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# Creating a republican culture
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/creating-a-republican-culture/
- Published: 2007-06-07T09:06:39.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:36:20.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:23

**Tony Curzon Price (London,** [**oD**](http://www.opendemocracy.net/)**):** France Culture talked with Benjamin Stora, Professeur d'histoire du Maghreb à l'Inalco, in a fascinating [radio show](http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-culture2/emissions/concordance/index.php?emission%5Fid=8&ref=opendemocracy.net) about the history of immigration policy in France since the 1880's, when Italian immigrants were slaughtered in anti-outsider protests in the South of France. In the course of some gripping anecdotes, Stora mentions how important political parties and trade unions were in "creating a republican culture". An otherwise naturally anti-immigrant labor movement was kept pro-foreigner in the 1930s because of the number of Spaniards, Italians and Poles in the trade unions, the Communist Party and the Socialist Federation. Following on from [Vron Ware's post](http://ourkingdom.opendemocracy.net/2007/06/06/british-or-else/?ref=opendemocracy.net), this made we wonder what institutions we have left, today, that have a hope of sustaining the shared political culture that all party leaders are agreed we want and need. Not the parties themselves - now marketing machines rather than membership organisations - or the post-Thatcher trade unions. Isn't this a real opportunity for a constitutional movement and the direct initiatives that are gaining in popularity? Make these truly open and accessible networks, and they become the type of organisation and enterprise that have a chance of fostering the political and social values that can define us.