ABSTRACT
Exclusion, which has been at the forefront of debates for a number of years, results from the demise of wage labour. As a concept, exclusion amounts to marginalizing the problem which is in fact affecting the core of society. What is at issue here is not the description of the forms that social exclusion is taking in contemporary Europe, but rather the fact that fundamental concepts, such as 'exclusion' or 'discrimination' seem to be taken for granted, and are rarely put in their historical perspectives. Cohesion is also functional, and has precious little to do with equality. Inequality might affect cohesion because it increases tensions, but the most cohesive of organizations such as armies or monasteries are the most hierarchical ones. Whereas many French political analyses tend to absorb the discourse of 'cohesion' in an attempt at shooing back the ghosts of unruly, unpredictable, revolutionary France, the British Conservative party, apart from its 'one nation' wing, has remained unimpressed.
