Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, Semantics

Here's a cut-to-the-chase analysis by John Vinocur--in a kind of dialogue with a recent piece in Le Monde by Alain Touraine--of the recent rioting in France. Vinocur suggests that part of the problem is the reluctance to admit that anything like affirmative action is necessary in France.

Change, more nuance, a more specifically diverse French model, or bluntly, minority hiring quotas, preferential school admission, and school busing to create palpable integration: These are not easy matters in a place where the national myth of the republic and its incantation of perfect equality provide a baseline of comfort and self-justification to politicians of all parties.

Lionel Jospin, talking on the radio Wednesday morning, when asked about affirmative action as a solution, just dismissed it out of hand. The former Socialist prime minister, whose failure to provide the French a strong enough notion of personal security led to his defeat in the first round of the 2002 presidential elections, said this kind of affirmative step "contradicts our republican tradition." If France is to go forward, he insisted, "it's got to be within our model."

Indeed, a day or two before the riots began, Dominique de Villepin, the French prime minister, described affirmative action as a "semantic debate" in a country known by one and all to be committed to equal opportunity.