by Leon Rainey

Created on: May 26, 2007

The religion of many North Africans is Islam and in the current climate it has thrown to the forefront many issues that weren't in the minds of many average French people such as can somebody really be French and a Moslem. This translated to a more potent argument of whether Moslem girls should be allowed to wear Islamic dress within schools. At the time all peoples accepted that crucifixes and skullcaps (Jewish) would be excluded but when it came to the issue of burkhas niquabs and hijabs there was a resistance, partly because it was felt that the law was brought in solely to have the effect of diluting the appearance of Islam in French society.

On the back of all this controversy Jean Marie la Penne capitalized, always a figure in French politics his success coming second to Chirac must have seemed like an endorsement of all the right wing backlash against French Moslems and Arabs.
A lot of the problems in France and all the other western industrial nations is that there is a presumption of superiority. The old working classes have worked their way up and now make up a large proportion of the middle classes. They have lost their empathy for the little guy and have an attitude more of self-preservation. Seeing all change as bad and treating every difference as a threat. So how does the average French person reconcile their strong socialist unionist attitudes with their apparent disregard for equality with their fellow largely migrant neighbors?
The "banlieus" as they have become know live in poor conditions by modern standards living under an always-present hostile police force. The magrheb is the launch pad into Europe from North Africa. Mainly Arabs a now unfashionable group of people are the biggest immigrant community that resides in or migrates to France.
France itself has a unique view of itself in that every person is seen not as an Arab or black person but as a homogenous group all with the status of French. This however positive it may seem masks what is apparent within their society, and that is segregation and exclusion from jobs and opportunities. When the riots happened in 2005 the cause was the police chasing a boy to his death. However fair or unfair this was it was certainly assumed to be part of a wider racist attitude of the state. A minister at the time (Sarkosy) described the rioters as scum, a provocative and shocking intervention. People in those communities affected assumed largely that he was calling those types of people scum and not necessarily the criminal and/or rebellious elements amongst them.
For me the biggest problem is that France hasn't decided yet to encourage the diverse culture in its midst. French people believe they have the finest cuisine in the world so they scoff at other cooking styles, to the extent that they have been surpassed by Britain traditionally a nation that has poor quality food and cuisine. France refuses to evolve, the things that made it great don't work anymore it's a nation at odds with itself. They hold onto their 35-hour working week yet they elected Nicholas Sarkosy who opposes it, they are becoming intolerant of Islam and diversity yet they don't embrace Christianity or Europe. This must point to France becoming more divided people that look forwards and want to integrate with the world and those that hark back to a time when France was great. A symptom of this was that France rejected the European constitution, signaling that the European dream has ended and deep cynicism has set in. Perhaps the French malaise is a process it has to go through before it hits a period of positivity. Britain had its period of intolerance and riots in the 80s and has now benefited from the biggest boom it's ever had.

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