In the 21st century, immigrants have continued to come to France to escape wars or other hardships in their country of origin.
The French model of immigration is assimilationist – immigrants are expected to assimilate into French culture, leaving their previous identities behind. Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow write in their book, Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t Be Wrong, that the assimilationist model of immigration means that “once you’re French, you’re nothing else…assimilation means being integrated into the whole politically, culturally, socially, linguistically, and economically.” Gerard Noiriel, a very famous and influential French historian and sociologist, wrote an iconic book about the history of French immigration, the title of which is “Le Creuset Français” – which means “the French melting pot.” Unlike in the U.S. where there are Irish-Americans, Asian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, etc., one rarely, if ever, hears somebody in France identify themselves as “French-[other nationalistic or ethnic identity]."
The fact that the assimilationist model has succeeded in instilling a strong national identity in many people is undeniable. According to handouts from my immigration class, the French historian Marc Bloch said in 1941, despite having already experienced rabid antisemitism (Bloch was Jewish and was ultimately killed for it during WWII) at the hands of the French Vichy government, wrote that he felt, “during my entire life, before all else simply French.”
According to my notes from my immigration class, there are a few institutions that have traditionally been considered crucial in the French assimilationist model.
