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Arab immigrants in France... Matter of Suffering and Integration In 27 th of October, 2005, riots caused by the Arab and Black minorities spread rapidly in France, country of freedom and equality. In one of Paris suburbs, where mostly Arabs live, two teenagers were killed during a police sweep. The wave of riots spread increasingly in the whole country causing great deal of destruction. French citizens saw their cars burned and their national property destroyed. All those sudden events led the French community to ask about the reasons behind all this frustration and violence in such a liberal country like France.
Frankly, these riots were not a great surprise for the French authority because many human rights organizations warned France from the discrimination towards the minorities (Matlack). The reasons for Arab Muslims violence and frustration are due to discrimination, poor economic levels, governmental policies, and the Arabs' inability to integrate into the French society. Discrimination is caused by negative images about Arabs and lack of teaching diversity in school curricula. Dr.
Hayttham Manna' pointed out that racism in French society had increased significantly. According to him, the Advisory Committee on Human Rights in France reported that 70 % of the French have racist appeals (Memri). This indicates that the French society practices discrimination towards the different minorities and this is due to different reasons. First, there are many negative images which the French have about the Arabs. The first reason which causes this negative image is the religious aspect. Tarek Ramadan assumes that it is wrong to think of religion as the reason behind the violence and frustration.
According to him, the French think that religion is the main cause of violence and ignore the other socio-economic dimensions of the problem (Memri). They think that Arab Muslims are terrorists because of their religion. The French society generalizes the violence of some fundamentalists to the whole Arabs and Muslims because the French cannot understand that violence has no specific religion. Negative images are also due to clash of cultures. There are major differences in traditions between the Arabs and the French which create misunderstanding between them. Ali Saad Al-Moussa argues that Arabs carry their culture in their bags when they immigrate to western countries (Memri).
Hence, the differences in traditions and ways of thinking make a gap between the minorities and the French and make them not able to live with each other homogeneously; consequently, the French perceive Arabs negatively. Another major cause of discrimination is lack of teaching diversity in school curricula. Dr. Ramadan mentioned this reason in his article when he explained that "the school curricula includes very little about history and traditions of those people who made up the French society" (Memri). He admitted that this neglect will make French students not able to understand what diversity is, and how there ancestors tried to raise diversity through their struggle in the French revolution. The result will be that the new generations will not understand how to deal with the other cultures and how to respect them.
The most contributing factor causing these riots is the poor economic level of Arabs in France. First, Arabs in France suffer from job discrimination. An official French study pointed out that youth with Arab names are refused to get jobs five times as often as youth with common French names (Jain). Thus, youth with Arab-sounded names are more likely to change their names to French-sounded ones. This leads to high rates of unemployment. Unemployment rates among common French people are 9. 2 %, but this percentage is 14 % among Arab Muslims and 5 % is the overall average of unemployment among common French university graduates while this increases to 26. 5 % among "North African" university graduates (Astier).
This reflects the job discrimination which Arabs suffer from. Employers prefer to employ French people. Owners of employment agencies also contribute to this problem because they refuse to employ Arabs in their agencies. If these employment agencies do not offer suitable job opportunities for Arabs, they will remain jobless since employers have tendency to bypass Arab youth because of their ethnic origins (Jain). This shows that not only do the employers refuse to employ Arabs, but also the employment agencies refuse to help Arabs finding jobs.
As a result, Arabs have no real opportunity to establish high standard of living Not only are the French responsible for the crisis, but also the governmental policies are not able to control the problem. France has decided to put restrictions on immigration. It will not give the nationality to any foreigner who marries a French citizen and it will forbid polygamy as the government thinks that the increasing number of polygamous Arab families is the main cause of the riots (Immigration Advice Site). This means that the French authority walks in the wrong path.
Instead of improving the socio-economic conditions of the Arabs, they prevent any more immigrants to come which will not solve the primary problem with Arabs. In addition, forbidding immigration will create a disaster since there will be an essential need to workforce especially in low-waged economy which most Arabs work on (Matlack). Arabs work mainly in the poor factories and small projects which require less level of qualifications and by forbidding immigration, these factories will not support the needs of the French society which proves the inability of the French government to solve the real roots of the problem. Thus, the first priority in the French agenda is to security arrangements to control the riots and putting the rioters in the prison.
On the other hand, "the French government refuses blindly to absorb the 2 nd and 3 rd generation of Arab immigrants since it refuses to collect any data about the racial and ethnic origins in France" (Matlack). This implies that the French government has no tendency to hold the responsibility towards Arabs' problems and it does not want to take a positive and strict step visa vis the discrimination in France. In addition to the responsibility of French society, Arabs' inability to integrate into the French society is another reason of this frustration. Ahmed El-Rabi' claims: "minority must ask itself about this contradiction between its significant size and its minimal achievements in politics, economy, culture and academic life" (Memri). In other words, Arabs cannot prove to the French society that they can act like French citizens because they have no potential to acquire any kind of new knowledge or personal skills. El- Rab'i also assumes that Arabs cannot live in a peaceful harmony with any culture different from their own culture and they clash culturally with the others (Memri).
This indicates how Arabs are not able to accept the other cultures and cannot react with the other cultures positively. For example, an Arabic girl called Said Amara was interviewed and asked about her opinion in the integration issue and she replied: : " people always talk to the need to 'integrate' Muslims. But the youth are French. Why should they need to integrate?" (Astier).
This illustrates that Arabs and the French perceive integration in different ways as Arabs see that there is no need of integration. In addition, Dr. el-Rab'i claims that: "The appearance of the streets, the doors, the schools, and the level of services takes you back to the cities of Morocco, which have not changed for centuries" (Memri). This means that Arabs become very isolated in the French society. They have their own suburbs, eat in their own restaurants, and carry their own traditions. To sum up, the causes of these riots are derived from different dimensions whether the French community, the government, or the Arabs themselves.
This conflict will not be solved until finding a way to integrate all the different racial differences together and improving both the immigration policy and the living conditions of the minorities. The problem with Arabs is that they express their feelings of anger in the wrong way without giving any consideration to the national property. Thus, Arabs have to be wiser in calling for their rights. The French society has to accept the fact that France has great variety of racial backgrounds and they have to deal with this concept with more open-minded thinking. Work Cited Astier, Henri. French Muslims Face Job Discrimination.
Nov. 2005. 30 th Nov. 2006. >. web Advice Site. France Modifies Immigration Policy After Riots. 11 Nov. 2005. 30 th Nov. 2006. < web 12 01 /europe / france modifies immigration after riots. htm>.
Jain, Rajesh. France On Fire. Nov. 2005. 30 th Nov. 2006. > web Carol. Crisis In France. Nov. 2005. 30 th Nov. 2006. < web 47 /b 3960013. htm> Memri.
Reactions In The Arab And Muslim World To The Rioting In France. Nov. 2005. 30 th Nov. 2006. >< web
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