Crossing the 'Thresholds of Intolerance': Contemporary French Society

Contemporary debate around immigration and asylum seekers, xenophobia and new varieties of racism, and social tensions rising in different parts of Europe would greatly benefit from an intervention by Cultural Studies. This essay explores the paradoxes of post-colonial, post-industrial France where cultural and ethnic cohabitation has recently been put in jeopardy. It can be argued that while the increased presence of the Maghrebi ethnic communities (the major “visible” ethnicities in France) has been blamed for crossing the French ‘seuil de tolerance’, French society itself has crossed a certain ‘threshold of intolerance’ by its widespread rejection of ‘foreigners’ or outsiders whose culture and values are considered as incompatible with ‘Frenchness’. This, of course, runs against the egalitarian and humanitarian principles of French Republicanism itself, which has welcomed large numbers of immigrants throughout its history.