[In the following review, Brett discusses Ben Jelloun's indictment of French prejudice against North African immigrants in French Hospitality: Racism and North African Immigrants.]

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Europeans settled in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco. But over the past hundred years, the flow has reversed: North African immigrants have settled in France, to the point at which, by 1990, they numbered over one and a half million, roughly the size of the European population of French North Africa before its massive exodus in the wake of the struggle for Independence in 1955-62. As their children, born in the country, become French on attaining their majority, North Africans would appear to have evened the score; except that where Europeans in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia were largely privileged (though not perhaps in the slums of Algiers, where Albert Camus was brought up), North Africans in France are marginalized and victimized. The National Front has built its appeal on anti-immigration, with North Africans particularly in mind. Hence the title of Tahar Ben Jelloun's indictment of their treatment, French Hospitality.

Ben Jelloun, one of a minority of such immigrants who have been made to feel welcome, speaks out in the great tradition of the French intellectual, as keeper of the conscience of the nation. First published in 1984 to remind the first Mitterrand presidency of its good intentions, the book was reissued in 1997 to hail the new Prime Minister, Lionel Jospin, as the man to right all the wrongs of his predecessor Jean-Louis Debré, and confront the National Front. But when Ben Jelloun tells his readers that “we must begin by getting rid of prejudices and other such obstacles, and tell French society coolly and impartially how serious and full of difficulties the problem is”, he is unlikely to shake, let alone move, the opposition. The burden is laid on press and politicians to facilitate what he regards as the inevitable “intermingling of races”, but they have been slow to respond to the challenge. French Hospitality has a rambling new introduction, which includes everything from principles to policies and attitudes to experiences, but it is hardly compelling. The book may succeed better in translation, for the benefit of an entirely new audience in need of a readable rather than systematic introduction to the problem it addresses in France.