Throughout the world, the problem o

Throughout the world, the problem of immigrants, cultural rights, and state protection of refugees is growing, since very few states have effective ways of defining the relationship of citizenship, birth, ethnic affiliation, and national identity. The crisis is nowhere clearer than in France today, where the struggle to distinguish the Algerian population within France is threatening to unravel the very foundation of French thinking about cultural markers of national belonging. But in many countries race, birth, and residence are becoming problems of one or other kind.