The Crisis of Models of Integration in France and the Netherlands : What diagnosis ? What solutions ?

Conference of Ifri and Maison Descartes at Amsterdam, with the support of the French Embassy in the Nederland. With Christophe Bertossi, Fellow and Responsable for the Programme "Migrations, Identities, Citizenship" at Ifri , Jan Willem Duyvendak, Professor, Amsterdam University, John Bowen, Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences, Washington University at St-Louis (USA), Marcel Maussen, Fellow, Amsterdam University

The policies of integration of migrants have for a long time born out of distinct national models, based on a particular concept of citizenship. The French model of Republic, blind to ethnic or religious differences, distinguished itself from the Dutsch model of a pillarized society, in which multicultural diversity was recognized in the social and institutional life. Despite such apparent opposition between both models of integration, a similar crisis seems to affect both France and the Netherlands. A diagnosis of "failure of integration" is facing both cases. Both models also face great scrutiny : multiculturalism is perceived as one of the sources of problems of integration in the Netherlands, especially right after Pim Foruy murders in 2002, and Theo Van Gogh's murder in 2004, while the riots of Fall 2005 in French "banlieues" are understood as a result of failure of politics of integration "à la française". How to understand this crisis ? Is it a crisis of integration or a crisis of models ? What lessons can be retain from a cross-perspective between both France and the Netherlands ?