From The Boston Globe
By H.D.S. Greenway

There are really only two European models for integrating immigrants, the French and the British. Neither has succeeded and both are now being questioned.

The French insist on assimilation. You are either French or you are not, and all Frenchmen, no matter what their background, should be French. This dates from the French revolutionary ideals of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

The British have favored laissez-faire multiculturalism; you are free to follow your own culture as long as you stay within British laws and certain norms of British society.

Both models have been sorely tested by Islamic radicalism and riots, which have revealed large bodies of disaffected and alienated peoples who seem resistant to absorption — even down to the second and third generations.

Other European countries with large immigrant populations follow one model or the other, the northern countries tending to follow the British model, while the southern countries tend toward the French. But all are having second thoughts about the efficacy of their preferred model.

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