| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
MUSLIMS HAVE been landing on the shores of Britain and France for decades. And, as these populations arrived and settled in the Republic, Paris pursued a policy it believed would eventually lead immigrants to full cultural integration into French society. Meanwhile, London, facing a similar influx of foreigners, attempted to create a full-fledged multicultural polity. The former emphasized that what was shared between the new arrivals and their native hosts was crucial, their differences secondary. The latter argued that the British needed to respect the uniqueness of their immigrant neighbors-whether national, religious or ethnic-and that such a stance was at the core of a harmonious political system. In color-blind France, built on a long tradition of a strong, centralized state and the successful assimilation of southern and eastern Europeans-who have been migrating to the country since the nineteenth century-religious identity was not to interfere in public life. Under the French tricolor, state and nation were fused into the cradle of the one and indivisible Republic. In race-aware Britain, with Anglicanism as its established church, there was always room for different nationalities-English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish-under the Union Jack.
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