Being French: the Four Pillars of a Nationality

Patrick Weil is a Senior Research Fellow in History and Political Science at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and a Visiting Professor at NYU’s Institute of French Studies (spring 2011). Patrick Weil's work focuses on comparative immigration, citizenship, and Church States law and policy. His most recent publications include: Etre français, les quatre piliers de la nationalité (Ed. de l’Aube, January 2011); How to be French?  A Nationality in the Making since 1789 (Duke UP, 2008); "Why the French Laïcité is Liberal” (Cardozo Law Review, June 2009), and (with Son-Thierry Ly); “The Anti-racist Origins of the American Immigration Quota System” (Social Research, Spring 2010).


Abstract:


Is there a French national identity? At the conclusion of a controversial, presidentially-led, public debate, historian and political scientist Patrick Weil takes on the subject. Four pillars, he argues in his most recent essay (January 2011), have served as a shared reference and a common socio-political project for France and the French. The principle of equality, the French language, the positive memory of the French Revolution, and the principle of laïcité: all products of French history, having resisted numerous challenges, survived many constitutions and even more governments, these foundational principles are still goals to measure up to. They are attractive and inclusive rather than grounds for exclusion.