ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to underline the importance of critique in the debate on community, proposing not one specific configuration designed to represent multiculturalism in France, but an emphasis on the action of blurring conceptual poles. Certain philosophical and literary representations allow for movement and variability, advocating not a model but a progressive way of thinking or an 'esprit critique'. In the literary sphere, Edouard Glissant's representations of creolized identities reinforce the necessity of a form of relational thinking, but his work also seems problematic because it attempts to advocate the 'chaos-monde' as an exemplary global model. The literary works of writers such as Abdelkebir Khatibi, Leïla Sebbar or Azouz Begag are additionally pertinent because they continually question and reinvent their own position; they represent a community or set of communities that are never simply themselves. The literary critic should neither set up exemplary configurations nor elucidate full-blown socio-political ideals.
