SIXTH INTERNATIONAL METROPOLIS CONFERENCE

WORKSHOP 44: Anti-discrimination schemes and the building of local policies of integration

Wednesday, November 28, 2001
14:00 - 15:30

ORGANIZERS
Jocelyne Bac
FAS, France
j.bac@fastif.org

Patrick Simon
INED, France
simon@ined.fr

DESCRIPTION
The aim of the workshop is to deal with the methods used to build 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 building public policies, with more specific use of experts and research, which has produced results that have contributed in developing the directions of the policy for integration. In this sense, 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 some specific measures) towards diversity management that includes immigrants and their descendants in the common law. In other words, adapting the common law to include diversity issues, which would undoubtedly be innovative within the 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, associated players and researchers. The aim will be to offer variety in points of view and experiences, according to the aims of Metropolis. There will be international diversity thanks to those taking part in the discussions who will react to the papers given on the situation in France based on their national experience. This confrontation should underline the difference in national traits and initiate a process of placing in perspective normative options that are rarely challenged when a group of participants are all of the same national mould.

Structure:
- The introduction of the subject of discrimination in the "urban contracts" as an illustration and driving force behind the reorganisation of integration policy.
A politician participating in the case of France, and a foreign participant debate the transposition of the French example in an international context (examples from Europe and North-America).
- The role of studies and research in formulating public policies; the mobilisation of expertise and drawing up diagnoses reflected in social and/or urban policies; the fight against discrimination and the difficulties in diagnosing these due to a shortage of relevant data. The experiences of an expert with examples of urban policies and/or the statistics on discrimination (make-up of the population, data collection) [French], an English participant discussing the experience of the CRE and monitoring.
- Integration policy from the point of view of urban policies includes a campaign to enforce the principle of social and ethnic variety at urban and district levels. The principle of variety may be discussed on a theoretical (are population concentrations in homogenous ethnic or social groups necessarily negative?) and a practical (what tools can we use to ensure variety?) level. An assessment of debates and population policies in France and the Netherlands

Participants:
1.- Jocelyne Bac (FAS, Paris, France)
2.- Patrick Simon (INED, Paris, France): The combat against discrimination and categories of public action
3. Claude Renard (DIV, Paris, France): Urban Policy against discrimination
4. Bénédicte Madelin (currently working in the suburbs, Saint Denis, France): The role of the combat against discrimination in the action carried out by an operative of urban policy

Discussion: Prof. dr. R. Penninx, IMES, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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