For a long time, France was seen as an alternative model to the prevailing anglo-saxon one - where New York and London represented the liberal dream of the melting pot, Paris stood bent, but unbowed, for a distinct French republican idea.

Now, with the Middle East alight once again the relationship the West has with immigrants from that region again comes into focus. The idea of french republicanism, the last vestige of old french glories now seems cracked if not shattered.

Republican laicité is challenged from within by Islamists and the left. Is it too late to save the secular Republic? Should we even try?

Florence Bergeaud-Blackler is a French anthropologist at CNRS who has done extensive research about integration and the activities of political islamism and especially the Muslim Brotherhood in France.

Fanny Forsberg Lundell is professor of French at Stockholm University who has recently published ”Kameleonter och kosmopoliter ”(2023) a book comparing French and Swedish integration.

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