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[an interesting and likely correct view of the riots from the Wall
Street Journal]<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007529">http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007529</a><br>
<font face="Garamond, Times" size="5"><b>French Lessons</b></font>
<br>
<font face="Garamond, Times" size="4">How to create a Muslim underclass.</font>
<br>
<font face="Verdana, Times" size="2"><br>
<i>Friday, November 11, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST</i>
</font>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">Rioting by Muslim
youth in some 300 French cities and towns seems to be subsiding after
two weeks and tougher law enforcement, which is certainly welcome news.
The riots have shaken France, however, and the unrest was of such
magnitude that it has become a moment of illumination, for French and
Americans equally.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">In particular, some
longstanding
conceits about the superiority of the French social model have gone up
in flames. This model emphasizes "solidarity" through high taxes,
cossetted labor markets, subsidies to industry and farming, a "Ministry
for Social Cohesion," powerful public-sector unions, an elaborate
welfare state, and, inevitably, comparisons to the alleged viciousness
of the Anglo-Saxon "market" model. So by all means, let's do some
comparing. </font></p>
<p></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2"><img
src="cid:part1.06000808.04070201@solution-consulting.com" alt=""
width="88" height="6" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="middle"></font></p>
<p></p>
<font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">The first thing that needs
illuminating is that, while the overwhelming majority of rioters are
Muslim, it is premature at best to describe the rioting as an
"intifada" or some other term denoting religiously or culturally
inspired violence. And it is flat-out wrong to claim that the rioting
is a consequence of liberal immigration policies.</font>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">Consider the contrast with the
U.S. Between 1978 and 2002, the percentage of foreign-born Americans
nearly doubled, to 12% from 6.2%. At the same time, the five-year
average unemployment rate declined to 5.1% from 7.3%. Among immigrants,
median family incomes rose by roughly $10,000 for every 10 years they
remained in the country.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">These statistics hold across
immigrant groups, including ones that U.S. nativist groups claim are
"unassimilable." Take Muslims, some two million of whom live in
America. According to a 2004 survey by Zogby International, two-thirds
are immigrants, 59% have a college education and the overwhelming
majority are middle-class, with one in three having annual incomes of
more than $75,000. Their intermarriage rate is 21%, nearly identical to
that of other religious groups.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">It's true that France's Muslim
population--some five million out of a total of 60 million--is much
larger than America's. They also generally arrived in France much
poorer. But the significant difference between U.S. and French Muslims
is that the former inhabit a country of economic opportunity and social
mobility, which generally has led to their successful assimilation into
the mainstream of American life. This has been the case despite the
best efforts of multiculturalists on the right and left to extol fixed
racial, ethnic and religious identities at the expense of the
traditionally adaptive, supple American one. </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">In France, the opposite
applies.
Mass Muslim migration to France began in the 1960s, a period of very
low unemployment and industrial labor shortages. Today, French
unemployment is close to 10%, or double the U.S. rate. Unlike in the
U.S., French culture eschews multiculturalism and puts a heavy premium
on the concept of "Frenchness." Yet that hasn't provided much cushion
for increasingly impoverished and thus estranged Muslim communities,
which tend to be segregated into isolated and generally unpoliced
suburban cities called <i>banlieues</i>. There, youth unemployment
runs to 40%, and crime, drug addiction and hooliganism are endemic. </font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">This is not to say that Muslim
cultural practices are irrelevant. For Muslim women especially, the
misery of the <i>banlieues</i>
is compounded by a culture of female submission, often violently
enforced. Nor should anyone rule out the possibility that Islamic
radicals will exploit the mayhem for their own ends. But whatever else
might be said about the Muslim attributes of the French rioters, the
fact is that the pathologies of the <i>banlieues</i> are similar to
those of inner cities everywhere. What France suffers from,
fundamentally, is neither a "Muslim problem" nor an "immigration
problem." It is an underclass problem.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">French Prime Minister Dominique
de
Villepin almost put his finger on the problem when he promised to
introduce legislation to ease the economic plight of the <i>banlieues.</i>
But aside from the useful suggestion of "enterprise zones," most of the
legislation smacked of big-government solutions: community centers,
training programs and so on.</font></p>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">The larger problem for the
prime
minister is that France's underclass is a consequence of the structure
of the French economy, in which the state accounts for nearly half of
gross domestic product and roughly a quarter of employment. French
workers, both in the public and private sectors, enjoy GM-like benefits
in pensions, early retirement, working hours and vacations, sick- and
maternity leave, and job security--all of which is militantly enforced
by strike-happy labor unions. The predictable result is that there is
little job turnover and little net new job creation. Leave aside the
debilitating effects of unemployment insurance and welfare on the
underclass: Who would employ them if they actually sought work?</font></p>
<p></p>
<p align="center"><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2"><img
src="cid:part1.06000808.04070201@solution-consulting.com" alt=""
width="88" height="6" hspace="0" vspace="0" border="0" align="middle"></font></p>
<p></p>
<font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">For France, the good news is that
these problems can be solved, principally be deregulating labor
markets, reducing taxes, reforming the pension system and breaking the
stranglehold of unions on economic life. The bad news is the entrenched
cultural resistance to those solutions--not on the part of angry Muslim
youth, but from the employed half of French society that refuses to
relinquish their subsidized existences for the sake of the "solidarity"
they profess to hold dear. So far, most attempts at reform have failed,
mainly due to a combination of union militancy and political timidity.</font>
<p><font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">There are lessons in France for
the U.S., too. Advocates of multiculturalism might take note of what
happens when ethnic communities are excluded (or exclude themselves)
from the broad currents of national life. Opponents of immigration
might take note of the contrast between France's impoverished Muslims
and America's flourishing immigrant communities.</font></p>
<font face="Verdana, Times" size="2">Above all, those who want America
to emulate the French social model by mandating health and other
benefits, raising tax burdens and entrenching union power might take
note of just how sour its promises have become, especially its promises
to the poor. In the matter of "solidarity," economic growth counts more
than rhetoric.</font><br>
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