Riots in France?

Dear Deadly,

This is a complicated question. The rioters in France are indeed of immigrant origin, but they were actually born and bred in France - so in all legal respects they have as much right to be in France as all other French. Non-Muslim whites have also been a prominent force in the riots.

Interestingly, the first wave of Muslim immigrants was far more traditionally minded and religiously staunch than the current breed of rabble-rousing youths, yet everyone remembers them as self-effacing and hard-working people. There were no riots then. The ones causing the problem are their sons and grandsons. The problem is therefore not about immigration but about a combination of other factors.

The most obvious one is a chronic shortage of jobs. When the first Muslims arrived in France from the shores of North Africa in the 1950s and 60s, the economy was booming and there was a real shortage of labour. But nowadays, the French economy is sluggish. Unemployment has hovered around the 10% mark for close to two decades. This is because the old-style French state is exceedingly bureaucratic and has shackled the labour market in heavy chains, preventing hiring.

Government has been slow, timid and unresponsive about dealing with this problem. Under the pressure of France's left-wing vested interest groups (unions, civil servants, farmers), successive politicians have found it much easier to dodge the real issues and blame it all on outside forces (Europe, globalisation, the US, etc) than take the hard way out and effect meaningful reform.

As a result, unemployment in France's difficult suburbs (where the rioters come from) can be as high as 50%. Then there is a systemic discrimination against youths of Muslim origin which prevents many of them from getting jobs anyway. This leads us to the second problem - the stigma attached to Muslims in the Western world in general. Many Westerners, oftentimes unfairly and in woeful ignorance of histor, have learnt to associate Muslims with violence and bravado. In response to that, religious demagogues across the Middle East (purely for their own interest, of course) have used this to engineer a widespread psychological complex of paranoid victimisation - "the infidels are all against us, etc".

In our era of lightning-quick communications, Muslim youths in France are as sensitive to this sort of inflammatory drivel as anywhere else. People indeed tend to be much more responsive to this sort of hate-filled diatribes when they dwell in poverty, and this does not just apply to Muslims: Hitler would have had a much harder time promoting his ideology of violence and exclusion if Germany had not been in the grip of a catastrophic economic crisis at the time.This in turn generates more violence, which in turn comforts many Westerners in their wrongful belief that Islam is evil, which leads to more discrimination, etc. It is the usual vicious circle.

The third factor in the immigrant riots is probably to do with an identity crisis and a generation gap. The first-generation immigrants knew very well who they were, but their children are a different proposition. Born and bred in Europe, they feel quite far removed from their more traditional elders. Yet because of the lack of jobs and discrimination, they are not fully integrated in their country of birth either. So neither their traditional culture nor their country offers them acceptance or understanding. This is the sort of stuff violence is made of when you combine it with poverty and joblessness.

This last matter can only be dealt with by them. But for the rest, the French government needs to do a much better job than it has in creating jobs and wealth. That's number one: people who are comfortable and have much to lose simply do not riot. Desperate people in chronic unemployment, on the other hand, have little else to do. Secondly, on a global scale our politicians need to prosecute the war on terror much more intellligently than they have hitherto done, being especially cautious not to pander to the sense of distrust that exists between Muslims and Westerners - George W Bush, Jack Straw, Nicolas Sarkozy and countless others all over the Western world should take note. Only then can we take the kindling away from the fire of Muslim fanatics, who care not about their religion or their people at all but merely about their own power, and end the litany of hatred that inflames our immigrant youths.

Hope this helped,

The riots were not just immigrants but French people too - who lived in poor areas. They have a democratic right to demonstrate. They were ignored and things turned nasty. The same thing happened when Thatcher ignored the miners. Then she attacked the population at large - particularly young people and the poll tax riots followed and she lost that one. This government is smarter they don't pick on the young and healthy - they pick on the chronically sick, disabled and elderly. they can't fight back. The new Welfare reform bill is 84 pages long - about welfare? Then why does it mention the word "work" 134 times? The regulations that follow are 130+ pages long and again mention the word "work" over 200 times. It is about John Hutton, Secretary of State forcing sick people to work - or cutting welfare payments they are entitled to because they have paid their National Insurance - with the emphasis on the word INSURANCE.

This is a very good question, but I think that it's largely people who were born in France or the UK who are involved in the riots, so they can't be deported. I think they should be given very long prison sentences if caught. It makes me sick to see such behaviour.

How d'you distinguish Italian-looking people from French, Greek, Spanish looking people?

Forgive me if I am wrong, but those who are rioting in France are either North African or French North African as far as I understand it. Surely they are .... MUSLIMS.

What a surprise - it's not just a UK problem.

Let the French eat cake.

So, write your representation, and inform them of your concerns. The more letters that land in city hall, or in the magistrate's office or whatever, not sure who you'd write to, the more CITIZENS that communicate their concerns on the issue, the more they'll be heard.

turn the water hoses on them, that will stop any riots anywhere & it doesn't hurt or kill like bullets do.

Have they no bread? Then let them eat cake.

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