The presence of large numbers of immigrants will continue to pose intractable policy questions for Ireland and Europe, a conference in Paris was told yesterday.
The symposium on The Multi-cultural Society, held at the Centre Culturel Irlandais, heard how Muslims in the US today are subject to prejudice and suspicion similar to what the Irish experienced in Britain in the 1970s.
"The majority of immigrants come from countries that have experienced colonialism," Ms Carol Coulter, legal affairs correspondent of The Irish Times, said. "Language, culture and religion assumed special importance for them. They take this with them into exile."
Prominent historian of Algeria, Prof Benjamin Stora, said Algerians began emigrating to France in the 1920s. Early opponents of the French presence in Algeria often referred to Ireland in explaining the need for an anti-colonial struggle.
"France does not think of itself as a country of immigrants or a multi-cultural society," Prof Stora said. Jacobinist centralism, the legacy of the French revolution, created a sacrosanct belief that public schools should assimilate immigrants into the Republic.
But Algerian immigrants have not assimilated like earlier waves of Polish and Italian immigrants, though they eventually abandoned the "myth of return" to their country of origin.
All studies of immigrants show a similar phenomenon, he added. "After 20 or 30 years, they never return. The third generation (in exile) doesn't leave, but it looks for its identity."
In France, this search for identity has resulted in demands for Muslim cemeteries, the right to slaughter animals in accordance with halal rules, and the building of mosques.
Prof Declan Kiberd, the head of the Department of Anglo-Irish Literature and Drama at University College Dublin, said the Algerian experience in France "would open echos for Irish people in Britain". Like third generation Algerians, descendants of Irish emigrants to Britain are now undergoing "a tremendous cultural revival", Prof Kiberd said.
"A couple of years ago, there were 17 different plays by Irish people on stage in London. They too are coming to terms with their double identity. They too had a myth of return."
Prof Kiberd said the problem of dual identity "has not really been solved by any overseas Irish community".
Prof Kiberd disagreed with his colleague, Prof Attracta Ingram, a political theorist at UCD, on the best approach to immigrant rights. He described himself as "an unreconstructed multi-culturalist" who believes that "everybody should be allowed to practice their traditions in the public sphere".
Prof Ingram described herself as a "liberal secularist". Though the Irish debate has so far focused on admissions policy rather than the question of how immigrants are accommodated in society, she predicted that Ireland "will have to deal with cases involving polygamy, headscarves, female circumcision and family law versus Shari'a".
Across Europe, attitudes towards immigrants are shifting towards civic integration policies. "We expect more of immigrants in the process of immigration than previously," Prof Ingram said.
"There is no more a blanket acceptance of 'I have a right to 'x' because it's my culture'.
"We're going to integrate individuals rather than communities. Questions such as how many migrants, what quotas, and what financing will be dealt with more at a European level."
The Irish Ambassador to France, Mr Pádraic MacKernan, who has served as a diplomat in the US, said that in his experience, "Irish identity sat very easily with allegiance to American institutions".
Mr Paul Gillespie, foreign policy editor of The Irish Times, said it was important to distinguish between assimilation, which means "to make the same" and integration, which means "to make whole".
European integration was a possible solution to the problems of ethnic and religious minorities. For example, Kurdish separatists have been unanimous in advocating Turkish accession to the EU, he said.
Mr Gillespie said that there had been "a retreat from the practice of multi-culturalism" in much of Europe.
The conference was organised by Ms Carol Coulter and Ms Helen Carey, of the Centre Culturel Irlandais, and part sponsored by The Irish Times and the Department of Foreign Affairs .