Rousseau and the tensions of France's Contrat d'Accueil et d'Intégration

Abstract

The Contrat d'Accueil et d'Intégration is the keystone of France's revamped immigration paradigm aimed at integrating immigrants into French society and fostering social cohesion through adherence to a Rousseauian social contract. Because the use of the social contract as an immigration tool taps into an ideal (and thus flawed) philosophical tradition, it is important to move beyond the procedural mechanism and political implications to probe the deeper philosophical issues raised by grafting a Rousseauian social contract onto the immigration realm. From a Rousseauian perspective, discerning the nature of French republicanism is not a question of which paradigm—the traditional republican or the multicultural—has the better understanding of the fundamental values of modernity. Rather, what matters is how the French public views the scope of these values and whether the laws promulgated by the government in power reflect the general will of society as a whole. The contribution of this article lies in exposing the questions the immigrant contract raises regarding the power of the particular and/or general will, the problematic social patterns it engenders regarding the factionalization of society, and the tensions and trade-offs it creates regarding upholding the assimilationist paradigm, sentiments of inequality and fraternity, levels of social strife and definitions of national identity.