While coming back on the train from Portland last week, I was perusing the New York Times opinion section and stumbled upon an article about multiculturalism and immigration in France. Justin E. Smith’s article, called “Does Immigration Mean ‘France is Over’?”, discusses a recent rise in apathy amongst French natives towards increasing immigrant populations. As an American expatriate unaffected by immigrant racism, Smith is able to observe these ongoings from a uniquely unbiased viewpoint. He explains that the general sentiment of the French is that immigrants are contributing to an extreme loss of culture within the nation, arguably a trend throughout Europe correlated with a parallel rise in economic uncertainty.

Philosophically, Smith argues, many of the French base their judgements upon media generalizations of immigrant “métissage”, which he crudely translates as the “mongrelization”of France. Similarly, it is quite common to use the term “overrun” or “invasion” when speaking of the influx of immigrants in France. A notable campaign promise during the 2012 presidential elections was to put a yearly cap on the number of immigrants entering the country. But, wait… don’t the French have a long history of “invading” other countries around the world? In fact, the majority of immigrants are from Francophone countries which were previously colonized by France, such as Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Senegal, among others. Personally, I think these immigration rates are to be expected after ditching these countries in the 1900’s and overtly causing political chaos (Arab Spring, anyone?).

Smith reinforces his point with philosopher Michael Dummett’s interpretation of the irony. Arguably, and historically, immigrants who contribute as equally to society as French-born citizens should have approximately equal legal and social status (because realistically, with a country as complex and populated as France (i.e. not tiny & homogeneous like, for example, Iceland), a cultural “takeover” isn’t going to happen anywhere in the neat future). And yet, immigrants rights to equality are “set up in conflict with the right of earlier inhabitants to cultural preservation, [which] has very much to do with both state policy and with popular opinion.” Evidently popular opinion isn’t quite so empathetic right now.

As Smith eloquently explains, “With the contraction of the empire and the reorientation of French nationalism from an imperial to a cultural focus, the distinction between equal and unequal contracted from a global to a local scale. Francophones from around the world began to move to metropolitan France in large numbers, but now their status was transformed from that of colonial subjects to that, simply, of foreigners. But of course the fact that these unequal subjects have settled in France has very much to do with the historical legacy of French imperialism; Francophone Africans do not choose to come to France on a whim, but because of a long history of imposed Frenchness at home.”

I know this was a really long quote, but I couldn’t have summed it up any better. This issue in France brings a whole new spice into the simmering multiculturalism stew (sorry): Xenophobia is the spice of hypocrisy in the post-colonial world. As we talk about Diamond Grill and various relationships among the significance of citizenship, belonging, culture, dislocation and relocation, and marginalization, the problems in France seem to echo around other Western countries committing the same blatant hypocrisy (mostly in Europe for now, but could be somewhat applied to Mexican immigration rates in the US). Multiculturalism is a nice idea, but I’m starting to doubt its practicality. Racial discrimination by not only the French but throughout the French media signifies a larger global issue of the continuation of marginalizing the powerless in heist of the powerful.  Additionally, the blatant irony of this mindset is quite shameful. If France doesn’t want so many immigrants, maybe it should go into the Congo, into Ivory Coast, and please into the Central African Republic and Syria and try to fix the political unrest and humanitarian crises it started.

Side note, today I signed up to donate to the NGO, non-profit organization Doctors Without Borders at 10 bucks a month. Instead of France taking responsibility, it’s now the rest of the world’s responsibility to go in and solve these problems. Hmm.