French antiracist struggles against antisemitism and Islamophobia have often advanced together, not as rivals.

Evidence

Thus, while antisemitism and Islamophobia have both been realities in modern France, so have struggles against them. Moreover, those struggles do not have to be considered as zero-sum games. Rather, at their best, they have gone together. Broadly this study supports Hargreaves’ contention that, recent narrow factionalism notwithstanding, ethnic separatism is weak in France. A strong universalist thread runs through the histories of many of the movements considered here. In particular, there is a strong emphasis within many of these histories on altruism, rather than self-­interested identity politics. While it is easy to criticise this universalist approach as paternalistic and, as we have seen, often open to political manipulation, we might also ask: Is there not something admirable in its refusal to see the world in ethnic categories? What, in short, is wrong with altruism? — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 1400