YOUNG people waving Algerian and Moroccan flags flocked to the Place de la République in Paris to celebrate the re-election of Jacques Chirac on the night of the second round of the French presidential election on 5 May 2002. A few days later Tokia Saifi joined the new government as sec retary of state for sustainable development, and Hamlaoui Mekachera was appointed minister for veterans. Saifi is the daughter of Algerian immigrants, Mekachera a former Algerian officer in the French army.

But in the French parliamentary elections in June not one representative from the North African community won a seat. Any official measure to correct this would be against France’s republican principles. French people of North African origin have few illusions about the intentions of political parties, left or right, but they do expect full recognition of their civil rights and not just fine phrases.

In the past rightwing parties have formed unofficial alliances with the far-right National Front (FN) to gain control of regional and muni cipal councils. But now they are showing an interest in the North African community. It’s a question of figures: the Union for the Presidential Majority (UMP), the ruling rightwing majority, seems convinced that it needs the community’s backing to win the next elections.

This probably explains why the government is doing so much to promote its two “Arab” ministers and its technical advisers: Amo Ferhati assists Ms Saifi, Rachid Mokran advises the secretary of state for small and medium enterprises (SME), Rachida Dati advises the ministry of the interior, and Hakim El Karaoui advises the prime minister. Five national secretaries of the UMP, out of 81, are of French-Arab origin. There are some hopes that they will focus the expectations and frustrations of the community, and perhaps even encourage it to vote UMP. As Jean-François Copé, the government spokeman, said: “Having two Muslims in the government is proof in itself of the strength of the republican ideal” (1).

In an effort to further their own or their party’s interests, high-fliers of North African origin in the UMP have turned into rightwing activists for minority groups, although they risk imitating the old French colonial administration with its native administrators in charge of native affairs. They certainly make every use of their supposed ethnic affinities, in public and private, to capitalise on the aspirations of potential voters.

Civil rights and equal opportunities are the fashionable slogans, replacing the less popular idea of integration. Nadia Amiri wrote a postgraduate dissertation on the failure of the Socialist party (PS) to deliver real political power to its immigrant members (2); she fought her way up through the same neighbourhood groups as her rightwing counterparts and knows their methods. She says: “They play on emotions, on the desire for ethnic and social recognition. That matters a great deal to the Franco-Arab community, which has its own history, identity and feelings. They know how to satisfy such yearnings.”

Hence the importance of official recognition. In 2002 the minister for urban renewal, Jean-Louis Borloo, gave the City Talents award to Aziz Senni, a young businessman from Val Fourré, a troubled suburb west of Paris. He and another award-winner, Abdellah Aboulharjan, had set up a club for young entrepreneurs. This year they won the Trophy for Diversity in Entrepreneurship, presented by the secretary of state for SMEs, who went so far as to mention their ethnic origins (3). A new batch of Franco-Arab personalities are likely to be promoted to the highest echelons of the state or awarded the Légion d’Honneur. Ferhati is clear about the underlying aim: “We’re talking about at least 3 million electors. Without them, the right cannot win the presidential election in 2007.”

Kacim Kellal, in charge of national unity at the UMP, is concerned about the poor political representation of the North African community: “There is a debate inside the party about a policy of positive discrimination and a more proactive approach. We are very much aware that, even just in terms of figures, we are some way ahead of our main political opponents [the PS]. If nothing else, we do care about our political future.”

So is the North African community veering to the right? “Not as much as some people claim,” says Frédéric Callens, of the Social Action Fund for Integration and the Fight against Discrimin ation (Fasild). He says that, hardened by 20 years of struggle, the leaders of the 1980s are “more self-centred and opportunistic. Not in the pejorative sense of the term. They just know how to seize the chances that come their way.”

Nadia Zouareg, now 41, is typical. She took part in the Beur (second-generation North African immigrant) civil rights marches in the early 1980s and has been active in neighbourhood pressure groups ever since. She says: “We believed in the republican ideal, in equality and everybody playing their part. I’m not going back on that. It made me the way I am. But as for changing society, I see things differently. I didn’t switch to the UMP all of a sudden. I’m a leftwing ecologist and always will be. But I will vote for the people who give us visibility and the right to have our say.”

Individual strategies have replaced the old militancy motivated by “the hope of collective promotion by moving up from local pressure groups to a role in politics” (4). This is particularly true of the middle classes. The North African community is anything but socially and politically consistent, so it is no surprise that some of its more successful members should vote for the right. What is new is that others, of more humble standing, tired of their living conditions and disappointed by the socialist PS, should now turn to the UMP.

The PS is losing electors and a militant elite it helped to create, notably through SOS Racisme and France Plus, two action groups started under its aegis in 1984. Adda Bekkouche is chairman of the Movement for Active Citizenship (MCA), an organisation with similar values to the PS. He says: “The left has often initiated discussion of various issues, but it is the right that has actually taken the plunge, giving the vote to women and independence to Algeria, for instance.”

Franco-Arab militants waited 20 years for the PS to choose some of them to run for parliament and give them genuine support. It failed to deliver. Of all those elected to the European parliament and France’s regional or departmental councils only Halima Jemni (on the Paris regional council) is affiliated to the PS (5). When members of the North African community are elected to town councils they rarely play a leading role, but tend to take charge of civil rights issues, law and order, integration and neighbourhood relations. As Amiri says, “For a long time women in politics were allocated specific gender-related tasks” (6); to turn political equality for women, won in 1945, into true equality has required considerable determination, and the process is far from complete.

Many were expecting a showdown at the PS party congress in Dijon in May. On representation three regional party activists, Bariza Khiari, Fayçal Douhane and Ali Kismoune, presented a paper on political discrimination inside the PS, subsequently considered by François Hollande, the party leader. As a result Khiari joined Kader Arif, previously the only Franco-Arab in the national secretariat. She is proud to belong to the top 20 and is convinced it was essential the PS “woke up to this issue”. The big surprise at the congress came with the appointment of Malek Boutih, former chairman of SOS Racisme and a controversial figure, to the national committee. Some commentators accuse him of being an anti-Beur Beur. His tribute to Nicolas Sarkozy, the minister of interior, whom he called “a leader who has boosted young people’s image of pol itics” (7), did little to enhance his reputation.

It is hard to say how many of these sought- after electors there actually are. French law forbids any reference to ethnic origin or religion in official statistics. Unofficial estimates suggest there are about 3 million French Muslims. But who is meant by terms such as Beur, French of North African extraction, Arab, or second-generation immigrant? Such terms are another way of saying these people do not belong, that “socially they are outside the core group formed by those who consider themselves genuinely national and really legitimate” (8). Those directly concerned are tired of the labels.

Le Mirail is a “difficult” estate in Toulouse, with a population of 50,000. The 2001 explosion of the AZF-Total chemical works just down the road did nothing to improve its appearance, leaving shattered windows and boarded-up blocks. Dgaoued, 26, founder of a neighbourhood group, says: “There’s no escaping our origins. Everyone can see I don’t have French ancestors, so why do they always have to say I’m French of North African extraction. Who mentions Sarkozy’s Hungarian origins?”

Nadia Zouareg says : “Once they start saying you’re a first, second or third-generation immigrant, it means you are not fully French, but a separate category.”

At the entrance to a tower block an old woman chats to 27-year-old Kacem. Françoise Hebrard de Veyrinas, the UMP deputy mayor of Toulouse, walks past, saying hello to the old woman and completely ignoring Kacem, who is so used to such behaviour that he barely reacts.

Tarek is a teacher on the New Opportunities programme, designed to give school dropouts a second chance. He has spent half his life with youngsters in the Paris and Toulouse suburbs, and just smiles when we mention the non-meeting between Kacem and De Veyrinas. His job, reintegrating students, leaves little room for indulgence. Over the past two years French society’s distrust of the North African community has increased his bitterness. He says: “I keep asking them to make an effort, but what’s the point? To make their way in a society that constantly rejects them unless they give up their roots? Any violence and the kids are immediately categorised as delinquent Arabs.” They are also compared with their stereotyped counterparts, the dynamic young Beur women.

The media are mostly responsible for the clichés, particularly since 11 September 2001. Despite the law they habitually mention the ethnic origin of Arab or African suspects in petty delinquency, violence or terrorism. As Zouareg says: “They’ve been type-casting immigrant and Muslim kids for the past 20 years.”

There is the same blinkered attitude towards Islam as a cultural or religious force. Even members of the community who were previously relatively unconcerned are affected by the prejudices, and may adopt practices out of solidarity with the rest of the community.

This summer an editorial in a centre-left weekly said: “What is irritating, indeed shocking, about these people who want to make their children wear a headscarf, kippa or whatever token of identity is that, despite being guests of a state, they do not have the politeness to comply with the laws of their hosts” (9). How should an integrated French person with ties to the Arab and Muslim world react to that?

Religion helps some people survive and even, as Mustapha puts it, “make sweet juice from a bitter lemon”. He adds: “It’s the only fixed point in a society that cannot or will not let them put down roots.”

Zouareg shares this view: “Religion has prevented many from going too far down the path to self-destruction, through drink, drugs, delinquency or suicide. It is a force on which they can draw to build a different future from the one their parents imagined for them. Trees needs roots to grow. My children and grandchildren may no longer be French of Algerian extraction but they will still be Muslims, because that is something I want to give them.” As Mustapha points out, hostility to Islam stimulates Muslim identity: “When a youth sees his mother or sister singled out because she wears the hejab, he may adopt their religious values as a defensive reflex.”

Naziha, 24 and wearing the hejab, and Shab, 33 and bareheaded, both say: “Islam provides guidance in everyday life.” Shab, as a young French woman of Pakistani origin, is uncertain of her identity, but Islam is a source of stability. She says: “Its universality transcends cultural ties and enables me to lead a fuller life. Which is not necessarily the case with Pakistani or North African culture.” Naziha adds: “In North African families Islam is used to justify practices that are more a matter of custom than religion. Studying the original text is a way of getting back to the roots of the traditions and religious beliefs.”

What is left for those without work who do not believe in politics, or local activism, or God? Miloud walks up to a nearby wall and taps the concrete. Tarek, thinking along similar lines, says: “The young have done all they possibly can to integrate into society. Now it is society’s turn to make an effort.” The universal value of the republican message loses much of its force when it comes from politicians who are mostly prosperous white men.

Officially France refuses to accept the idea of minorities. But behind the scenes the government is working on the problem. Adda Bekkouche queries the right of “the people most in the public eye who are rarely the most representative or deserving” to speak up for minorities.

As a member of the UMP explains, “No one can rally these French people. All we can do is encourage them to adhere to a political project and certain values. What some politicians are doing will achieve nothing, but attract goodwill to secure their political future. Having moved from the PS to the UMP, they will not turn back.” By cynically pandering to some groups, the parties are doing more to promote people from a specific background than fight discrimination.

Bekkouche adds: “Representation is not an end in itself. But under-representation is an anomaly in a democracy.” Furthermore “the distortions in the existing system of representation need to be corrected. Declarations of good intent are no longer enough. The technical and cultural reasons that prevent minorities from playing a proper part in political life are powerful enough to be limited by large-scale temporary corrective measures subject to regular reappraisal” (10).

France already implements other forms of discrimination. In the Senate (the upper chamber of parliament), “country people are deliberately over-represented to maintain a political, rather than demographic, balance between areas of sparse and dense population” (11). Similarly, “policies of urban regeneration and social inclusion may be seen as forms of affirmative action, in the sense that they implement measures to iron out inequality” (12).

There are other examples, such as priority education areas, places in French universities for students from under-privileged neighbourhoods, and incentives for companies to recruit local staff. An open debate on corrective measures required to achieve equal opportunities, including in politics, seems more promising than a discreet arrangement.

The choice of candidates for the coming elections will be a good test. According to Kellal, everyone is convinced that “there is no going back: no political force will count if it fails to represent all parts of society.”