It was launched by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s government three months ago with much hype and patriotic ebullition — a series of 100-plus town hall meetings across France to debate what it means to be French in the 21st century. And even after opponents on the left and right alike criticized the initiative as a Machiavellian way of casting immigrants, their French-born children and especially Muslims as a threat to France’s national identity, government officials defiantly took the initiative to term
