Museum of Immigration - Paris

14.10.2007

A new Paris museum celebrating the role of immigration in French history, le Musée National de l’Histoire et des Cultures de l’immigration, opened to the public on the 10th of October. Located on the eastern edge of Paris, the National Museum on the History of Immigration was championed by former president Jacques Chirac, who also greatly sponsored the Quay Branly Museum for Asian and African Arts ("Arts Premièrs" because arts primitifs would sound to politically incorrect).

An aquarium, which reminds of the critiques on the "fauna and flora approach" of European scholars on exotic cultures, a permanent collection and temporary expositions are hosted in an old pavillion of an international exposition which was first the Musée permanent des Colonies from 1931, (then the Musée des Arts Africains et Océaniens from 1960).

Crowded on account of the opening, full of families, good citizens and integrated migrants, the museum celebrates multiculturality and cross fertilization and explains who much French culture owes to foreign migration with photographs, objects and games that portray the history of migration into France.

At a time when Europe generally tends decisively towards total control of migration and in a week that has witnessed a fierce row over plans of the government to introduce DNA tests for would-be immigrants, this museum seems like a bad joke. Or perhaps it is the typical double faced attitude of Europe.