I would like to comment on Hamdan Ibrahim's letter Sydney, Paris should learn from us .

I agree with him that Malaysia's record on racial harmony is commendable but I think that his analysis of the situation in France is incorrect. I also think that France has a fundamentally different view of racial harmony that is irreconcilable with the Malaysian view.

France is an ultra-multiethnic country. By law, all Frenchmen are equal, every child born to legal residents automatically acquires French citizenship. Religion and state are totally separated and collecting information on a citizen's ethnicity is illegal. Malaysia, from a legal point of view, is the opposite. Islam and the Malays are offered special protection by the constitution and race and religion are recorded and used by the government.

The riots in France were aimed at 'the establishment' - not at Frenchmen of other races. Although thousands of cars were burned, nobody died. It is a totally different situation from the Kampung Medan incidents in Kuala Lumpur in 2001 where Indian and Malay neighbours attacked each other and six people died. I think the latter was the more dangerous situation.

Still, there is racism in France, namely in employment. Many youths get turned down for the scarce jobs because of a foreign-sounding name or having a 'bad' residential address. A 'Malaysian' solution, like requiring a certain percentage of a company's workforce to be from an ethnic minority or only providing government contracts to companies controlled by a particular ethnic group would be unacceptable in France. It runs counter to the fundamental ideals of the French state.

The French state tries to limit the cultural, religious and racial identities of its citizens to make them part of a unified nation. The state tolerates traditional culture and religion only as a private matter that is not the business of government. The process of breaking down traditional culture and assimilating immigrants into the French mainstream is not easy and sometimes violent, as the recent riots have shown.

Malaysia keeps its races separated. Each race has its own religion, language, newspapers and political party. They elect leaders who do their bargaining and negotiate government policy. The process is peaceful but there is much less cohesion and so one has to be constantly vigilant of potential racial conflicts.

I think it boils down to individualism. The French feel that they are part of a nation first and demand rights for themselves, such as employment, education and a reasonably fair income distribution.

Malaysians are part of a community first and demand rights for their community. They want recognition of their culture and religion and economic equality amongst the races but not necessarily within the races. In a democracy, it is the majority that decides.

Because of this fundamentally different outlook, France will not learn from Malaysia about racial harmony. And Malaysia will also not learn from France about racial equality.