The issues of national identity, citizenship and multiculturalism are definitely in the middle of nowadays debates. In his work, John Rex develops the approach that the development of multiculturalism policies might diminish tensions between dominant and minority groups within a contemporary society. Nevertheless, to which multiculturalist policies does he refer? Indeed, it appears that various ways to handle with a multicultural society exist. This study will stress the two big models benchmark in Europe: the British conception of integration and the French one. Focusing on these two models might be relevant given that the migration of millions of people, and notably from Muslim majority countries to Western Europe has raised crucial questions for public policies about how to integrate these people; in other words, about how to make them being utterly part of the reception society.
[...] Sources - SAFRAN William, Pluralism and Multiculturalism in France: Post-Jacobin transformations in Political Science Quarterly, volume 118, number - FAVELL Adrian, Philosophies of Integration: Immigration and the Idea of Citizenship in France and Britain, Macmillan Press - SCHNAPPER Dominique, La République face aux communautarismes in Etudes Revue de culture contemporaine, March 2004 - REX John, Ethnic minorities in the nation-state: working in the theory of multiculturalism and political integration, Macmillan Press - MESSINA Anthony, Immigration as a political dilemma in Britain in Policy Studies Journal, volume 23, number - Various articles in a special report: La [...]
[...] This implied the rejection of reactionary particularisms, seen as a threat to the construction of a society with universalist application. It insisted on the principle of an individual citizenship rather than a collective or communautarist one. In other words, it helped building the ideal of a culturally uniform society. The Jacobin way of thinking has clearly informed the doctrine of French republicans which defines that the state represents the people's will, and the existence of plural institution and ethnic forces only fragments that will, which is the will of all citizens viewed as individuals rather than as any products of particularistic traditions. [...]
[...] Indeed, despite the separation of Church and State in 1905, a special regime of public support of some religions has been maintain in Alsace and Moselle since 1918 and despite the notion of a and indivisible France”, special statutes existed for selected overseas territories (for instance French Guyana which maintains Catholicism as the only “established” church). Then, many critics were relayed about the “taboo on ethnicity” in France: it is forbidden to gather data on ethnicity, religion, and even social class. [...]
[...] It was admitted that the conception of the State in the French republican model remained the one that could best protect freedom by a State with popular sovereignty and that is not falsified or under the concurrence of any intermediaries (such as religious bodies or particularistic social subunits). France doesn't recognize any minorities but immigrants or people of immigrants origin. The term ethnic group / community remains improbable in a country like France, the land of the French Revolution and republican integration. [...]
[...] The defenders of a society based on a communautarist system follow Charles Taylor's view who wrote in Politics of recognition that particularistic components have to be considered How to access to citizenship in Britain Thus, the British configuration on how to handle a multicultural society is definitely different from the French one and this was clearly presented by Dominique Schnapper in La Communauté des citoyens where she noticed that British tradition of liberal pluralism is opposed to the unitary French conception of citizenship”. [...]
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