European Context of Cultural Blending and Integration through Sport

Central to the republican French model, the process of integrating populations of migrant origin has been the subject of debates and controversy for several decades. The concept of integration had its heyday from the early 1990s onwards, but is flagging and giving way to that of ?blending? or ?diversity?. The virtues and vices of these new concepts lie in their ?portmanteau? character, providing a peg on which public opinion hangs complex realities that are hard to define. The relationship with ethnic diversity concerns a nation now aware of the need to reinvent a concept of citizenship more suited to the major changes of this century?s early years and to the cultural realities of the population that makes up usually developed countries of the EU. To integrate people into a society seems to be the easiest way through the involvement in sport and thus produce a good citizen.