French citizenship is relatively open to immigrants while German citizenship is relatively closed. Discuss with reference to post-war immigration to France and Germany

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Mobs recently occurred in France in dozens of poor districts in reaction to the death of two young men. As most of the population of these districts is made up of immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the emphasis has been put by some of the most prominent members of the government such as Nicolas Sarkozy on issues relating to immigration. For instance, it was decided that every foreigner taking part in such uprisings would be expelled from France immediately.
These events raised the question of tolerance towards immigration in France, which has long been presented as a model of integration as opposed to Germany, who is usually accused of refusing the settlement of immigrants on its soil. To what extent is this affirmation to be questioned? How does each country react to the mass immigration with regards to their respective histories? In order to address these questions, it is necessary to understand how these two countries are considered as "models" even nowadays. This question is to be answered in the analysis of their histories. Nonetheless, these models found themselves challenged after 1945 when immigration took a new turn

Extraits

[...] Unprecedented waves of immigrants came into Europe and especially into France and Germany. With regards to their populations, France and Germany experienced the same annual immigration rates during the fifties and the sixties and even after the oil crisis. However, their response varied greatly as the latter depended largely on the prevailing conceptions of citizenship. Nowadays, rate of civic incorporation for migrant workers and their descendants is ten times higher in France than in Germany” (Brubaker) resulting from the application of Jus Soli and Jus Sanguini. [...]

[...] the French understanding of nationhood has been state-centered and assimilationist, the German understanding has been Volk-centered and differentialist”[1]. The two models of nation-state basically stem from this statement. As the German nation pre-existed the German state, the theories of nation that were developed later on logically put the emphasis on the cultural, linguistic and racial features that define the German Volk. The German state only had to gather a pre-existing community within one state. “Nationhood is an ethnocultural, not a political fact” (Brubaker). [...]

[...] In short, the French understanding of the nation-state is political whereas the German one is cultural which is why these two countries have two completely different approaches to immigration issues. During the French Revolution and the early nineteenth century, the inherent difference between the understanding of nationhood in France and Germany took a political and theoretical turn. In France, Ernest Renan[2] stressed the importance of the will in becoming French whereas Friedrich Meinecke[3] emphasised an objectivist view thereof. According to these authors, in order to be French, one only has to be willing to become French; whereas to be German one has to be born German. [...]

[...] The French conception of nationhood led the country to adopt an assimilationist approach of citizenry and according to Jus Soli, second generation immigrants become automatically citizens as one only needs to be born in France to be French. It is for this reason the French state in the late nineteenth century tried hard to break cultural differences among French all over the territory making Britons but also Italian or Belgian descendants French. The German definition of citizenry as a community of descent logically pushed Germany to adopt Jus Sanguini. [...]

[...] ‘French citizenship is relatively open to immigrants while German citizenship is relatively closed.' Discuss with reference to post-war immigration to France and Germany Mobs recently occurred in France in dozens of poor districts in reaction to the death of two young men. As most of the population of these districts is made up of immigrants or descendants of immigrants, the emphasis has been put by some of the most prominent members of the government such as Nicolas Sarkozy on issues relating to immigration. [...]