Counter identification processes among the third-fourth generation of immigrants in France. The case of Marseille and its Arabic community

Abstract

The importance of the thesis derived from the perspective offered: issues concerning immigration and integration often have been dealt with approaches which stress the conflictuality between faiths and cultures, or unload on the immigrant, meant as individual, the burden of a failed or successful "integration". ​In countries such as France, where concepts such as integration and assimilation continue to engage in the public debate even though they are dealing with the third and fourth generation of immigrants, the fallacy of these approaches is relevantly shared among scholars. Hence, my choice to highlight the negative inputs entered by the State/society, and perceived as threat and discrimination by the French with Arab origins, is justified by the need for a different approach. In fact, among the final results of the thesis, appears the trend (more or less extended among the young "Beurs") of re-establishing their identity on ethnicity and religion rather than their French nationality, since not always perceived by peers and institutions/authorities as pure French.