Diversity in the Relationship between Perceived Ethnic Threat, Islamophobia, and (sub)national identity in Belgium: a combination of two approaches

Abstract

«La France est un pays ouvert, mais ceux que nous accueillons doivent prendre en compte nos valeurs. (…) On ne peut pas parler d’intégration sans dire ce que nous sommes, ce qu’est la France. (…) Ceux qui méprisent la France, ceux qui la haïssent ne sont pas obligés de rester». With these statements, future French president Nicolas Sarkozy had set the tone during an electoral meeting in Caen(March 10th, 2007) for a large debate on national identity that was introduced in November 2009 by Eric Besson, minister of “immigration, integration, nationalidentity, and solidarity development”. The question about “what it means to be French” became inseparably linked with the immigration issue in this debate, that was aimed to “strengthen the French national identity, to reconfirm the republican values and the pride to be French”