With every night of violent rioting that scars France‘s rundown suburbs, more and more French say their distinctive model of integration, based on the revolutionary ideal of equality for all, has failed.
But President Jacques Chirac and his conservative allies are unlikely to join the critics, as that would mean accepting the approach France considers superior is no better than integration policies abroad.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is the only top politician saying France‘s "republican model" falls short and that the U.S. or British "melting pot" approach could help break the cycle of minority exclusion, unemployment and revolt.
This desire to change the system lies at the heart of his rivalry with Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, who defends the supposedly color-blind French model against the racial quotas and help for Muslim groups that Sarkozy advocates.
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When Sarkozy says the best social system is the one that produces jobs and that the French model is not doing that, his comments are met not with approval but retorts that the French model is fine and needs only to be better applied.
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