French Culture and Immigration Will France finally come of age as a democratic nation?

Even though for many people America serves as the principle model of immigration in the world, statistics reveal that since the beginning of the twentieth century immigration has had a proportionately greater impact in France than in the United States (Noiriel 146). However, France stubbornly adheres to old constructs of itself as a nation with cultural roots in the Catholic Church and the Republican state, and deemphasizes the role of immigration in its history and its present condition. The fact is that immigration plays an important role in French industrialization and has helped France establish itself as a grown and complete nation (Noiriel 158). More importantly, as France demonstrates throughout its history, the historical and present reality of immigration helps to depict French culture as ultimately superior and immutable to immigrant cultures. A look at immigration prior to the twentieth century reveals Frances belief in its cultural superiority. When immigration occurs in France before the twentieth century, France regards immigrants as only temporary and transient additions to their workforce providing labor for French industrialization (Noiriel 146). While immigrants arrive and work in its industries, France, believing it has a superior culture and believing immigration is a temporary phenomenon that doesnt threaten to replace French culture, focuses on cultural policies to promote its culture both nationally and globally in order to carry out its civilizing mission a mission to promote French culture globally (Collard 47). Arguably, Frances disregard of immigration as a threat to its culture and its focus on achieving its civilizing mission reveal its belief in its culture as superior to immigrant cultures within (and outside of) France.

Moreover, a prominent example of immigration that also depicts Frances belief in the superiority of its culture to immigrant cultures is the Clovis Affair. In 1996, France holds a commemoration for the fifteenth hundredth anniversary of the Catholic conversion and baptism of the Frankish king Clovis. This commemoration clearly illustrates the French rights position that the baptism of Clovis is the baptism of France France is a Catholic nation. The national community was first and foremost a Christian community and it evolved as such (Terrio 438). However, rather than addressing Clovis immigrant status, both the left and the right focus on his Catholic conversion and baptism, which signifies his embrace of the dominant religion of France a defining aspect of French culture (Terrio 446). By refusing barbarian traditions such as equally dividing victory spoils among individual warrior chiefs after the battle of Soissons, and acting in the interest of the public good, Clovis reinforces the superiority of French culture to immigrant cultures. Then, by embracing French culture and refusing his ethnic culture in public, Clovis becomes a major cultural icon in France. As the Clovis Affair demonstrates, immigrants like Clovis who adopt French culture and abandon their own cultures are celebrated because they signify the superiority of French culture. Furthermore, the inability of immigrant cultures to prevail in France supports Frances belief in its cultural superiority and reveals French culture as truly and ultimately dominant. Specifically, the difficulty of mobilizing immigrants in France and the choice by first-generation immigrants to forget the memories of their home country prevents immigrant cultures from surviving in France. For immigrants in France, its nearly impossible to mobilize large numbers of people around ethnic or religious issues in the secular societies of France, and this significantly limits the ability of immigrants to establish and preserve their cultures within France. Moreover, for some first-generation immigrants such as Ukrainian Jews during the

interwar period, the best way to survive is to forget the trauma of their previous lives (Noiriel 166). Therefore, unable to come together as a collective group and unwilling to remember their ethnic origins, the majority of immigrants cant and wont practice their cultures in France. Also, immigrants of future generations often have greater upward social mobility and prefer the dominant French culture over their own ethnic cultures. Through mixed marriages, these immigrants help to strengthen French culture and further weaken the ability of immigrant cultures to exist within France. For these immigrants, the sense of interest in the memory of their ethnic origins is lost as the ethnic community disintegrates due to social mobility, which often leads to changes in dwelling places and mixed marriages (Noiriel 171). Similarly, the crucial moments of early socialization for later generations of immigrants take place in their birth country, which is France. Moreover, their discovery of the dominant French culture primarily through the educational system further diminishes the role of immigrant cultures in their lives. As a result of living in France where French culture is portrayed as the dominant culture, immigrants develop a profound desire to identify with and internalize the French culture rather than their true ethnic cultures (Noiriel 170). Therefore, the social barriers such as the inability of immigrant cultures to establish themselves in France and the tendency of most immigrants to accept and adopt French culture demonstrate the superiority and dominance of French culture to immigrant cultures. In addition to social barriers that prevent immigrant cultures from prevailing in France, political barriers also exist that further demonstrate the ultimate superiority of French culture to immigrant cultures. Specifically, French Republicanism reveals the inability of immigrant communities to legally practice their cultures in public. Prior to the mass immigration in France, the French Revolution beginning in 1789 sets the foundation for state policies against

immigration. The key event, the Republican document Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen declares equality for all individuals regardless of ethnic background but prohibits ethnic individuals from practicing their cultures in public. When conflicts arise such as that of the The Headscarf Affair in 1989 when Ernest Chenire, a middle school principal in France expels three girls from school for exercising an Islamic cultural practice of wearing Muslim headscarves to school, France refers to its French republican ethos thats intolerant of alien symbols of collective difference and recognizes only individuals not groups based on ethnic or racial affiliation (Terrio 450). In France, the inability to express immigrant cultures such as that of Islam due to political barriers further reveals the superiority and dominance of French culture. In conclusion, throughout French history, immigration helps to not only depict Frances belief that its culture is dominant and immigrant cultures are subordinate, but validates this belief. In recent centuries, France sees immigrant cultures as threats to its culture its national identity when in reality there are too many political and social obstacles for these cultures to establish themselves within France. In reality, immigrants contribute to French industrialization and, more importantly, strengthen and diversify French culture by accepting it as their own culture and introducing new cultural expressions such as ra, a form of music originating in Morocco (Noiriel 171). Perhaps France, now no longer a self-contained expansionist power but a member of a community of nations, can welcome more cultural diversity by being more tolerant of immigrant cultures (Munro 139). By doing so, perhaps it can strengthen its diverse multicultural population against the true threat to the survival of its culture: American-style globalization specifically, the global domination of the truly dominant American culture.