I know but it has changed since, can't be that precise without dates for the french war against languages, cultures and to some extent faith leading to wave of immigrants to the US and Canada. Anyway, what I meant is, his generation had a rough start with probably very low self esteem due the the sense of belonging to a sub culture speaking, in most cases hiding what was considered a sub language, and wide spread poverty. Here is the twist, the greatness of France was going to change that should they deserve it by giving up the fight for rights, language and culture and prove their good will by giving evidence of their sense of belonging to France and being french.

And they will. 

But in some cases, their ambitions which were ok and were about success in life lead to mistakes in trying to be what they thought was expected them to be, doing too much by ignorance of the rules voluntarily left in the dark for the purpose of domination. Painful failures, because so much was at stake, a new identity and a distance from the sense of belonging to a sub culture and a sub language, leading to an even greater misunderstanding, the feeling the transformation had not gone far enough pushing to a new step in the quest for the perfect frenchness which should at last open the doors so much desired while in fact not enough or too much were the only available level of frenchness possible.

How can you mislead people you are responsible for and of to that extent is a mistery to me and an even greater mistery any willingness to participate in defining the content of democracy.