The Study of Maghreb Immigrants in
Contemporary France:
Social and Cultural Issues
Wayne Han
PhD Candidate, European Studies,
Tamkang University, Taipei
Outline
•
I. Maghreb Immigrants in France
1. historical background
2. Maghreb immigrants
•
II. National Identity and French Republicanism
1. National identity
2. French Republicanism
•
III. The Policy of Multiculturalism and its
Malfunctioning
1. Multiculturalism and its limit
2.The Incompatibility between Muslim Immigrants faith and
laïcité
IV. Conclusion
I. Maghreb Immigrants in France
1. Historical background:
a. The period from 1945 to 1975 called “Glorious
Thirty (Trente Glorieuse,)”
b. The number of immigrants goes from 1,744,000 in
1945 to 3,442,000 in 1975
c. July of 1974 saw the official suspension on
immigrations of non-European origin.
d. The suspension was abolished by the Conseil
d’Etat in 1978.
I. Maghreb Immigrants in France
• 2. Maghreb immigrants
a. The 1970s began one of the darkest periods in the
postcolonial history of anti-Algerian violence in France.
b. The bombing of the Algerian Consulate in Marseilles
in December of 1973 resulted in 4 deaths.
c. Muslim immigrants, including their children, are
estimated to be roughly 4.2 million.
II. National Identity and French
Republicanism
1. National identity
a. “Identity is a definition, and interpretation of the
self.”
b. It is the nation on which identity is based.
c. The nation-state is the political unity that people
generally identify themselves with.
II. National Identity and French
Republicanism
2. French Republicanism
a. The particularity of French national identity is its
republicanism.
b. The laïcité (secularism) promotes “the idea of
secular state, neutral among all religions.” the shift
from the religious to the political.
c. “It is a tradition that stresses the virtues of civil
equality.”
III. The Policy of Multiculturalism and its
Malfunctioning
1. Multiculturalism and its limit
a. Multiculturalism, in theory, is a way in which various
minority groups can live together within a national
border while their identity and culture are allowed
and tolerated.
b. “Multiculturalism does not have the vocation to
assure the handling of religious reality.”
c. It is incapable of excluding religion from its practices.
III. The Policy of Multiculturalism and its
Malfunctioning
2. The Incompatibility between Muslim
Immigrants faith and laïcité
a. In Islam religion and politics are hardly made
separate.
b. Street praying and wearing scarves in public
schools violates the principle of secularism.
c. “How can we defend the republican model whose
fate is inescapably tied to the French nation and to
Catholicism?”
IV.Conclusion
a.
b.
“Under [the Republican] paradigm, immigrants
become part of the French nation as individuals, not as
groups having a common ethnicity or religion.”
Nation-state as base for identity faces new economic
reality of globalized governance.