I vehemently disagree.

If your skin is brown or black in la belle France, you haven't got a chance at a decent life.

Either if you skin is white, since the economic crises.

BTW, many North Moroccans do not have a dark skin. In fact some of them were expelled from Europe.

Utterly devoid of self-awareness, the French cherish their image of America as racist. But minorities in the United States have opportunities for which their French counterparts would risk their lives.

Because the American economic system is far different from the European Continental. In America you need to become integrated if you want to survive, in Europe you can hang on government subsidies. It has nothing to do with racism but with Socialism, though of course, Socialists blame racism and integration problems...

no vibrant minority political culture

ho ho ho ho ho ho

France has no independent culture from the State. A Frenchman designing a private cultural project had to flee to Italy not long ago persecuted by angry civil servants who saw him as an intruder. Socialism again.

Meanwhile, every American who believes in racial equality and human dignity should sympathize with the rioters, not with the effete bigots on the Seine

I thought private property was one of the American believings, and its destruction a crime.

Socialists, or as you say, Liberals, tend to blame integration problems, not enough public funding for social issues, racism, etc as the cause of rioting (as it has done the Paris deputy mayor) Well, Spaniards were trated there during the sixties as Untermenschen (Africa begins in the Pyrinees, still say the French) but they never revolted or burnt anyone else's car and, after some years, they became fully integrated.

BTW Sarkozy is descendant of a Hungarian family, which causes some trouble, but he is still the Interior Minister and Beregovoy was from Ukranian descendancy. Some Jews came from eastern Europe too... it seems that who wants to become integrated, if an economic crises do not hinders it, can do it, even in France.

The problem is more complex than simple discrimination. Many Muslims are intent on their culture and religion supplanting the French. In effect, they desire a de facto takeover, followed by a de jure Islamicization of France. Despite their oafishness, the French have valid concerns about loss of cultural patrimony.

Compare Vietnamese immigrants who have better status and integration than that of the Muslim community. The Vietnamese don't live in self-isolated ghettos.

Or compare the Rodney King Riots in LA to the French riots. The Rodney King riots were localized to LA; only a few isolated incidents in Moreno Valley and elsewhere, nothing in say Santa Ana or San Diego or San Francisco or Oakland. To say nothing of Houston, New Orleans, and Anacostia in DC.

The LA Riots were about "shopping for free stuff" and the criminal gangs who really run that part of the city being free of even pro-forma policing. There were no demands and no leadership and what happened mostly was looting then arson. The French riots are aimed yes in part for looting and arson, but they are much better organized, fighting the police (who were absent for the riots), and with a specific goal (leaving the suburbs free of any presence of the French State and a separate legal system for Muslims).

At no time and at no place did the LA rioters ever advocate a separate legal system for African Americans. At the most the rioters in the first day near LAPD HQ in Downtown advocated "no justice, no peace" etc and the resignation of Daryll Gates. That was it. There were also many more fatalities in LA; most of them beating deaths; along the lines of Reginald Denny's beating by an African American mob for being white. There was one instance of that in France, but otherwise nothing further. LA had if memory serves around 45 or so deaths. LA also had shopkeepers arming themselves with rifles to deter looting and arson. France has begun to see that as well.

In short if I accepted the writer's view that a response to French racism was the motivating factor I would expect to see much more looting of stores and very little car-b-ques, great masses of people streaming into the center of Paris to loot and carry off TVs and such, and a lot more deaths as white Frenchmen who own shops are killed to loot their places. I see instead organized brinkmanship and overt political aims establishing a separate country inside France.

I'm skeptical of this new meme, coming from you and that OxBlog guy, that these riots have got nothing to do with Islamists or with the abject failure of the multicultural idea (that idea being, remember, that 'assimilation' is not necessary, that the 'melting pot' is a lie and an impossibility, that all cultures must exist, side-by-side, equally valid in their norms, un-integrated, wholly 'authentic', etc. etc. etc.). My sense, from the kids screaming "Allahu Akbar" and from my own time spent in France (where Christian Senegalese are viewed, again from my experience, very differently from Muslim Arabs) that the Islamic character here is profoundly misunderstood and underestimated by most Western observers because they are patronizing of Islam. Islam is a very simple and very powerful rallying religion: it's requirements simple and its dreams vast. French leftist mulitcultarilism fundamentally rejects the idea of assimilation and 'westernism' as we know it in the states. I don't think this can be overstated. The leftist/socialist/multiculturalist stance, faced against a population of millions of Muslims who, even if not now Islamist can easily enough become Islamist, is an untenable one. Bat Y'or's analysis fits squarely with events as they are unfolding now. Indeed, the French people themselves, seeing the uselessness of Chirac, and the demonization of Sarkozy (the only vaguely DeGaul like figure in this mix), will quite inevitably turn hard right in the next election.

The only bright spot in all of this is that perhaps some of our Hollywood notables will be resident in Paris when it goes up in flames.

Oh, and I strong agree with Jim Rockford's analysis:

"In short if I accepted the writer's view that a response to French racism was the motivating factor I would expect to see much more looting of stores and very little car-b-ques, great masses of people streaming into the center of Paris to loot and carry off TVs and such, and a lot more deaths as white Frenchmen who own shops are killed to loot their places. I see instead organized brinkmanship and overt political aims establishing a separate country inside France."

Indeed. The rioters, organized via cell phone and sms, have gone as far as they can, but not too far. It's quite extraordinary. We know - from French police sources themselves - that the rioters have weapons that they could use but don't. One would expect, in a purely 'emotional' riot - such as Watts, etc. - that anger alone would set off weaponry. But the rioters here are very disciplined in that regard. Again, there appears to be a very clear goal (as the rioters themselves state over and over again): this (suburb, street, etc.) is "ours" [aka Muslim] and we rule here. The future of France is balkan: French with Muslim enclaves. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think Gabriel Gonzalez' analysis is totally off the mark.

. . . the Parisian welcome for Josephine Baker or the Harlem jazz musicians in the 1920s. But the French regarded those few as exotic pets.

I think this is quite an overstatement -- too many African-American musicians have expressed the view that they were treated better in France than in the U.S. -- I believe Louis Armstrong was one. But the examples I can think of, and the examples given by Ralph Peter, are clearly dated. So I suspect using the 1920s or 1960s as a comparison point for racism is a bit dated. The U.S. has certainly changed since then. I assume France never perceived the need to.

Gabriel responds!

Lots of good points made above and I will respond further in follow up pieces. Frankly, though, I am more interested in the French media coverage (characterized by a nationalist defensiveness reflecting a collective establishment denial of the underlying problems) and the implications these events have for the framing of the French political debate about its cherished "social model" and the myriad groups (major labor unions, civil service sector, etc.) who have until now hijacked the political reform process, to the extent there was one, and have quite successfully defined the terms of the politico-economic debate in terms that protect vested interests. State dirigisme (or socialism, for those who prefer that term) is indeed a huge part of the problem and will remain the major obstacle to addressing the situation of racial minorities who, while suffering the same problem of lack of jobs as many whites - in particular French youth - start from a far worse position and are really at the bottom of the totem pole.

My point is mainly that there is indeed a marginalization of Arab and African minorities caused in large party by attitudes of the wider Franco-French culture. This is a big part of a complex problem.

I liked Ralph Peters piece (aside from the fact that I like Peters in general) because it brings another view to the debate that centers on the reality of racial segregation and the elite's obsession with the purity of its own image and America bashing as a means of avoiding facing their problems at home. I do think that there is some exaggeration in Peters' calling France the "most profoundly racist Western country". I personally think that France has made a lot of progress in race relations over the last 10 to 15 years. You do have a sprinkling of minorities in various professions - banking, law, middle management, etc. - that would have been barred a decade or two ago solely on the basis of race. To characterize the problem as having much to do with a supposed French multi-culturalism or political correctness, however, is fantasy.

The points made about the difficult economic situation even for whites, the likely greater obstacles in integrating these particular ethnic groups (as opposed to, say, Vietnamese or Chinese immigrants), the pernicious effect of radical islamism, etc. have some truth to them. I don't think this is an either/or debate.

good post, GG. Thanks for pointing to the Peters piece.

Racism is strong in France, and it is a factor in the descrimination against the immigrants in the "zones", but you ignore the Islamist element entirely. I just watched a news clip video showing the crowd of rioters chanting, "Alluha Akbar!" as they threw rocks & torched cars in France. There are several reports of radical muslim clerics stoking the fires with incendiary messages, and of rioters calling their actions, "Jihad". It sounds to me the racist resentment has morphed into Islamist insurection.

Finally, if it's just racism, as you inititially claimed, why are we not seeing Vietnamese or black Christians rioting?

Why all this denial? The problem is the way the French have incorporated multicultural socialism, and the way in which muslim immigrants have chosen to alienate themselves from the greater French culture. The problem is definitely a muslim problem as well as a problem with leftist French multiculturalism. Stop denying the obvious.

I think Peters, and many other commenters, are laboring under a false impression that multi-culteralism can be separated from racism in any significant way. Identity politics and multiculteralism are the very essence of "seperate but equal" and are indeed very profoundly racist. They escape notice as such so often because they do a much better job of eliminating the more despicable elements of entrenched racism of the past. Multiculteralism does not even begin to approach the evil of Jim Crow or Apartheid, and with its healthy dose of welfare payments it seems to be almost palatable to a great many folks. But for all its velvet-glovedness, it is still very much, as we have seen so clearly recently, racist, anti-integrationist, and descriminatory.

To say that the problem in France that has led to the riots is either a lack of integration of immigrants into the broader French culture/society/economy, or French anti-immigrant sentiment is to set up a false dichotomy. They are one and the same issue.

To say that radical Islam has no place in this is equally ridiculous. French anti-immigrant policies have created a foothold in the form of anti-government (and anti-French) sentiment in immigrant communities, but it is radical Islam that is taking advantage of that foothold to further its own goals.

Also, I would like to point out that the rioters are still a minority of the immigrant population in France. We should not let their actions speak for the immigrant population as a whole nor should concessions be given to them as if they were concessions to all immigrants.

I've got a lot of respect for Peters, but I wonder about the racism-in-France argument. It's not just Josephine Baker and the jazz musicians; I've also read that many American black soldiers from WWI felt better-treated in France than in the US.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and things may well have changed.

But perhaps what we're seeing is more the result of a socioeconomic system in which status dominates economics than of racism in the simple sense.

It takes intellectual honesty and very good judgement to be able to deal with generalities.

And we have here some big generalities: most of the rioters are immigrants. Most of the immigrants are of North or Subsaharan African origin. Most of them are Muslim.

So what exactly is the point of trying to distinguish between racial or religious bigotry when its target is overwhelmingly swarthy Muslims?

Does that illuminate root causes? Or simply serve to justify the author's world view?

1) Perhaps the French are bigoted... more bigoted than we Americans, or Latins, or the English, who knows?
2) And perhaps in a social democracy plagued by unemployment, poorly educated minorities naturally fall to the bottom.
3) And perhaps the rioters' behavior is powerfully influenced by the ideology of their religion, which inclines them to dehumanize others and justifies violent behavior.

Isn't it possible - even likely - that their failure to assimilate to the society around them is due to ALL factors?

That seems so common sense that I begin to wonder about the agenda of he that tries to convince me that the core problem must be one or the other.

Isn't it possible - even likely - that their failure to assimilate to the society around them is due to ALL factors?

That seems so common sense that I begin to wonder about the agenda of he that tries to convince me that the core problem must be one or the other.

Agreed. However, that does not mean in complex, multifaceted phenomena, some causes are not more important than others.

Peters makes a terrible mistake in appearing to justify the actions of the rioters because of their social situation and the rampant racism present in French society. This of course does not justify violence. But he obviously understands French society in a way that most don't. The idea that blacks or any other racial minority are treated better in France than in the U.S. is laughable on its face. I do not think that France is uniquely or even especially racist - Peters describes France as the most racist Western society and I disagree - but France is not the United States or Great Britain, both of which are far more tolerant and have had far more success integrating racial and ethnic minorities. Look at who delivers the news on TV, who is working in major companies in key posts, who is represented in government in any of these countries, and the difference is striking. What Peters is pointing out in part is the arrogance and hypocrisy of the French with respect to race and "social models", and that probably is unique.

Second, Peters gives the lie to the ridiculous notion that France is a "multi-culturalist" society. Those who interpret multi-culturalism à la française as a cause of the present situation are simply artificially transposing a US/British disease, often mocked by the French (and rightly so), into a the French context.

Regardless, it is clear that these riots have radically changed the political/security context in ways that are not entirely predictable. The superiority of the French "social model", and its implicit critique of liberal capitalism, as the organizing principle of the French political debate has taken a huge blow and will require further flights from reality on the part of the French political class and intelligentsia to be sustained. That will be interesting. Second, the risk of a more radicalized Islam escalating to a higher level of violence and creating substantially more serious threats to public security seems unfortunately inevitable.

#1 Moroccos are white. But they are a little bit browner than the French. They are very easy to recognise.

First generation only riot when their job is in danger (or you occupy their homecountry). Spanish never had any significant number of second generation to riot. Italian on the other hand did and did riot.

ps. Eastern Europeans who came after WWII don't count. They were highly educated unlike normal emigrants and their numbers were quite small. You could look at the Eastern Europeans before WWII but this may not be a good idea as a lot of Poles were kicked out in the 30's

Well Gabriel,

I'm with you, sort of.

Peter give's the lie to something which I don't think is a generally held opinion. I could be wrong. Maybe there are some folk out there who hold up France as a model multiculturist society.

But it sounds like a straw man to me... I don't know many people on either end of the political spectrum who even have a strong opinion on racism in France.

Gabriel,

This looks to me like a larger scale version of the corrupt French politics we've seen in the past 30 years. Heavy emphasis on Muslim criminal gangs, especially those involved in drug smuggling, and the protection they buy from corrupt politicians.

While nutball Islamicists and unemployed disgruntled youth are involved too, the following strikes me as significant.

A few weeks before the riots started, Interior Minister Sarkoszy, the leading candidate for President next year, purportedly said he was going to clean up the heretofore untouchable criminal ganglords in the "zones". Sarkozy is not part of the corrupt French political establishment. Maybe he would be if they'd let him, but for the moment he certainly isn't.

In my opinion the timing of the riots seems to be related to this statement by Sarkozy. There are other factors - I've read reports that the Islamic nutballs intended to start something too, but I am suspicious of conveniently timed events in French politics.

Sunday night I emailed the following to a group of friends:

"IMO we're seeing "everyone gang up on Sarkozy". He's the leading candidate for President next year, a threat to the establishment because he isn't one of them, and a threat to the Muslim crazies & criminals because of his choice of a law 'n order policy as his path to power. While it is possible that Sarkozy really believes in the law 'n order policies he advocates (anything is possible), his being a French politician makes it more likely that his policies are based on his opinions concerning career advancement. The Muslim community being a de facto ally of the French establishment is doubtless a part of it too - "the ally my enemy is my enemy."

Which makes this pretty much a standard French factional fight for the non-Muslim French, with the local Muslims added to it rather than it being a symbol of What Is To Come in terms of Muslim activities in France. Muslim opinion likely differs, but so far they have clearly been playing by customary French rules.

The latter indicates either that they're more assimilated than most people think, or their Gallic version of the Intifada is receivng covert but real guidance from Sarkozy's non-Muslim French enemies (don't kill people, be really public about destruction without being really destructive, etc.). Such covert assistance to ones' domestic enemies, and the hell with the national interest, is very French."

A friend responded on Monday morning:

"Several French-language media are reporting three interesting things: ... Rumor: Because the criminal syndicates in the Muslim areas have been aiding/coordinating the insurrection and supplying many of the arms, police have prepared a hit-first list for the Army targeting mob houses that they haven't been able to touch in years; this is interesting because it's pretty much for sure that if the Army hits those houses and captures papers and records, a lot of high level cops and Ministry of Justice bureaucrats are gonna go down in a spate of corruption trials. Especially because French law provides for "if the Army has to enforce the law, the trials are by military courts," so we could see the Army cleaning out notoriously corrupt French law enforcement."

It does look like Islamic criminal gangs are staying just inside the limits of what will result in an unleashing of the C.R.S., etc. And Sarkozy's requests for permission to use force, and for the Army to intervene, have been denied.

I suspect the Islamic criminal gangs and the corrupt politician allies at the top (i.e., many if not most of the non-Sarkozy factions) are cooperating to create a dreadful public relations image without actually doing anything really destructive or lethal, so as to force Sarkozy to resign as Interior Minister and thereby keep him from interfering with the income of those criminal enterprises and the corrupt French politicians they've bought, or rented.

Given the oil for food payoffs and all the other financial scandals, France seems more and more just a World kleptocracy - something like Russia 1991-95 but more money. France has become something like Belgium squared.

I don't see what the EU's problem with admitting Turkey is given that France is already a member.

Tom,

I agree in part, but take a less conspiratorial view. I think these riots are in fact spontaneous. The idea that they are "organized" - ie, thus less spontaneous and "real" - has been advance from various quarters, including Sarkozy himself. Another theory of "organized" and thus not "real" disturbances is coming from large sectors of the French establishment who do not want to deal with grievances of French ethnic minorities, as opposed to the grievances of entrenched civil service employees, labor unions, farmers, etc. whose grievances are by contrast "real", politically formulated in a way that fits with the "social model" and established party politics and thus "legitimate", even when these latter groups are themselves burning cars, attacking the police, burning down the city hall, etc. (ie, "justifiable" violence).

Let me also point out that Sarkozy (who I support btw 200%) is not exactly marginalized: he has tremendous popular support. Much of that support is coming from the right, from the hard right (National Front types) as well as from ordinary citizens (that would be me). But it is nevertheless broad.

The Socialist Party is standing by the wayside. The Left after all bears as much if not more responsibility for the social problems of ethnic minorities and their lack of assimilation than any other group, and the solutions they propose - more statist intervention and stagnation - is the most harmful to these groups, even if their demogoguery is making some inroads among immigrant groups. (Not much different here than in the U.S.)

The real battle is on the nominal Right between Sarkozy and De Villepin, the latter representing French Gaullist Nationalism, anti-reformism, dirigiste immobilism, anti-Americanism, relative appeasement (of the rioters) and blind preservation of the idea of the "modèle français". Sarkozy in contrast advocates openly a break with the "modèle français", as well as an uncompromising position on violence and crime, coupled with a real plan to promote equal opportunity and affirmative action for minority groups. De Villepin is opposed to all of this.

The policy ultimately adopted by French governments vis-à-vis their problems with (mostly) Muslim immigrants and how they approach globalization and economic adaptation (the "modèle français") are intimately interrelated. My prediction: the French are incapable of governing themselves unhinged from a strong bipolar existential conflict or strong Atlantic Alliance (which is now dead). They will ultimately choose de Villepin or the socialists, guaranteeing further economic and social decline.

"I don't see what the EU's problem with admitting Turkey is given that France is already a member."

Yeah, everything sucks, so let's make it worse.

Gabriel,

I originally thought the riots started spontaneously, with later exploitation of them by the criminal gangs and their corrupt official friends. That was before I had heard of Sarkozy's statement about cleaning up the zones' big ganglords a few weeks before the riots started.

And regardless of how the riots started, the patterns of damage plus, more importantly, the amazing lack of lethality, show unmistakeable planning and organization.

As far as Jazz musicians, Jazz greats Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Dexter Gordon ("Round Midnight" by Tavernier) and John Coltrane reported into the 1970s that they were treated with respect and courtesy as black men just traveling around in France (and not dependent on their artistic status). This in direct contrast to even the post-civil rights era in the United States and the manner in which these semi-famous artists of some means were treated. From the 1950's through the 1980s there is a compelling body of evidence from black Jazz artists who felt free and unburdened by race in a land where Jim Crow and lynching never existed.

If that is the case today might be doubtful, but I have a hard time reconciling Peters description of France as the "most racist" society when there has been NOTHING on the scale of the Klu Klux Klan organized against African emigrants from 1950-present. If there had been such a powerful racist undercurrent against dark-skinned people be assured Miles Davis would have noted it (as he did his brutal assault outside Birdland in NYC in the mid 1940's by the NYPD). Yes France openly and enthusiastically collaborated in the mass deportations of Jews to death camps; but that does not IMHO fit the model of racism Peters proposes.

Every nation has their own sins, we have the Klan and lynching; France has the various inherited campaigns against religious minorities like the Huguenots in the 16th Century onwards. Only this time the "new" Hugenots are not interested in acceptance within the Royal Mercantilist enterprises after separation and rebellion failed; but total separation.

To me this looks like the modern variation of the Huguenot campaigns, only starting with an Edict of Nantes and likely ending up with various fortified towns devoid of the Crown's rule.

Folks, I've lived in France (17 Ave. de la Gde, Armee, 17th Arrondissement), among the polite, educated and monied, and I've listened to things said at the dinner table that would have emptied a room in Los Angeles or Atlanta. They are amazingly racist, and unlike the US - where you're "American" because you like baseball and fireworks (metaphor alert), you can only be French if you're born there.

My oldest sons hold French passports, and Biggest Guy spent a lot of time in school in France last year.

He'll never be accepted. What chance does a Moroccan immigrant have?

A.L.

First, I found an etching from pre-revolution France that I believe says it all:

http://themiddleground.blogspot.com/2005/11/frances-problem-in-nutshell.html

Secondly, I would like to point out something someone said earlier, that people like armstrong did not feel discriminated against in the 50's or Baker in the 20's.

Does anybody have any idea when French colonialism actually came to an end (if it ever did)? Do you know how the French behaved in these colonies, which existed into the fifites? do you know that there is an internal scandal in France about the trafficking of black's from Africa as de facto slaves who are easily transported into France with a workers visa and then, just like in Saudi Arabia, they take their visa's away? Yes, we have that problem in the US with latinos, but don't imagine that Europe does not suffer the same.

Also, keep in mind that people's attitudes about immigrants and discrimination are likely to change for the worse when large masses come into the country. How many black or Arab men and women lived in France between 1900 and 1950? I think Peter's commentary at looking at these folks as "exotic pets" or at least exotic visitors is probably pretty accurate. when did these cites begin to appear and then overflow? I bet you could trace the surge in racism and discrimination along the lines of increased immigration, soaring crime rates and unemployment.

Frankly, the French problem is following the lines of the American problem, just a few decades later. increased immigration threatens existing jobs, benefits, housing, culture, etc in the minds of those who came before. Nobody wants to admit that their foolish socio-economic "model" is a failure. you should have read the comments at Austin Bay from french residents. There's no problem, you see. It's all just a misunderstanding that will die down soon.

The problem is, saying you believe in equality and actually practicing it are two different things.

Frankly, considering that Chirac came out and said there was a problem with discrimination (duh), I'd say arguing over it is moot.

Couple points...

Remember, a HUGE reason that American blacks were treated so well in France is BECAUSE they were not French. Thus, your typical Left-Banker could adore them for that delightful frission of being "non-racist" and superior to those troglodytic cowboys, while the people (blacks) they were dealing with had absolutely no bearing on French society, good or bad.. they were outsiders.

Pardon if condescending, but it's like an uncle being far nicer to a kid than his parents... the uncle gets to give him back after a while. The parents have him for life (or 18 years).

Secondly a huge element missing in Gonzalez' analysis is the unceasing French adoration for despicable behavior under the guise of "revolution", or even just oppostion to the Anglospheric model. Like this is not going to have an effect in it's suburbs? I'll let Nidra Poller from Canda's National Post continue....

"These areas are hardly dismal, dilapidated hellholes. Most of the housing and infrastructure is decent. Those who wish to pursue clean, honest lives have plenty of opportunities to do so. The insurrection spreading through France cannot be understood through the traditional Marxist prism of poverty, unemployment and discrimination. These problems exist in all nations. What is different in France's Muslim ghettoes is a tradition of hate and xenophobia, one which the state has until now either ignored or encouraged.

In June, 2004, a huge demonstration was staged in Paris to protest the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush, who made a brief visit to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings. Posters depicted Bush as the world's worst terrorist. By my first-hand observation, roughly one-third of the marchers came from hard-left parties and organizations: communists, socialists and ecologists, labour unions and wilted flower people. Another third were militant Muslims, many of them with checkered kaffiyehs. The other third were raunchy nihilists high on drugs and beer, marching with pitbulls and Rottweilers, calling for death and destruction. They painted graffiti on lowered store shutters and bus stop shelters, promising "a Paris comme a Falluja la guerilla vaincra" (In Paris as in Falluja, guerrilla warfare will triumph).

.....

For five years, resentful French Muslims have been fed a steady diet of romanticized violence -- jihad-intifada in Israel, jihad-insurgency in Iraq, jihad-insurgency in Afghanistan. When they started firebombing synagogues and beating up Jews in the fall of 2000, the media dutifully reported that these thugs were products of the "frustration" felt in regard to the treatments of Muslims in the Middle East and Central Asia. France's own government was full of hectoring words for the Americans, after all. The protesters were very much on message.

In elite French society, the enemy was clearly identified: not Islamism or Islamofascism, not the stewing mobs in the Paris suburbs, not Saddam Hussein, not al-Qaeda, but the British and U.S. troops in Iraq. The burned-out cars and buildings that litter French streets are the domestic residue of the jihadi cult that these French Muslims have been drugged on through al-Jazeera, and which has been legitimized by a French intellectual class that has always romanticized resistance in all its forms.

Perhaps some of the journalists, political scientists, intellectuals and public officials who've been peddling this merchandise meant it to remain an abstract ideological diversion. France is a long way from Iraq, after all. But now that the militancy is being turned on the French state itself, they are suddenly shocked at what they've sown.

---

You go, Nidra!

Intifada a la Francais

AL, even being born there isn't enough. The two kids whose deaths set off these riots were born there and they're still being called “immigrants”. Most of the rioters were probably born in France and yet they're called “immigrants”.

There's français and then there's français de souche.

I can't believe I have to defend the freaking French. What's next? Giving Saddam's girlfriend a ride to her conjugal visit?

First of all, we all know that continental Europeans tend to have different social and personal standards than the rest of us. I've known Europeans who are shocked by verbal profanity, yet they do not hesitate to urinate in front of children. And so on.

But this "disenfranchisement" stuff is all too familiar. Nobody has tried harder and more earnestly to assimilate to European culture than Jews did over the past two hundred years. Nobody has put up with more racist slurs and unjust barriers than they have, especially from the French. Yet they didn't respond with molotov cocktails. Granted, Jews are few in number there, especially after the Nazis were allowed to waltz all over the country. Do the current rioters have some kind of moral justification because of their greater numbers and much greater propensity for violence?

It's interesting that Peters uses the phrase "the wretched of the earth". That happens to be the title of a nasty book by the French-educated African terrorist Franz Fanon.

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a notorious introduction to The Wretched of the Earth, in which he said that when a colonized person kills a European, he kill two persons at once: He kills an oppressor, and he kills his own identity as an oppressed person.

So as tempting as it is to call this chickens coming home to roost, the fact is that not every Frenchman is a racist, an oppressor, or Jean-Paul F---g Sartre. Nor are the rioters the "wretched of the earth". Truly wretched people don't get endless welfare payments even though they've never tried to find a job in their lives.

During this breakout many French circles are believing PM Villepin as behaving weaker to World Issues or keeping low profile instead of facing or leading .I found PM Villepin a strong advocate of matters when Iraq situation erupted and he was also interpreting Americans and USA very well infact as the World Leaders face crisis of reading the actual target of USA or comprehending where is the line the breaking point .How much is the 'Lasaiz Faire '. The FREETRADE POLICY which is mingled into GLobalisation but that will obviously breed a very rigid policy like Germany or Japan say California with extreme checks and balances too in a Global World as very large Super Corporations are risking to create a common world for/with thier Franchises .The Governments that cannot afford to contest Globalisation, and are busy with local producers under International instructions who are getting ultra faire and honestly everywhere FREETRADE is in hands of Criminals and Corrupt Officials today but as The Globalists come in who also will enjoy Industrialisation and Privatisation comforts and The Gocrnments will charge lot of Money as Globalists will however readily spill lot of Money on Global Security and Comforts which Senior Governments like France and European Union Secretaries other Regional Offices from South Asia ,Central Asia,Africa should now rest assure Governmental Assistance will not create a fashion of Bribery and Instead the convenience is precured through more Consul jobs instead of letting waste future relation .

Here is my blog note to yesterday's Press Statement of PM Villepin. I hope you enjoy!

. The Republic must face The Nation as 2005 is new year to Napoleonites or Gaullists .
What is The Republics name ,AND ARE THE CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYERS CHOKING OR LAUGHING THEN. ? France should be told at least
There is One Regime and this is truth their cannot be Two Alleons or two Zionist counters
the Illiad doesnt need be writ allover and Waterloo is single phase Trade Distributor but there cannot be allowed a International Power Distribution unless power is particularly defined! Republics are source of Power they never subjugated under a World Order unless there is a Conspiracy any division in Mankind today needs a Caption or leaves a tailgate . For long after the fall of 1857 Delhi the long march of public has reached the endhi galley of The Subjects Will Rule and All Will See!
Shahzada Sher Saddozai
Graphic Communication Technologist.World Statesman.

www.shahzadasher.blogspot.com

Definitely Frace has reacted to 'Islamic Regime ,but France was infact an advocate of The International Conspiracy which's lawyers a Mr Martinue and Co [CONSTITUTIONAL LAWYERS]from France are seated well in Pakistan and followed to serve a Coup D Etat of Brigadier Imtiaz who announced he was about to blast Pakistan's then Primeminister Benazir Bhutto and her children with a Grenade . Imtiaz however walked into PM Office house easily considering himself a Hero but suddenly he could not secure Electronic Media and Petersburg looked like an 'empty jar' with a lonely girl holding knife spoon bread . The present Military Junta has many common grounds with Imtiaz too but a grand drama in Air and on Ground was staged before this batch could take charges de facto of Pakistan.
The definition should be amplified to explain Islamic REgime was created by USA.s Henry Kissinger and Pakistan's Ali Bhutto .Ali Bhutto as he called in UK and France and favoritely spent fortunes on Seville Row suits and European Asessorie to improve his inferiority complex for feeling ordinary in Pakistan and win toasts from Eurpeon Tours. Kissinger/Bhutto created ISLAMIC CONFERENCE which cajoled Gaddafi ,Idi Amin and King Faisal, and other Hardliners but primarlity did thier duty of creating a regional vision for Washington!
Bhutto who acted Secular announced Pakistan as an Islamic Republic ,he went over in authority from his 'dad' and Former Pakistani Military Dictator wjho was ousted by A Great Democratic Movement and his regime started behaving as Islamic Republic .
Bhutto was followed by another General from a lower strata of Panjabi Villagers 'Mullahs' and his Aryanism recreated Islamic Regime but on harder grounds with Fundamentalism and so many Islamic Groups with all kinds of Pyramidding and more conveneient towards USA and Americanism too .
Zia was followed by Direct US Rule of COMPARATIVE GOVERNMENTS of Bhuttos daughter backed by Harvard Oxford Third World Students and Professors ,and a Pakistani Business and Industrial Magnate with Middle Class Lahore family tendencies backed by Prince Abdullah now Monarch of Saudis .
Both governments took chances to rule but failed to International Mafias and Carpetbagging .
The Brig., Imtiaz [Discrimination] factor created a French [Fourth World] and UK [One even] class of globe walkers from BBC and Rueters etc who control IT and Education in General allover Pakistan that has enrolled a whole world of public from lowest earts with Christian Backgrounds and Islamic Names and Secular Homes !
www.shahzadasher5.blogspot.com
Shahzada Sher Saddozai
Graphic Communication Technologist and World Statesman.

France has in the past been able to assimilate quite large numbers of immigrants from Spain, Italy and Eastern Europe. And in theory, France (unlike Germany) is not a "nation-of-blood-descent", at least in the Republican as opposed to the "old Right" tradition. In some ways the Republican French tradition is the closest Europe has to the American concept of an ideological/political component to citizenship.

Having had some conversations with French people that touched on this area, I'd say quite a few are rather casually racist, though by no means all; perhaps roughly the same as older Brits, but rather freer in expressing it.

The one thing that did strike me, and strongly, was the difference in attitude to different groups. Africans, East Europeans, Orientals, Jews may be by various "native French" variously disdained, condescended to, met with indifference, seen as comic, or even liked.

However, North Africans in general, and Algerians in particular, are pretty much without exception loathed and hated. And with a venom and rage that can be breathtaking. And this goes for second and third generations of French-born descendants as well.

I think this is due to the history of French colonialism in North Africa.

The Algerian war cost France around 20,000 dead; unlike other areas of the Empire, Algeria was viewed as part of Metropolitan France by almost all French parties from far right to far left and all points between.

The political impact of the war included the end of the 4th Republic, nearly a collapse of de Gaulle's 5th Republic government, military mutinies, FLN terrorism, OAS settler and sympathiser terrorism, a real risk of civil war, and the flight/expulsion from Algeria of 1 million French settlers and 100,000 Franco-Algerian Jews.

One Frenchman summed up his view of subsequent Algerian immigration: " first les Arabes fight to expel us, then our government lets them come here, and still they refuse to become French."

Reconciling "native" French and those of North African origin is going to take a long time. Even a vigoruos government drive for integration and assimilation such as Sarkozy's proposals for "affirmative action" are likely to meet with resistance from the native French: one remarked to me that he would happily employ or work with an African or an East European, but "un Algerienne? Never!"
And a multicultural approach, and/or a trend to separatism or Islamism in the banlieus will only make thing worse.

Sorru, but this is, by far, the worst post I ever read in WindsOfChange.

I'd like to make some points here on the above:

France is not a "multiculturalist" society in the way the British one is for example. Rather, the republicanist approach puts a varnish on all social, religious, etc. differences. Republicanist thinking is based on the rather simplistic supposition that you just have to state that "all French citizens are equal" and "questions of race and religion don't play any role in our State", and this becomes automatically true. (Concerning religion: When seeing the devout and fervent way many French people talk and write about the "laicité", one could suppose that this is in fact a hidden form of state religion - an offspring of Robespierre's "Goddess of Reason". :-))

This is why the specific problems of immigrant communities, racial and social discrimination and religion have been glossed over for a long time, all problems being put down by the MSM and leftist intellectuals to an unspecified "racism". (Note for example that illegal immigrants - even those who actually do nothing, not even work - can hardly be expelled because anti-racism organisations are so powerful in the country - and of course it is always labeled "racism" if a politician wants to limit the influx of illegal immigrants. Thus, no wonder all the African migrants in Ceuta and Melilla are dreaming of getting into France...)

Concerning the treatment of black Americans in the France of the 1920s or 1950: remember that at this time, there were hardly any black people in the country, so they - especially if they were artists from foreign countries - were seen as very special and exotic beings, interesting rather than threatening. In America, the history and social situation of black people was of course quite different, so artists such as Josephine Baker or Louis Armstrong did not start with a "tabula rasa" there as they did in France...

Maybe its Peters becoming senile. There is no doubting that mosques are centers of disaffection toward the host countries in Europe. Much discord flows from the mouth of the mullah. When young men riot they do not think about centuries of european colonialism. They act instinctively based upon their upbringing and their genetic heritage. Few of these rioters will ever be top ranked scientists. They just do not have it in them.

Why is it that we right-thinking enlightened people are supposed to understand (and even sympathize with) the rioters, but the rest of France is guilty without a trial.

Should we not make an equal effort to understand that complex and volatile mix of emotions, opinions, and perceptions that we are too hasty to label, "racism?" Perhaps it too has a cause, or, a "complex combination" of causes.

It's just all so complex.

Of course France is a racist society. How could it not be? Governmental, media and academic elites cannot erase centuries of culture and identity over the course of one generation by wishful thinking and mass marketing. In 1900 France was as it had been for hundreds of years. Political and economic systems may have come and gone but France remained a nation of ethnically French Catholics who spoke French. Despite regional differences it was, by today’s standards, mono-ethnic, mono-lingual, mono-religious and mono-cultural. Jews were small minority. Protestants were a largely regional minority. Both groups spoke French and were visually indistinguishable from other French. Muslims were rare oddities in a few big cities.

Flash forward to 1945. How exactly was the French nation different? There were fewer Jews certainly but in linguistic, ethnic and cultural terms France was as it had been for generations, a nation of ethnically French Catholics who spoke French. A Frenchman born in 1900 could have lived an entire life without any interaction with non-French people in France (except perhaps encounters in the military with ethnically and religiously similar Brits or Americans). Likewise a Frenchman born in 1925.

Then in the decades after the War (quite suddenly in terms of the life of the nation) the French government allowed immigration from non-European, non-Christian countries. The guest workers did not interact with native French, except in the highly structured environment of industrial labor. A Frenchman born in 1945 could still have had very limited interaction with non-native French.

In the sixties the governing elites developed an ideology for keeping the immigrants and their descendents in the ‘suburbs’ but this ideology was just a Leftist veneer on segregation. A French child born in 1965 could have grown up in a society where the general, unspoken assumptions of life had changed but were still recognizable to his grandparents and great grandparents: the value and superiority of French culture; the beauty and power of the French language; the supremacy of French esthetics and cuisine; the centrality of French Catholicism, if not spiritually then at least ceremonially.

Now into this society the French are asked by their elites to treat people who are clearly non-French, ethnically, culturally, and religiously, as if they were French. A society that used to argue over regional accents is asked to accept as French people who speak with heavy foreign accents, if they speak French at all. A people that prided itself on its culinary achievements is asked to accept as French dishes and smells unknown and unimagined by their grandparents.

Are they just supposed to acquiesce to the collapse of the French nationality into the mere legalism of a passport? Where exactly in French history and culture, except in the daydreams of bureaucrats, does the average Frenchmen get the resources to recognize and treat a second generation Tunisian Muslim as French? How does this second generation Tunisian Muslim recognize himself as French? Remember that within living memory and for generations before that the French did not integrate with other Europeans. How then does anyone realistically expect them to change the definition of French-ness to accept 5 million people who their forebears would have seen, without question, as foreigners?

When it comes to racial attitudes the US is the exception. France is the rule. Japan and Korea are just as racist, if not more so, but they didn’t let in 5 million North Africans. Turks are notoriously racists against the Kurds. Who thinks they would treat 5 million white Christian immigrants much better?

This is not to excuse European racism. However, the countries of Europe are not just administrative sectors on a map (despite the fantasies of EU managers). They are Nation-States. We sometimes confuse these terms because they have been joined in our minds for so long but they are quite different. The immigrants who live in France are citizens of a sovereign network of governing institutions known as the French State. They are not members of the linguistic-cultural group known as the French Nation. They may not be for many generations, if ever.

It is long passed time to be realistic. The prospect of integrating millions of non-Europeans into European nation-states is far more daunting and complex than the Euro-elites ever imagined. One does not change the modern expression of an ancient culture by fiat.

Looks to me like I'm vindicated accross the spectrum. Or perhaps only the segment of the spectrum that reads this blog? :)

Nobody here seems to believe that the French are any better than the rest of humanity when it comes to racism. Those who lived there seem to believe they are worse.

So who are these phantom liberals who hold up France as the model of the multiculturist, free of racism society?

Ben Afleck? Genine Garafalo?

It wasn't just musicians who found early 20th century France to be colorblind. During WWI the US army trained its African-American dough-boys in France to avoid numerous problems caused by training in Jim Crow U.S. And that's another point to make: African-Americans helped liberate France and they were a very visible presence of the U.S. military because they were often (but not exclusively) deployed in support roles behind enemy lines. And they brought music.

So I disagree with Peters' "exotic pets" condescension because I think the African-American artists, writers and entertainers who voted with their feet my emigrating to France were completely capable of evaluating their experience with racism. That isn't meant to imply that this group may not be a representative sample on issues of race, then or now.

Jim Dunnigan had this opinion today:

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/urbang/articles/20051109.aspx

In France, It's Not Jihad, and Never Has Been

"November 9, 2005: In France, Islamic clerics issued a Fatwa (religious ruling) condemning the street violence of young Moslems over the last two weeks. Fortunately, or unfortunately, most of the thugs on the streets are not very religious. The violence is more ethnic and economic than religious, with a major criminal element (the gangs, like the IRA, know they will thrive if the police can be driven from their neighborhoods).

There's a generation gap, as well, between the wild child element in the street, and the mainline Islamic leadership, who remembers the hard life in the old country. While overall unemployment in France is ten percent, it is much higher in immigrant communities. That’s because French law makes it very difficult to fire anyone, which means employers are very reluctant to hire anyone. This makes jobs precious, and rare, commodities. The migrant families don’t have the connections and clout to compete with native French families when it comes to getting jobs for their young. Thus, a disproportionate number of young men from Middle Eastern and African countries are unemployed.

Actually, a lot of these Moslem men have succeeded, many going to college or getting tech school educations. They have jobs. But these are not the guys out in the street every night burning and stealing. Many of those fellows have taken to a life of crime. Most of the criminal gangs in many cities are run by Moslems. This means being a Moslem has become synonymous with belonging to organized crime. Drug gangs are very common, with young Moslems being out front selling and distributing the illegal substances.

There’s another serious problem, and that is the French approach to property crimes. The cops are inclined to concentrate on crimes against people (assault, murder, rape), and look the other way when it comes to property crimes. The courts, or at least many judges, are lenient when it comes to Moslems and property crimes. It’s sort of group guilt among the French upper crust. They brought the Moslems in half a century ago, to do the dirty work. But now many of those manual jobs have been automated, and the Moslems don’t want to go back to the Middle East or Africa. Why should they? France provides generous social benefits to the permanently unemployed. Compared to the old country, France (even with the local drug gangs), is a much safer place to live.

Thus, the street violence is partly a lark, because the kids know the cops are not going to use lethal force, and anyone who gets caught will, at worst, do maybe a year in the slammer (for burning cars looting stores). The drug gangs encourage the violence as a way to intimidate the cops. When the violence dies down, the gang bosses can threaten the local cops with a revival, if the cops do not back off (when it comes to the drug trade).

There are some Islamic radicals running around in all this, but they are a minority. The Moslem kids like to talk about respect and payback, but very few see this as a religious war. It’s become a sport, with various groups competing to cause the most destruction. Text messaging, Internet bulletin boards and email made it possible for the rioters to stay in touch and compare notes. The media coverage also encouraged the violence, giving the kids some positive (for them) feedback.

But now, nearly two weeks of street violence have thoroughly embarrassed the government so much that curfews and more arrests have taken some of the joy out of these Autumn antics. But it’s not jihad, and never has been."

" While overall unemployment in France is ten percent, it is much higher in immigrant communities."

Problem is rioters are students of scholastic age.

I agree that this is an economic problem more than a religious issue. The problem is, the economic problem has fed the religious strife. Extremism at its most virulent takes root where liberty and prosperity are absent and jihadism is an alluring alternative. So while it may be true that this uprising is rooted in economics, the jihadi aspect is growing stronger. Worse, the fact that the French have allowed the situation to fester instead of clamping down quickly means that now the authorities at some point will lose patience and respond with even greater violence than would have been required early on. Seeing the authorities escalating the violence will drive even more towards religious extremism.

True, France did treat American black artists relatively well. But they also treated the Jews well. Had Hitler wanted to exterminate blacks, the French would have handed them over in a heartbeat. Also, it was French ships that delivered most of the black slaves to the new world, so I wouldn't read too much into the encomia of a few Francophilic, hypertalented blacks.

"It's an ethnic problem, not a religious one." This is a distinction without a difference. When ethnicity and religion are largely overlapping it's an academic exercise to say that 2nd generation Algerian-French are discriminated against because they are Algerian, not because they're Muslim.

I don't think people appreciate what is being asked of the French. Eighty years ago, within the living memory, the very idea of 5 million Muslims being French was laughable. A little more than 100 years ago the Dreyfus Affair was, in part, a cultural argument over whether Jews were French. Jews were ethnically and linguistically identical to the non-Jewish French and had lived in France for centuries. But the French elites and the rest of the world expect France to accept North African immigrants and their children as French after only a few decades. Is this a realistic expectation?

The media and academy often explain violence in the Third World by noting that these societies have undergone rapid change; that people who grew up in a traditional society often have trouble adapting to "modernism". The First World has also endured rapid change, perhaps more change than people from these societies can be reasonably expected to adapt to.

Thank you Gabriel Gonzalez for the article,

I am a homeschool parent and the last two weeks I have introduced my African American daughter to a world that exist beyond the four walls "we"
call the United States.

She has to know the world did not begin in "1776" and did not end on September 11, 2001.

World history,sociology,economics, and politics are not taught early enough in US schools. We should not see history repeating itself again, and young America not knowing where France, Algeria, Lebanon, Sudan, Haiti, Martinique, Vietnam and other countries France, colonialized,robbed bare,neglected, warring and impoverished(not excluding the other Western European and the United States who colonized countries on Earth).

My daughter could not believe Frantz Fanon wrote the THE WRETCHED OFTHE EARTH 44 years ago and the same craziness is taking place in 2005.

I think it is tragic that African American's flocked to France between the two Wars to escape racism and, in most cases, were treated fare by the French, yet African's/Arab's(french citizens) were, and still are, facing racist issues that made Rosa Parks stay seated and saw a Defacto/DeJure rule of Jim Crow, allow racism to legally destroy the Black Communities in the South and Urban U.S.' cities.

I know grown people who have never heard of Frantz Fanon; can't point France out on a map, and have no idea that France has poverty or minority issues like we experience daily in the U.S.'. The only difference is the United States lies about discrimination, and France(and most of Europe) denies discrimination even exist.

Colonialism and Imperialism did not die. It has been repackaged in the Form of the United Nations, North American Treaties, and a European Commonwealth.

Frantz Fanon wrote in BLACK SKINS, WHITE MASKS, "Cultural values are internalized, or 'epidermialized' into consciousness, creating a fundamental disjuncture between the black man's consciousness and his body." That book, nor it's quotes, should have the same great impact on minorities around the world in 2005 as it did in the 1950s and 1960s.

Peace!

Ed Lasky over at the American thinker is reporting that the French media is censoring reports from the riots to keep the General -- AKA non-Muslim -- public from being "inflamed."

The French Government is going to be buying some Chinese internet monitoring technology next, at this rate of stupidity.

French media censor their own riots

The French media were the leaders in broadcasting the Palestinian “story of the death of Mohammed Al-Dura” in 2000. The last part of that sentence is in quotes because the story spread by French media was a Palestinian propaganda ploy to portray the death of a young Palestinian boy in the Gaza Strip as being caused by Israelis. These reports spread like wildfire around the world and helped inflame tension between the Israel and the Arab world. Mohammed Al-Dura was even portrayed on a stamp and he became an emblem of Israeli “oppression” and a rallying point to inspire homicide bombers. The story has been subsequently widely disproved: if there was a death, it was most probably caused by Palestinian fire and there has even been doubt cast on the story that there was even a death involved-notably by the estimable Nidra Poller, who has written for AT.
The French media has been criticized as being resistant to releasing the video “evidence” of their depiction of the events and have refused to provide its employees for questioning by those doubting their version of the events. The French media released a story of doubtful validity and honesty which served as the ignition for various homicide bombs with scant regard for the consequences. Now, in the face of nationwide protests in France itself, they choose to exercise discretion (i.e., censorship) by refusing to broadcasts reports of the worst excesses during the riots because they are concerned it might inflame people. From today’s Wall Street Journal

The state-owned television channels, France 2 and France 3, have stopped reporting on the number of cars torched by rioting young immigrants every night. Do we have to exercise self-censorship, to exercise censorship? Must we show everything, explain everything? Those are the [questions] that we’ve faced” throughout the rioting, said Paul Nahon, the deputy director general for news at France 3.

So, the French media released inflammatory Palestinian propaganda as fact and thus stoked violence in the Middle East and elsewhere. But they choose to exercise restraint when reporting facts that might marginally worsen the image of France. Ed Lasky 11 09 05

Rockford #21
John Coltrane died in 1967.

The Nationalist backlash is beginning. Le Pen claims that the _National Front party has been "submerged" with prospective members and supportive e-mail since rioting erupted in heavily immigrant communities near Paris.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Le Pen described the recent violence as "just the start" of conflicts caused by "massive immigration from countries of the Third World that is threatening not just France but the whole continent."_

He then points to the distinction between citizens of the State and members of the Nation.

Reminded that the vast majority of youths taking part in the arson and rioting are French, born in France to immigrant parents, he said: "What does that mean? Are they French because they have a French identity card?"

I believe the National Front is planning a demonstration next Monday in Paris. I doubt it will be a lovefest.

oz -- yes Coltrane died in the Sixties but did find during the 50's France a more accepting place than Jim Crow America. Through the 1980's Dexter Gordon retained a deep affection for the nation that sustained him when Jazz fell out of favor in America (and treated him with the respect he was due).

Angela -- Franz Fanon's larger failure was to explain ALL the bad things that happened in Africa as resulting from European colonialism. Consider Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. All countries that suffered colonialization and/or total devastation in War. Yet they prosper while say Nigeria suffers.

Fanon ignores Africa's own role in making itself a wretched place. The Slave trade depended on African participation; almost EVERY tribe in Africa enthusiastically enslaved it's neighbors; the only ones to end the trade and view it as being morally wrong were White Christian Europeans. Fanon and Sartre ignored the great gift that Europe gave to the world (Greek-Roman-Jewish-Christian culture and specifically the Enlightenment). It's laughable. Both Ghana and Singapore possessed the same rough number of college graduates, per-capita income, GDP, education levels etc at independence.

#34

France had a very large minority of Italians and Polish before WWII and with the same trouble as they have now with the "Arabs". They were unlike the French stricked catholics and especially that was unloved.

Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.

Only Singapore was a colony of a western power (17th century Taiwan doesn't count) and is tiny. Nigeria has a lot of oil and that makes a goverment uninterested in economic development because they are payed anyway out of the oil profits.

Certainly in France we have to do more to give
greater opportunities to foreigners.
Getting rid of the ghettos is a must admittedly
Some French people also have to change their behaviour toward foreigners.

But to say in a nutshell the French failed in
integrating the foreigners is a quick statement.
In this country a fringe of the population dedicates its energy to help foreigners (those who are not mentionned in the Anglo Saxon press articles for unexplained reasons ...)
In the depressed suburbs further education
is provided to foreigners, local activities are also deployed. Family allowances is also
provided to immigrants to help them to support
their families.

Among those who set cars ablaze some were desperate and jobless, others took advantage of the upheaval to steal ...

People boasters to live in mulicultural society ?
What about Harlem, Martin Luther King fight againt black discremination not to mention the Kux Kux Klan ...which is still hard living.

So please stop throwing stones.

In our western society everyone should feel guilty.

Stop mixing problems and criticizing and act
to improve things.