Manifesto for living together

The country's identity crisis has continued with each successive government. The issue of welcoming migrants shows that the possibility of everyone living together, whatever their culture of origin, is not yet fully recognised. Let's advocate greater social cohesion, in particular by combating all forms of inequality. Positive discrimination' policies are many and varied. Quotas in favour of integration certainly clash head-on with the principle of free competition in the private sector, as well as within public services. Nevertheless, they would make it possible to promote the principle of equality in all its dimensions, by encouraging access to social and professional responsibilities for working-class people from priority neighbourhoods. Quotas are perhaps not the best solution to replace anonymity and the drawing of lots to designate our elites. Their brutality is revolutionary. But they do make it possible to re-establish equality of opportunity and to transcend, even pass on, differences and beliefs. They encourage us to devise a whole legal engineering system to remove the obstacles to integration ...

Autorentext

Mehdi Thomas Allal is a senior civil servant with the City of Paris, a lecturer at Sciences Po, head of the 'living together' section of the Jour d'Après (JDA) think tank, chairman of the Casa Nostra association and director of Public Conseil; he has published numerous articles and books, notably on discrimination and racism.