tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31283257.post2910646937844291662..comments2024-03-21T17:15:35.252+01:00Comments on Michael Deibert, Writer: FRANCE: Troubled Suburbs Erupt AgainMichael Deiberthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04810256309168860637noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31283257.post-74825670468222019092007-12-08T19:30:00.000+01:002007-12-08T19:30:00.000+01:00Thank you for your prompt response. I agree with a...Thank you for your prompt response. I agree with all your comments. However I do not feel that the sum of all your points gives the whole answer. <BR/><BR/>These 'immigrants children' have been through the French Educational System and are often highly qualified but because of, as you so rightly point out, high unemployment and institutional racism, unable to find jobs. They have no voice. No outlet and no choices. Unlike the children of the 'French' Middle Classes attending universities who strike to maintain the status quo.<BR/><BR/>Once again thank you for your erudition and insight.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31283257.post-14824281575797349522007-12-08T15:23:00.000+01:002007-12-08T15:23:00.000+01:00Hello Ana, and thanks for your post. Your question...Hello Ana, and thanks for your post. Your question is an interesting and important one.<BR/><BR/>I think, unfortunately, when it comes to the experience of many immigrants and their children, the notions of liberté egalité and fraternité in France are conceptual at best.<BR/><BR/>To start, France’s economy is in a bit worse shape than some other country’s in the region. France's jobless rate has not dipped below 8% for 25 years (measuring 21.5% for the under-25s and nearly 50% in some housing projects) and its GDP growth was just 2% last year. That is compared to around 8 percent in neighboring Spain, and 4 percent and 3 percent in Ireland and Britain. There is also the matter of the physical isolation of the banlieues which, are, in my experience traveling to some of the more impoverished ones, very poorly served by France’s public transportation system. Relations between the some of the population of the banlieues and the police are quite bad, and I also think that Nicloas Sarkozy has been, at times, a terribly and unhelpfully polarizing figure in the public discourse regarding the problems in the suburbs. And there is the matter of the institutionalized prejudice, as the Adia study I referred to in the article.<BR/><BR/>I am not seeking to bash France, because as one of the nearly 50 million American citizens without health insurance, I can look on the country’s state healthcare system, for example, with noting but envy, but these are some of the issues that immediately spring to mind.Michael Deiberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04810256309168860637noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31283257.post-71659149810519455202007-12-06T07:15:00.000+01:002007-12-06T07:15:00.000+01:00Other European Countries have large and diverse im...Other European Countries have large and diverse immigrant populations. I believe they live under similar conditions to those in France and somtimes much worse. Why are riots a French phenomenon?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com