I don't know why this is buried so far down on the NYT today.
African and Arab Parisians have been rioting for a few days now and it's starting to spread. Obviously riots are always bad, but when you have an immigration policy as bad as France's, you're kind of asking for it. Plus the cops in France are mad racist. Hell, I don't think it's a stretch to say that most white people in France are mad racist.
I realize this is gallows humor, but isn't the modern race riot kind of an American export? Li'l ironic in a country that tries so hard to keep out English and McDonalds...
Now we see what multiculturalism and the European social model have wrought: ghettoization, exclusion and absurdly high unemployment.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't an American export. This is something uniquely European.
Right. I forgot, letting brown people into a country leads to the collapse of the nation state. Shame on me for not remembering my Huntington.
ReplyDeleteThe "European Social Model," no doubt, is going through some changes. The presence of eastern european immigrants and African immigrants is changing the way societies work. However, unemployment is not uniformly high in Europe. The EU average is somewhere around 8%, compared to America's 5%. Many countries actually have a lower unemployment rate, and some have done a better job integrating immigrant populations into the national social culture than others.
The problem with France is that African muslim immigrants and their children have a 20% unemployment rate - double the national average. Is that uniquely European?
Not quite - African Americans have twice the unemployment as the national average. And its hard to claim ghettoization is a result of the European social model. If anything, these nations with markedly higher social mobility than the US are less prone to generations of minority families stagnating in ghettos.
And don't forget, in the late 80s and early 90s when American unemployment was up, everybody was talking about how the American social model was to blame and we should look towards Europe. Economics are a hell of a lot more complex than that, but anyway
Yeah, this is all because of immigration and the universal welfare system. So, in summary, go read a book, or a newspaper. k.
Also, the highest unemployment rates in Europe are in Poland, at around 18%. This country has transitioned to an American type privatized market economy, and is ethnically homogeneous - 97% of the population consider themselves Polish.
ReplyDeleteDenmark, Ireland, and the UK are among the lowest in unemployment. The UK, Ireland, and especially Denmark have quite advanced welfare systems and liberal social politics (maybe slightly less so in Ireland). These nations all have very high rates of immigration from eastern europe, africa, and for the UK, India.
when you have an immigration policy as bad as France's, you're kind of asking for it
ReplyDeleteSounds like something a stupid bitch would say.
Poland has had 15 years without communist control, and they've made an admirable transition and marked improvement. France, meanwhile, seems to be doing its best to maintain its high unemployment and low growth, while its labor laws all but forbid the cheap labor an immigrant could provide (no way! minimum wage laws create unemployment! shocker!).
ReplyDeleteAmerican youths don't go torching cars for weeks on end when they get upset. We don't have ghettoes of alienated youth where half those 18-24 are unemployed. We don't turn a blind eye to extremist Islamists in our midst because we don't want to offend them.
So yeah, the US got its problems. But France and Western Europe are far, far worse.
have american schools stopped teaching european history? France is not historically given to extraordinarily remarkable stability, regardless of the regime or the form of government. If this happened in let's say Norway, then you'd have a solid case historically perhaps. But student riots? umm, not really all that new for France.
ReplyDeleteYou call these "student riots," but are the rioters actually students? Sounds like they are young men (18+) so they'd be in college, right? I seriously doubt these rioters are in college, so it's a bit disingenuous to draw the analogy between these riots and student riots - especially when the root causes are so different.
ReplyDeleteyou're right. i meant 'youth' riots.
ReplyDeleteFrance's history has given a working model for how youth anger in France is let out, so i don't think it is disingenuous to draw parallels, or at any rate it is less disingenuous to do so than to portray this as an Islamist revolt.
No, this is not a replay of 1968 or 1832, but I think there is something in modern France's culture that leads to instability regardless of the ruling party. I mean they're on what, their fifth republic?