RWDBs WRONG ON FRENCH UNREST

Lefty Mark Bahnisch thinks RWDBs have ludicrously over-estimated the significance of the unrest in France which, in any event, has nothing to do with religion. After you read Bahnisch, take a look at what Theodore Dalrymple had to say in the autumn of 2002:

Reported crime in France has risen from 600,000 annually in 1959 to 4 million today, while the population has grown by less than 20 percent (and many think today’s crime number is an underestimate by at least a half). In 2000, one crime was reported for every sixth inhabitant of Paris, and the rate has increased by at least 10 percent a year for the last five years. Reported cases of arson in France have increased 2,500 percent in seven years, from 1,168 in 1993 to 29,192 in 2000; robbery with violence rose by 15.8 percent between 1999 and 2000, and 44.5 percent since 1996 (itself no golden age).

Where does the increase in crime come from? The geographical answer: from the public housing projects that encircle and increasingly besiege every French city or town of any size, Paris especially. In these housing projects lives an immigrant population numbering several million, from North and West Africa mostly, along with their French-born descendants and a smattering of the least successful members of the French working class. From these projects, the excellence of the French public transport system ensures that the most fashionable arrondissements are within easy reach of the most inveterate thief and vandal.

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But among the third of the population of the cités that is of North African Muslim descent, there is an option that the French, and not only the French, fear. For imagine yourself a youth in Les Tarterets or Les Musiciens, intellectually alert but not well educated, believing yourself to be despised because of your origins by the larger society that you were born into, permanently condemned to unemployment by the system that contemptuously feeds and clothes you, and surrounded by a contemptible nihilistic culture of despair, violence, and crime. Is it not possible that you would seek a doctrine that would simultaneously explain your predicament, justify your wrath, point the way toward your revenge, and guarantee your salvation, especially if you were imprisoned? Would you not seek a “worthwhile” direction for the energy, hatred, and violence seething within you, a direction that would enable you to do evil in the name of ultimate good? It would require only a relatively few of like mind to cause havoc. Islamist proselytism flourishes in the prisons of France (where 60 percent of the inmates are of immigrant origin), as it does in British prisons; and it takes only a handful of Zacharias Moussaouis to start a conflagration.

Read the whole Dalrymple essay and decide for yourself if Muslims in France are simply the victims of circumstances beyond their control.

Update: The root causes of France's social problems are complex but Islam keeps cropping up as a factor:

According to Gérard Larcher, France’s employment minister, polygamy is one reason for the large-scale rioting in his country. The minister told the Financial Times that multiple marriages among immigrants lead to anti-social behaviour among youths who lack a father figure. This makes employers wary of hiring ethnic minorities. “If people are not employable, they will not be employed,” he explained.

Polygamy in France is illegal but authorities tolerate the existence of an estimated 30,000 families in which there is more than one wife. As these are large families, up to 250,000 people may live in such a family. Most of them come from North and sub-Saharan African countries such as Algeria, Mali and Senegal, where the practice is legal. The French authorities freely granted visas to family members of immigrants until 1993, when former interior minister Charles Pasqua, who was decried as a “hardline rightwinger,” banned visas for more than one spouse. Many wives, however, continued to enter illegally, while the government relaxed its stance after protests.

Polygamous immigrants abuse the social security system by collecting state benefits for several wives. As residency was only granted to polygamous families, who arrived before 1993, if the two wives do not live at the same address, these families claim double social housing, family allowances and other social benefits. According to the FT “Mr Larcher’s comments could further fuel the debate and are likely to outrage Muslim and anti-racism groups.” The minister’s comments come as the government considers tightening rules for granting visas, and a possible clampdown on polygamous families. The FT fears that “a clampdown, if enforced, could affect families that entered the country before 1993.”

Screw it, just give them more money and let them get on with the breeding program.