246 Andrea Rea IMMIGRATION AND DIVERSITY Andrea Rea Brussels is a city built by waves of migration, irst by migratory movements within Belgium and then, more recently, by the many migratory lows that have turned Brussels into an undeniably multicultural city. his multiculturality is seen in the very high proportion of foreigners who live in the city but also the cultural stamps on its component neighbourhoods. he diversity of Brussels’ population is socio-economic as well. In a nutshell, Brussels is a culturally diverse and socially fragmented city. Its socio-economic and ethnic fragmen- tation is relected by strong spatial segregation, too. he foreigners who live in Brussels and the Brussels ‘natives’ of immigrant descent consist of both poorly and highly skilled workers, shopkeepers and businessmen, employees, and civil servants. All of this gives Brussels a kaleidoscope image. Its many hues are also a relection of the city’s relatively weak identity compared with those of Flanders and Wallonia. Whilst it is true that Brussels has been a primarily French-speaking city since the 1960s, it is not deined by the French language alone. Several recent analyses stress the city’s international identity due to the more widespread use of English (Van Parijs, 2007; Corijn & Vloeberghs, 2009). Whilst this is true, it must not overshadow some other solid realities of the city, such as the use of Tamazight, Turkish, Lingala, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, etc. All in all, Brussels cannot be reduced to a single identity, other than recognition of its multiculturality. Stating that Brussels is a mul- ticultural rather than international city, at a time when multiculturalism has become discredited by many European politicians (Merkel, Cameron, Sarkozy, Leterme), means recognising and not forgetting its great socio-economic diversity, especially its working-class background. he Brussels identity t hus cannot be reduced to Belgium’s traditional cleavages, especially the French- speaking/Flemish-speaking divide, and even though French is the dominant language, French-speaking Belgian culture does not necessarily dominate everywhere. To be more precise, this culture has also been contaminated by and mixed with the cultures that have been reinvented by the city’s various waves of immigrants and the Brussels urban cultures that have transformed the city over the past few decades, as relected in particular in the performing and other arts (song, theatre, cinema, literature, street performance, and so on). However, this last dimension will not be covered in this chapter. Instead, we shall concentrate on Brussels’ foreign population, employment, political participation, and integration policies in Brussels.