France questions integration model based on universal equality

With every night of rioting in France's rundown suburbs, more French say their 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 says France's "republican model" falls short and the US 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 colour-blind French model against the racial quotas and help for Muslim groups that Sarkozy advocates.

Michel Wieviorka, a leading sociologist, said the riots indicated "the decline of the French model of republican integration".

"This is a total crisis," he said at the weekend. "The riots tell us we cannot continue with politicians who tell us to carry on with an exhausted model."

Labour Minister Jean-Louis Borloo described the failure in blunt terms but stopped short of calling for an overhaul of France's model of integration. "France thought its model, which says let's put schools everywhere, and the same number of teachers everywhere, and everybody has the same rights, was going to solve a complex problem," he said.

"Our urban planning concentrated some people in the same place and thought with a kind of republican arrogance that integration would work out naturally. Well, we messed up our urban planning and we need more funds"

Inspired by the "liberty, equality, fraternity" motto of its 1789 revolution, the French republic officially rejects any consideration of race, creed or colour that could undermine national unity.