Towards a multi‐cultural political model in France? The limits of immigrant collective action, 1968–94

This article examines collective action by immigrants in France over the past quarter‐century as a means of exploring the persistence or erosion of the French republican model of integration. This model has been seen to be under challenge by the installation of a large non‐European population and by the decline of traditional integrative mechanisms. The failure of immigant collective action to generate sustained and effective movements reveals that while ethnicity has become a fact in French society, the cultural and political conditions necessary for a conversion of this situation into a multi‐cultural model of minority incorporation and participation have thus far been absent.