French Citizenship and Identity
According to the French Republic, the French people are those who are in possession of French nationality. According to the French Constitution, "France shall be an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic. It shall ensure the equality of all citizens before the law, without distinction of origin, race or religion. It shall respect all beliefs. It shall be organised on a decentralised basis." Article 1
Since the middle of the 19th century, France has exhibited a very high rate of immigration, mainly from Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, the Maghreb, Africa and Asia. According to a 2004 report by INED researcher Michèle Tribalat France has approximately 14 million persons (out of nearly 63 million) (see demographics of France) of foreign ascendancy (immigrants or with at least one parent or great-parent immigrant), mostly black or Muslim.
The absence of official statistics on French citizens of foreign origin is not coincidental. Under French law passed after the Vichy regime, it is forbidden to categorize people according to their ethnic origins. In France, as in many European countries, censuses do not collect information on supposed ancestry. Moreover, all French statistics are forbidden to have any references concerning ethnic membership. Thus, the French government's assimilationist stance towards immigration as well as towards regional identities and cultures, together with the political heritage of the French revolution has led to the development of a French identity which is based more on the notion of citizenship than on cultural, historical or ethnic ties.
For this reason, French identity must not necessarily be associated with the "ethnic French people", but can be associated with either a nationality and citizenship, or a culture and language-based group. The latter forms the basis for La Francophonie, a group of French-speaking countries, or countries with historical and cultural association to France. The concept of "French ethnicity" exists outside France's borders, in particular in Quebec where some people claim membership to a "French ethnic group", but here again many view it as not so much ethnicity-based as language-based, and would also include immigrants from, for example, Haiti. France's particular self-perception means that French identity may include a naturalized, French-speaking ethnic Portuguese or Algerian. Nonetheless, like in other European countries, some level of discrimination does occur, and there are higher unemployment rates among job-seekers with foreign-sounding names.
Read more about this topic: French Nationality Law
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