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ETHNICITY AND EQUALITY: FRANCE IN THE BALANCE.

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ETHNICITY AND EQUALITY: FRANCE IN THE BALANCE.

Azouz Begag

Translated and with an introduction by Alec G. Hargreaves.

Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2007

150pp., paper, $14.95

France has long been a land of immigration. During the period of colonial rule of colonies in the West Indies and French Guiana, in North, West Central and East Africa, the Indian and Pacific Islands, France employed the policy of "assimilation," similar to that of the Portuguese aimed at the mixed races, which was a deliberate policy to absorb and integrate "natives" into the French culture. Gradually, people from the colonies were allowed into France to undertake some of the menial jobs that the French themselves would not do. These immigrants who came to work and return to their homeland, stayed longer and longer and were soon joined by their families. They stayed in the poor suburbs and formed an underclass that was, in spite of their valuable contribution to the economy, despised, looked down upon and discriminated in many ways. By the year 2003, one French person in four has a foreign-born parent or grandparent. Ten percent of the population were of Arab and Black African origin. The large Muslim communities from the Maghreb countries were particularly the subject of intolerant and discriminatory attitudes and acts of anti-Semitism.

Although racial discrimination was overt and commented upon by all sections of the population, local and international media, academia and international observers, the official policy was to preach that multiracialism was being welcomed and tolerated by all sections of the French community. This of course was not true.

In 1988, the French team that won the World Cup was composed of players drawn from the immigrant groups from the former colonies in Africa as well as Ghana and the West Indies. The team told the story that France was a country that welcomed immigrants, among them were various talents that brought honor and glory to France. Beneath the public accolade, France was simmering with an explosive...

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