded the CésarCésar AwardThe César Award is the national film award of France, first given out in 1975. The nominations are selected by the members of the Académie des arts et techniques du cinéma....
for best male actor, among other awards.