Hargreaves, "Perceptions of Ethnic Difference in Post-War France"

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18 Immigrant Narratives in Contemporary France scrapped the repatriation program but retained mother-tongue classes and brought in other measures to support minority cultures, but with a different objective from the previous administration. lnfluenced by the legacy of 1968, the Socialist Party was committed both to political decentralization and to greater cultural pluralism. Instead of the old idea of assimilation or the later watchword of integration, the new administration advocated what it called the "insertion" of immigrant minorities. This meant facilitating their social, economic, and political incorporation while respecting their right to retain cultural differences, a right embodied in the slogan of le droit d la dffirence (the right to difference)." With the emergence of the Front National (FN) as a major political actor in the mid-1980s, the left abandoned these slogans and sought to construct a new consensus, which the center-right parties eventually joined, around the concept of integration. This was closely connected with a renewed emphasis on the "universal" values of French republicanism, said to be exemplified in the integration of individuals--but not of communities--of immigrant origin.26 While integration has remained unquestionably the dominant concept in political discourse relating to immigrant minorities in France, it is drenched in ambiguities. Seen by some as a half-way house or as a third way between the centripetal steamroller of assimilation and the centrifugal dangers of insertion, integration was interpreted by a few on the left as simply a new word for insertion while many on the right as well as in the center and in some cases on the left of the political spectrum have used it as a camouflage for the concept of assimilation.'' To find our way through these ambiguities, it is useful to distinguish between assimilation and acculturation. Where acculturation signifies the internalization of a given cultural system, assimilation implies in addition the abandoning or obliteration of all other cultural affiliations. Just as it would be absurd to suggest that the acquisition of a second language necessarily implies forgetting or abandoning one's first language, so it is unreasonable to assume that the internalization of French culture necessarily implies the abandoning of all others. Second- and third-generation members of minority ethnic groups have readily acculturated to the norms dominant in France while often complementing and widening them with additional elements drawn from their migratory heritage. This does not--or should not--make them any less "integrated." The supposed antithesis of integration is commonly demonized as communautarisme, a kind of ethnic separatism exemplified in lurid references to the Lebanese civil war, the break-up of Yugoslavia, or, more commonly, the dangers of the so-called Anglo-Saxon model, said to be synonymous with the formation of ethnic ghettoes.'o These grotesque caricatures are designed to reassure French public opinion that national cohesion is safe thanks to the unique virtues of the republican model of integration. One effect of this has been to make it virtually impossible for words such as "multi-culturalism"--routinely condemned as an Anglo-Saxon invention--to receive a fair hearing in France.2e But we should not allow this intimidating discourse to blind us to what is actually happening on the ground. Although almost no one speaks explicitly in favor of multi-culturalism, cultural pluralism is often defended in more indirect ways, and it is clear that cultural hybridity is increasingly evident in France. As noted above, French rap, ragg4 and rai bands combining cultural influences from Europe, Africa, and North America now routinely top the charts.
Ethnic Difference in Post-War France 19 The multi-ethnic soccer team that won the World Cup in 1998 has also helped widen popular appreciation of the contribution of immigrants to the achievements of France as a nation. Half of the French squad was born outside metropolitan France or of immigrant parents. The crucial role played by Zinedine Zidane, a second-generation Algerian whose goal-scoring talents made him a national hero overnight, dealt a severe blow to the myth that post-colonial minorities--especially those of Muslim heritage--could not, would not, or should not be "integrated" into French society. While Muslims do not yet enjoy the degree of respect accorded to Christian minorities such as the Armenians, a model of integration may be emerging--exemplified in the Le Monde article on Djorkaeff--within which ethnic specificities are acknowledged as legitimate provided they are seen to function in tandem with a fundamental sense of belonging in France. CONCLUSION It would be unwise to imagine that the feel-good factor generated by a soccer tournament will suffice on its own to turn the tide of racial discrimination frequently encountered by France's post-colonial minorities. But the late 1990s brought two other encouraging developments. One is the first sustained fall in unemployment seen in France in over twenty years. Opinion surveys show that the greater sense of economic security associated with this has been reflected in reduced levels of antipathy towards immigrants and minority ethnic gro.,ps.'o At the same time, the Socialist-led government in offrce since 1997 has had the courage to tackle the problem of the sans-papiers, granting residence permits to most of them, and has been moving towards tougher antidiscriminatory measures which may in the future provide more effective protection for minority groups. While prejudice and bigotry are unlikely to disappear overnight, it is clear that perceptions of ethnic differences are by no means immutably fixed. Writing from the other side of the ethnic divide, the authors examined in the rest of this volume testify in their own terms to the complex and shifting ways in which those differences resonate and evolve. NOTES l. For detailed and highly informative accounts of this period, see Patrick Weil's La France et ses ,\trangers and Vincent Viet's La France immigrie. 2. See Mehdi Lallaoui's Du bidonville aux HLM. 3. The sans-papiers crisis of the 1990s was by no means the first. On earlier crises of this kind (when undocumented migrants were more commonly referred to as clandestins [illegal immigrants]), see Johanna Simeant's La cause des sanspapiers. 4. See, for example, Inspection G6n6rale des Affaires Sociales, Enqu€te sur I'insertion des jeunes immigres dans I'entreprise and Philippe Bataille's Le racisme au travail. 5. SeeAlec G. Hargreaves, "A Deviant Construction: The French Media and the 'Banlieues.' " 6. See Frangoise Gaspard and Farhad Khosrokhavar, Lefoulard et la Rdpublique.
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Hargreaves, "Perceptions of Ethnic Difference in Post-War France"

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