The roots of the riots in France

Already, the Paris riots have produced copycats not only in French cities but in Belgium and Germany. That’s not surprising, as the socio-economic and cultural dynamics are common across Western Europe. Although the census in France does not inquire into religion, there are believed to be about 5 million Muslims in France, and close to 20 million in Western Europe. Continued immigration and high fertility will double that population by 2025, according to the CIA’s National Intelligence Council.

Across Europe, colonial history and immigration networks have combined to bring specific Muslim minorities to each country. Thus, France hosts North Africans, Britain has South Asians, Spain has Moroccans, and Germany is primarily home to Turks. These tight-knit communities often share a language, ethnicity and Islam — and in bad times, resentment travels fast. In all these countries, the Muslim underclass lives a life without much opportunity for work, in subsidised housing, reliant on free healthcare and generous unemployment checks.

The young Muslims’ parents and grandparents, like their counterparts all over Europe, came as guest workers in the boom years of the ’50s and ’60s. They were supposed to be transitory but, as the saying goes, ‘‘there is nothing more permanent than a temporary worker.’’ After the boom turned to bust, ethnic and human rights organisations argued they not only had a right to stay in Europe but that they could bring their families in. Quietly, without anyone noticing or planning it, lone workers became communities with customs, traditions and a religion that often did not fit seamlessly into Europe.

As citizens of a nation of immigrants, Americans tend to idealise the process of assimilation, as though people can change countries like sweaters. But even in countries such as ours, the transition can be painful to both newcomers and their hosts. European countries are ethnic nations, which makes it doubly hard for them to treat immigrants or their children as their own. A French research group recently conducted a study in which two resumes, identical except for the name, were submitted in answer to want ads. The resumes with French names received five times the responses of the Arab ones. It is such discrimination, not Islamic fervour, that is seen as sparking the riots.

But will some of the fury be focused into jehad? Actually, mainstream Muslim organisations have tried to mediate the conflict. But the mediators turned into targets. Can Muslim elders rein in the rioters? If not, the jehadists stand at the ready. The jehadists may wish to encourage the riots until the French suppress them, leaving angry young men to conclude that rioting begets only prison and that terror is the answer. Left angry, desperate or coldly calculating, these radicalised young people, like any European citizen, would be eligible for visa-free travel to the US.

The writer is director of the immigration and national security programme at the Nixon Centre in Washington.

LAT-WP