France’s first immigration museum opens
There was no fanfare, not even an inauguration, for the opening this week of a museum nearly two decades in the making that hopes to tout France’s immigrant heritage — and banish the stigma often borne by the nation’s millions of immigrants.
If the discreet opening Wednesday of the National Center of the History of Immigration — housed in an art deco palace that once was home to the Ministry of the Colonies — is any measure, changing the way France regards newcomers will be no small task.
France, which once reveled in the glories of empire, gave up its colonies in Africa and Asia in the 1950s and 1960s. But, more than other European countries, it has been unable to fully reconcile itself with its role as a nation of immigrants proportionally on a par with the United States, experts say.
The museum opening comes amid controversy over the appointment of France’s first immigration minister and heated debate in parliament over an immigration bill that would tailor the nation’s immigrant community and set tough standards for new arrivals.
Read full article (International Herald Tribune, October 11, 2007)
Guardian (October 10, 2007)
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