PARIS — In France, la vie en rose comes wrapped in red tape.
Foreigners hoping to stay here long term must sign an “integration contract” and agree to uphold French values. The contract requires four days of civic education, yet what’s taught is more akin to a government crash course in how to be French.
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There are discussions about Marianne — the symbolic embodiment of the French Republic — and about classical culinary dishes, such as duck confit and escargot. France 101 covers both the cultural (how to visit museums) as well as the practical (how to navigate the national health-care system).
And although learning about l’art de vivre a la fran？aise is integral to the program, so, too, is learning how not to be French. No matter the customs of a student’s native country, instructors emphasize that practices such as female genital mutilation are prohibited in this country.
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The classes, plus language lessons for anyone whose fluency doesn’t measure up, help determine whether an applicant gets a multiyear visa. Every year, an average of 100,000 people take the courses, in cities across the country.
“We ask them to commit to respecting the values of the Republic,” says Samia Khelifi, a director at the Office for Immigration and Integration, the agency that issues the contract.
Assimilation is an issue of often impassioned concern here, part of an us-vs.-them narrative that’s already resurfacing in advance of a presidential election next spring. While other European nations, such as the Netherlands and Germany, have similar integration requirements for people claiming residency, the principle has been ingrained in French culture for centuries, by way of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his 1762 treatise, “The Social Contract.”
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The contemporary agreement explicitly states that receiving an extended residency visa is conditional on abiding by its terms, a key one being deference to French values. After an applicant signs the document, the language test is administered and 24 hours of classes scheduled.
European Union nationals and a couple categories of students and workers are exempt from these requirements, but for virtually everyone else the message is clear: Play hooky and pack your bags.
On a gray Saturday morning, about a dozen men and women lingered outside a building where classes are held in the Paris suburb of Pantin. Graziela Mbelani, a 19-year-old from Angola who has been in France more than 11 years, sat on the curb with her headphones on, listening to music and awaiting the start of her final class day.
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“They go through the customs that are forbidden in France,” Mbelani said, reflecting on previous sessions. “They place importance on equality between men and women and the right to homosexuality, saying that France is a free country, saying that discrimination is bad.”
The idea of a required cultural integration process first arose around 2003, when the government proposed linking it to long-term residency. Two years later, the political climate surrounding immigration erupted, after two teenagers died during a police chase in a suburb east of Paris. The boys, whose families were from Mauritania and Tunisia, were electrocuted while hiding in a transformer at a power substation.
“This led to massive protests across the country and civil unrest,” recounted Elizabeth Onasch, a sociologist at the State University of New York who has studied the French program extensively. “A lot of people in the media and the government .？.？. painted [the protests] as a failure of integration. .？.？. This fit with this general characterization of a crisis of integration being based on the cultural differences of immigrants.”
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The contract mandate became the law in 2006 through a bill pushed by then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. It has since grown more rigorous. According to Khelifi, the current contract doubled the number of days of civic training and provides for up to 600 hours of language instruction.
In one class in Pantin, an instructor told students they were welcome to cook the dishes they’d enjoyed in their native countries and observe the same holidays.
Other things have to be left behind. Polygamous marriages, for instance, are a no-go. “Here, marriage is between two people,” he noted.
The course underscores the importance of equality, one of the three pillars of France’s national motto of liberty, equality, fraternity. As specified in the framework of Sarkozy’s 2006 bill, gender equality is one of the strongest recurring themes. A woman’s right to the contraception of her choice is part of the discussion.
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“They said the woman in the relationship has the right to say what she wants to say .？.？. the man and the woman have to respect each other,” said Rob Bergman, 35, a Californian who is married to a Frenchwoman and works as a bartender in Paris. He moved in 2019 and took the classes last year.
The program has its critics, with some contending it can negatively reinforce racial, cultural and religious differences and work against the goal of assimilation. Classroom conversations about gender equality are a prime example, said Camille Gourdeau, a researcher and socio-anthropologist who did her PhD thesis on the integration contract.
“It’s the question of making a distinction between ‘them’ and ‘us,’ ” said Gourdeau, who has written about the “institutional racism” she thinks is inherent in the program’s approach. “An ‘us’ that is equal, exemplary, and a ‘them’ that is inherently sexist.”
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Immigration concerns will play a big role in the 2022 presidential election. Far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, leader of the National Rally party, consistently uses immigration as a driving force for her candidacy. When she faced off against Emmanuel Macron in the 2017 election, she garnered 34 percent of the vote.
Though the portrait of a France whose cultural values are under threat is foundational for Le Pen’s platform, the same theme has surfaced during Macron’s presidency. In December, two months after a radicalized Chechen refugee beheaded French schoolteacher Samuel Paty, a new bill was introduced in Parliament to ensure “respect for the principles of the Republic.”
The measure calling for a renewed commitment to equality, education and secularism became known as the anti-separatism bill. Legislators adopted it in late July, and it is expected to become law soon.
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