ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates at some length how the Republican model copes with the challenges of multiculturalism. The centrality of the Republican narrative in French political culture has been the object of several major recent works, in particular that of Chabal. As Berstein recalls, however, different versions of Republicanism have been in the ascendancy at different stages of French history: the conservative Republicanism of the late nineteenth century, the progressive Republicanism of the immediate post-wat period, the 'souverainiste' Republicanism of the late twentieth century. The French model of Republican citizenship has great difficulties in accepting diversity and hence in adapting to the reality of a multiethnic, regionally differentiated society The myth of Republican equality has presented formidable obstacles to designing policies to help those who are substantively disadvantaged. President Mitterrand himself stressed the limits of French willingness to accept the presence of foreign nationals by evoking the notion of the 'threshold of tolerance' to justify limitations.
