[Sigaba]

[Continued from above]

Yet Mr Hamza's mosque was a very odd place, not least for its extremism. Far more typical of Islam in Britain is the nearby Muslim Welfare House, which has been overflowing ever since moderate local faithful got fed up with Mr Hamza's excesses. The centre supplies English-language and Arabic lessons, advice on job-seeking, and youth and homework clubs, as well as holding weekly prayers—all with the help of an annual grant from the British government. It not only serves traditional populations of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, but newer groups of Algerians and Albanians too. In France, this might be regarded as state-sponsored ethnic segregation. At the Muslim Welfare House they consider it integration. “We do the grass-roots job the government can't,” comments an official.

The British model of integration consists, essentially, of not worrying about it. Where the French have an official High Council for Integration, designed to ensure that the process takes place, the British shy away from the term. Ethnic minority groups are not only left alone by the state to practise their faith, language or culture, but are encouraged and subsidised to do so. In one or two schools, the wearing of headscarves has caused trouble; but this is seen as a problem for school governors, not politicians. A vast majority disapproves of headscarf bans for impeccably liberal reasons.

Britain does not use quotas or American-style affirmative-action programmes to enforce multiculturalism. It relies, in part, on the routine acceptance of it, and also on strong laws against discrimination. The onus is now on employers to prove that they have not discriminated, rather than on employees to show that they have been treated unfairly. Fired by a self-interested desire to protect reputation, private companies scramble to adopt “diversity” programmes as a mark of good citizenship. France has none of this. In secularist French theory, the principle of rigorous, colour-blind equality before the law should remove the need for “positive discrimination”.

The British and French models for dealing with diversity have deep roots in history. The French model stems not only from secularism but from the country's revolutionary ideal, which enshrines the equal rights and obligations of citizens as individuals. The model in Britain, which is an assembly of nations, has always allowed a more pragmatic, looser connection to the centre. Moreover, Commonwealth citizens arrived in Britain with the right to vote. Geographical concentration propped up that voting power. So bargaining rights—over the building of mosques, the introduction of halal food in schools, or railway-station signs in Urdu—were won more easily.

These differences acknowledged, is British multiculturalism as wrong-headed as the French suggest? The British model has at least ensured the visibility of ethnic Britons in public life, such as TV news-reading. French television news, by contrast, is almost lily-white. France may celebrate its multi-ethnic national football team; Zinedine Zidane was voted the most admired Frenchman last year. But such exceptions, mostly in arts or sports, stand out. France's emphasis on integration would be more compelling if more of its minorities had become public figures.

In terms of political representation, Britain scores better. At the latest count, there were 12 ethnic-minority members of Parliament and 24 such members of the House of Lords. The French National Assembly contains no Muslims, and the black faces are those from French overseas constituencies. Even the French Socialist Party, with its links to anti-racism movements, has no black deputies.

But surely the British model leads to more isolation and segregation? Britain has highly concentrated minorities. Two entire London boroughs, Brent and Newham, now have a non-white majority. In some primary schools, white faces are non-existent. Yet the French model has not averted segregation. It is hard to measure, because minorities are not monitored. But on certain estates, like those in Evry, white faces are also rare.

Tracking the extremists

Racial tension is harder to judge. Britain was marked by riots in the northern cities of Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in 2001. An official report blamed in part the “parallel lives” and “separation of communities” in the towns. London, however, where a third of the population is now from an ethnic minority, is visibly multi-racial, and the capital has not seen a big race riot for many years.

France, to its credit, has also averted mass race riots. Racial tension, however, shows up in other ways. The far-right National Front, which grabbed second place in the first round of the presidential election in 2002, is expected to do well again in regional elections in March. It campaigns heavily on an anti-immigrant platform. In addition, anti-Semitic attacks in France continue, widely blamed on the influence of Islamic extremism and anti-Zionism.

And what of religious fanaticism? It may be easier to plot, preach and disappear in London than in Paris. Yet intelligence sources suggest that the two countries have comparable, though different, levels of activity. Only last month, six people, including an imam, were arrested in Vénissieux, a suburb of Lyons, on suspicion of terrorism. France acts as an important “supply base” for finance and recruitment to the terrorist front, many of whose members move on to London and thence to Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The more the traditional mosques in France are watched, the more the networks disappear into clandestine prayer halls and corner shops. In short, a tradition of integration has not sheltered France from extremism.

Where does all this leave the balance sheet? Crudely, the British model seems to produce more social mobility, though perhaps at the price of greater extremist activity and complacency about its entrenched ghettos. The French model may give less space to radicalism, but fails to promote social mobility, and is no guard against ghettos forming. Evry's mayor puts it well when he comments that France is accumulating the disadvantages of British multiculturalism without the advantages.

The difficulty lies in deciding what to do about it. Current policy carries risks. The headscarf ban, designed to strengthen French secularism, could end up threatening it: the ban plays into the hands of Islamist groups, who claim that Islam is being stigmatised. At the same time, Mr Sarkozy's new Muslim council brings its own dangers. The more Muslim leaders once considered extremist co-operate with the government, the more young jobless Muslims could turn to other voices outside the council, such as those behind the recent march against the ban in Paris. Tariq Ramadan, for instance, the Swiss grandson of the founder of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, is fast becoming a hero on run-down French housing estates.

Some are beginning to advocate a more radical rethink of the current French model. There are stirrings, for instance, of a public debate on “positive discrimination”, despite Mr Chirac's declaration that such thinking is “unacceptable”. If waiting for individual merit to rise to the top is not working, argues Mr Sarkozy, then some sort of hand-up should be considered. The idea of favouring groups, though, makes the French tie themselves in knots. How do you discriminate in favour of a group when the country doesn't recognise any, and all are equal before the law?

Quietly, practical ways are being found around the theoretical objections. Sciences-Po, a respected college in Paris, lets schoolchildren living in certain “educational priority zones” skip the fiercely competitive entrance exam. Most happen to be non-white. “It's illegitimate to hide behind republican principles and do nothing,” argues Richard Descoings, the college's head. Towns like Evry are finding ways to support Muslim activities and skirt the official ban on state finance and religion. Indeed, Evry's mayor argues that France should explicitly help to finance legitimate mosques, in order to avoid the radicalism that comes in from the Gulf and North Africa. Some 90% of France's 900 or so official and self-proclaimed imams are foreign-trained and sponsored.

Perhaps the most devastating criticism of the rigidity of current French policy was delivered in a recent report from the Institut Montaigne, a think-tank. It talked of France's “rampant ethnic segregation” and “veritable ghettos”. The country, it said, “scarcely recognises itself as a pluri-ethnic nation”. It urged France to “recognise the reality of minorities”, and, most important, to put in place a programme designed to reflect ethnic “diversity”, including positive discrimination.

That common glue

The British, too, are beginning to recognise the drawbacks of their own approach. David Blunkett, the home secretary, is introducing citizenship classes to ensure that Britons can at least speak English and know a little of their history—not hitherto much of a concern. Quite sensibly, there is more talk of the need to strengthen common glue so that differences can continue to flourish. Trevor Phillips, the black head of the Commission for Racial Equality, says he wants to rehabilitate the term “integration”. “People think we tolerate any old nonsense because it's part of their culture: that's nonsense,” he says. “To make the idea of a British Muslim a reality means paying as much attention to “British” as to “Muslim”.