paris riots
Out of context: Reply #44
- Started
- Last post
- 264 Responses
- ********0
As in much of Europe, the French Muslim community was established largely by waves of immigrant laborers in the 1960s through the mid-1970s, and has continued under family reunification provisions since. These populations have grown, but remained, by and large, below average in income and social status. Recent studies -- which focus on "immigrants" but refer to Muslim-related issues -- describe the nearly two million residents of increasingly "ghettoized" suburbs, forming a culturally distinct, socially and economically "excluded" population. Meanwhile, Muslims make up a disproportionate fraction of the prison population, and have virtually no political representation. It is becoming apparent that, despite France’s commitment to view all French as equal, the nation must make a special effort to reckon with this generally poor, voiceless, frustrated, and, some believe, increasingly radical and criminal group. The data above, taken from news reports of a leaked national intelligence service study and other sources, are an incomplete but telling sample of the challenge that France and its Muslim population face.