ABSTRACT
Nicolas Sarkozy's first administration, formed in May 2007 following his election to the French presidency as the candidate of the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), included a new Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Co-Development. The ministry had been one of Sarkozy's key manifesto pledges and it maintained the momentum in migration policy-making that had begun with his appointment as Minister of the Interior at the start of Chirac's second presidential term of office in 2002. However, its creation was highly controversial since it made explicit what had hitherto been an implicit association between migrants and French national identity (Hargreaves 1995: 151). Its nationalist and xenophobic overtones drew criticism and it was attacked not only by the opposition Socialist Party (PS) and migrants’ associations but also by the Christian democratic Union for French Democracy (UDF) and the Catholic Church. Nonetheless, the new ministry had the backing of 72 per cent of the French public (90 per cent on the right and 50 per cent on the left). 1
