Abstract
"The main noise (…) has been about asylum-seekers and how to keep them out. But the real issue is the immigrants, and their descendants, who are already inside. Integrate these, and European societies could cope well enough with the relatively few asylum-seekers." According to this sentence, taken from an article of the Economist (published in May 2003), the main problem with the burning issue of immigration is the implementation of appropriate integration policies. Indeed, the journalist implies that if efficient integration policies really existed, societies could easily welcome all the asylum-seekers without any problem. The study of the theories and practices of assimilation, examining the French and the American examples, can enable to us to reflect upon those issues of integration.
