Immigration is a polemic subject in French society today. The 2005 riots in the banlieue and the government’s response to the outraged and discontented immigrant populations brought forth a topic left out of public discourse for years before the heavily televised protests. At the forefront of this public debate surrounding identity and incorporation was one of France’s largest immigrant populations, North Africans. Marginalization of a particular group often appears in the terms of social and cultural conflict. While this is true, incorporation of the culture of migrants and their representation in French society are not the only exogenous factors that must be considered when analyzing the underrepresentation of North African immigrant descendants in education achievement and labor market participation in relation to the relative success of Southern European immigrants. Political-economic factors are largely influential in determining the opportunities available to immigrant groups. Through databases such as the Institut National des Statistiques et des Etudes Economique and the Direction de l’Animation des Recherches and Etudes Statisques, it was possible to measure and compare socio-economic mobility of North Africans and Southern Europeans in France. This research then applied this information to the theory of scholars Koopmans, Guiradon, and Gondola. Through an analysis of the secularism, public discourse and the welfare state (childcare accessibility, tax/benefit systems, education policies, residential market, and housing policies) this paper this paper determined the extent to which the political economy and culture as exogenous factors influence the incorporation of second generation North African descendants. Findings proved that Koopmans, Guiradon, and Gondola’s theories do apply to the French case and that North Africans experience more obstacles to incorporation than Southern Europeans.
展开▼
