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This article argues that, instead of diverging in terms of national models, Western European states' policies on immigrant integration are increasingly converging. One convergent trend is examined in detail, obligatory civic integration courses and tests for newcomers. While a comparison of the Netherlands, France and Germany reveals considerable national variation in implementing civic integration, this variation tends to be incompatible with traditional national model assumptions. Moreover, more noteworthy than variation is the shared feature of civic integration that liberal goals are pursued with illiberal means, making it an instance of repressive liberalism.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge helpful suggestions by two reviewers for this journal.
Notes
1. The 2,500 page report, chaired by Liberal Party MP Stef Blok, was published in January 2004, under the title Building Bridges. See Migration News Sheet, February 2004, p. 25.
2. Interview with Nicolas Sarkozy, L'Express, 19 January 2004.
3. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 November 2004.
4. Other ‘common basic principles’ of integration policy not further discussed here are: education, ‘inter-cultural dialogue’, political participation (especially at local level), the ‘mainstreaming’ of integration policies in other policy portfolios, and the development of better ‘indicators and evaluation mechanisms’.
5. EU migrants are exempted through European Community law (because it would constitute discrimination on the basis of nationality), and the citizens of most developed OECD countries (such as the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan) are exempted through bilateral treaties.
6. However, this removal occurred only because an opinion by the Council of State, the highest judicial body in the Netherlands, on the controversial extension of the integration test to so-called ‘oudkomers’ was still pending; should the Court approve of this, the matter will inevitably be back on the legislative agenda (Migration News Sheet, August 2006, p. 26).
7. In 2003, 80–90 per cent of Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese immigrants arrived in the Netherlands on the family ticket (Migration News Sheet, October 2005, p. 24).
8. Migration News Sheet, July 2005, p. 26.
9. Le Figaro, 19 May 2004.
10. Le Figaro, 27 September 2004.
11. Nicolas Sarkozy, quoted in Le Figaro, 3 May 2006.
12. ‘Immigration familiale: les faits’, Le Monde, 5 January 2006.
13. Nicolas Sarkozy, quoted in La Croix, 4 May 2006.
14. Interview with Nicolas Sarkozy, Le Monde, 28 April 2006.
15. These are the words of Thiery Mariani (UMP), when presenting the second Sarkozy bill in parliament. Quoted in ‘L'éducation civique et linguistique adoptée’, Libération, 5 May 2006.
16. ‘L'Assemblée rend obligatoire le “contrat d'accueil et d'intégration”’, Agence France Presse, 4 May 2006.
17. Interview with Blandine Kriegel, Le Figaro, 11 December 2004.
18. Ibid.
19. See the critical review, ‘Die Integrations-Industrie’, Die Welt, 7 July 2004.
20. Interview with German Interior Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU), Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, 12 March 2006, p. 4.
21. ‘Öl ins Feuer’, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20 July 2005, p. 3.
22. Even in its censored version, only the pictures, not the words, were changed.
23. Quoted from a press declaration by the interior ministry of Baden-Württemberg, Spiegel Online 3 January 2006 (‘Sonderbefragung für Muslime’, by Christine Xuan Müller and Anna Reimann).
24. The Gesprächsleitfaden is reprinted in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 10 January 2006, p. 3.
25. From the statement by Social Affairs Minister Francois Fillon, Assemblée nationale, 155th session, 10 February 2004.