French was cast as protecting individual dignity against collective identity excesses

Evidence

According to this way of thinking, for example, the French language has always been inseparable from a pursuit of the dignity of maQ-kind, insofar as man is conceived of as an irreducible entity. From this one could infer that French would thus make possible the lessening of certain angry resentments that are limiting and that have allegedly been observed in quests for identity currently taking place in the world. … In the present conceptual debate the French language, the language of the Rights of Man, would provide useful protection against excesses set in motion by the presuppositions of any proclamation of the Rights of Peoples. La francoPhonie would provide that transcendency by giving the correct version of humanism. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 583

Categorization

• XREF: Ties the Rights-of-Man versus Rights-of-Peoples frame to the reader’s strategic-essentialism interest — the ‘excess of collectivization’ complaint is the universalist objection to essentialist identity claims. — connects to: France framed its civilizing mission as a duty to defend individual rights; France distinguished its empire by its duty to defend individual rights. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 351
• SEED: Material for an essay contrasting this French-universalist containment rhetoric with Spivak’s strategic essentialism, both as responses to collective identity claims.

Broader Connections

• France framed its civilizing mission as a duty to defend individual rights #corroborates (0.95)
• France distinguished its empire by its duty to defend individual rights. #corroborates (0.95) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 351