The museum was conceived in 1989 by Algerian immigrant Zaïr Kedadouche, supported initially by historians including Pierre Milza and Gérard Noiriel, but the idea was paused in 1993.
The 1998 French World Cup win reunified the people of France, and former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin approved its creation almost immediately.
[1] It opened without public ceremony in late 2007 under his successor, President Nicolas Sarkozy, amid political controversy in which eight of the twelve academics involved in the project resigned.
[3] The museum was also formerly the home of the Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie, on the edge of the Bois de Vincennes.
[4] The museum's collections are organized by three main themes: images including photography by Eugène Atget, Gérald Bloncourt, Robert Capa, Yves Jackson, Jean Jacques Pottier, etc., as well as prints, posters, drawings press, cartoons, comic books, audiovisual materials; objects of daily life; and works of art concerning immigration, territory, borders, and roots.