Citizenship and the nation?state in France

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Abstract
Today's debate about citizenship in France has emerged from the discussion on immigration in the 1980s. Citizenship has traditionally been linked to nationality in France; recent moves to forge a new citizenship ‐ including not only French nationals but all those established in France ‐ have therefore demanded a dissociation of citizenship rights from nationality. This demand is pan of a wider reappraisal of the entitlement to rights in France. Yet the redefinition of rights can find itself trapped within ambiguous, even conflicting, discourses. The institutional structures distinguishing nationals from foreigners ‐ established largely in the second half of the nineteenth century during intense industrialization, colonial expansion and the construction of French national identity ‐ are still important determinants of inequalities in France today. New social movements that ignore’ these structural/ideological practices, traversing the state and civil society, tend to idealize the space of resistance to inequality and exclusion. It is only by reappraising the historical construction of exclusions in the national state that a new concept of citizenship will be able to emerge.

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