Policing ‘Zones of Degeneracy’ (Post-)Colonial Migrants and Interracialized Sex and Intimacies in France (1954–1979)

This chapter investigates the policing practices that targeted North African male migrants and their sexual relationships in (post)colonial France between 1954 and 1979 to shed light on how the authorities regulated interracialized sex and intimacies. Based on primary archival sources, it analyzes heterosexual and same-sex sex and intimacies, arguing that their policing was enabled through and mutually constitutive of the production of racialized urban space. Drawing and building upon the concept of “zones of degeneracy,” it contends that the asymmetrical policing of interracialized intimacies contained those acts within specific “zones” in order to construct and protect a racialized, heteronormative social order.