Organisers:

            Jocelyne Bac (FAS, France)

            Patrick Simon (INED, France)

 

Jocelyne Bac

Director of Territorial Development and Policies

FAS

209 rue de Bercy F-75012 Paris

Phone: 33-1-40 02 74 94

Fax: 33-1-40 02 77 83

j.bac@fastif.org

 

Patrick Simon

Researcher

National Institute of Demographic Studies

133, Bd Davout F-75020 Paris

Phone: 33-1-56 06 21 37

Fax: 33-1-56 06 21 93

simon@ined.fr

 

Description:

 

The aim of the workshop is to deal with the methods used to formulate public policies of integration on a local scale, within the context of the struggle against discrimination. The recent addition to the agenda of discrimination in French public policies, inspired in part by theoretical tools and systems developed in Canada, Great Britain or in Belgium, has significantly altered the general direction of intervention towards immigrant populations. This redirection has had an impact on the development and content of the policies. It has also been accompanied by a transformation in the methods for formulating public policies, with more specific use of experts and research, which has produced results that have contributed in developing directions regarding integration policy. Thus, the development of the fight against discrimination sets out to bring public views up to date by proposing a transition from current attitudes on immigration (that require certain specific measures) to the management of diversity that includes immigrants and their descendants in the framework of common law. In other words, adapting common law to include issues of diversity, which would undoubtedly be an innovation in French tradition.

 

The workshop will deal with the methods used to build integration and anti-discrimination policies and will seek to evaluate the consequences of new policy trends in particular areas.

 

The participants will be political decision-makers, actors in organisations and researchers. The aim will be to offer a variety in points of view and experiences, according to the aims of Metropolis. These diverse views will be discussed by an international expert. This confrontation should underline the difference in national characteristics and initiate a process of placing in perspective normative options rarely challenged when a group of participants are all of the same national mould.

 

 

Date:

The workshop will take place on Wednesday 28 November from 2 p.m. to 3.30 p.m.

 

Programme of the workshop:

 

Exposé by Patrick Simon (INED, France):

The combat against discrimination and categories of public action

 

The orientation of integration policy towards fighting discrimination marks a significant transformation in ways of perceiving and managing the presence of immigrants and their descendants. This new direction of policy involves the redefinition of systems of action and requires the identification of categories of public in terms of their origin. This categorisation also requires statistical treatment. The exposé will cover processes of categorisation, their links with the development of public policies and barriers to implementing coherent anti-discrimination policies. Particular emphasis will be given to urban policies which, by declaring targets of social and ethnic mix on the scale of a city and its districts, provides a good example of the relationship between categorisation and public action for local integration. The principle of ethnic mix will be discussed in terms of theory (are population concentrations in homogenous ethnic or social groups necessarily negative?) and practice (what tools can we use to ensure variety?).

 

Exposé by Claude Renard (DIV, Paris, France):

Urban policy and the combat against discrimination

The introduction of the subject of discrimination in urban contracts illustrates the reconfiguration of integration policy. An overview will be given of the conditions governing this link between urban policy and the combat against discrimination accompanied by an analysis of the content of urban contracts.

 

 

Exposé by Bénédicte Madelin (Profession "Suburb", Saint Denis, France):

The role of the combat against discriminations in the action carried out by an operative of urban policy.

 

Local operatives are main actors in local integration. How are their practices modified by changes in integration policy? What does the combat against discrimination imply in their activities? B. Madelin will deal with these questions using the example of the "urban policy" resource centre of Saint-Denis.

 

Rinus Penninx (IMES, Métropolis, Amsterdam): discussion

 

R. Penninx will discuss the French situation from the point of view of policies and practices in other European countries and the Netherlands in particular.