Abstract
The debate over affirmative action is a burning issue in France, because it lays the French model of integration flat again. It deals with the 'French exception', which can be traced back to the Revolution era. It deals with very passionate subjects like school, universalism etc. Moreover, this debate occurs during what is considered by many thinkers as the decline of France. After 1998s euphoria, after the victory at the world cup, the French universalism success and sanity of the society, last years social conflicts and the riots, it has become difficult to analyze between social and ethnic concerns, which has been completely misunderstood by the other countries, specially America. But it is going to be seen that this misundersting is mutual. Even if it is hard to conclude anything within just one year of the riots, it seems obvious that the French model of integration leaves strong inequalities and discriminations. That is why those events take a particular place in the French debate on affirmative actions, and pragmatic solutions are searched. Nevertheless, this debate seems misrepresented by a distorted vision of what affirmative action is.
