Posted on 06/01/2005 4:18:44 PM PDT by quidnunc
Whatever you think of European integration, there is something inspiring about 20 million people who, having been told what to do by their most respected politicians and after listening attentively, then do the exact opposite.
This week’s referendums in France and the Netherlands are probably the most significant event in European history since the end of the Cold War. As in Germany after its citizens found that they could smash symbolic chunks out of the Berlin Wall with impunity, everyday life in Europe may go on as before, but nothing will ever be quite the same. But don’t expect to hear much serious debate about the significance of this popular revolt against “the idea of Europe” for many months. The first reaction will be to pretend, or even to believe sincerely, that nothing much has happened.
In France, where I am this week, the referendum result has created a media cottage-industry of dismissive rationalisations. The most popular and reassuring for Europhiles is the idea that the referendum fiasco was nothing more than the latest instance of Jacques Chirac’s notorious inability to read the public mood. President Chirac’s perverse relationship with public opinion took another bizarre twist with the appointment of Dominique de Villepin as Prime Minister. M de Villepin is seen as the alter ego, almost a clone, of the President. His appointment is a direct, provocative rejection of voters’ demands for a new kind of politics.
But while M Chirac may make a perfect scapegoat for the French media, his unpopularity cannot be blamed for the vote in the Netherlands, nor for the anti-EU sentiment in Denmark, Sweden and Britain. The political establishment must therefore move on to its next excuse: people are not voting against Europe, but against globalisation and market economics.
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The political establishment must therefore move on to its next excuse: people are not voting against Europe, but against globalisation and market economics.
It isn't exactly opaque even this far across the water what the reasons for rejection were. The political establishment can use any excuses it likes; the people have spoken, and that's the way it ought to be.
You are wrong there, at least for the south-west of the USA (which is bigger than France). You must have missed the brouhaha about the billboard that said "Los Angeles, Mexico".
Yes, but they have many columnists who would not be very palatable to FR, such as Simon Jenkins and Matthew Parris.
The United States was formed by men of God, whose only desire was to build a nation for God.
The European Union is built on the idea of anti-Americanism and anti-capitalism.
You don't get out much do you?
So, is anybody doing anything to stop this?
No?
If I understand you and the posters who followed you, America is being transformed into Mexico, and yet the government of the United States does nothing to stop this?
Is this, perhaps, because the government does not think this is true?
Or because they do not think it matters?
Or because it is not in the interests of the people they represent to stop it?
Denial of what?
Denial of what?
You have a tendency to to praise france to the rafters. No matter what is put in front of you in the negative, you spin it to france's good.
france is not good. france is a self absorbed country that thinks their shite don't stink.
They stabbed us in the back for the last time. I hope france gets just what's coming to them, being over run by muslims and living under shira law.
The anti-American hatred running through that country borders on psychotic. No...not borders...is. Are their no rational thinkers left in that pitiful country.
Every dead American in Iraq, I lay at the feet of france, germany, russia and china. But for the greed in the oil for food debacle, we could have circled the wagons on saddam and had him dead to rights.
But no, money was more important than all the American souls that lie in battlefields around the world pulling europes ass out of the fire. What thank you do we get? We get stabbed in the back. europe is lost to islam, enjoy your dhimmitude.
I've read this before, perhaps from you. I also have read in many more places that the French population is in steep decline, in line with the rest of European non-Muslim populations. Europe is being Islamicized, with immigrants paying the taxes necessary to support the aging population.
The center-right government has been unpopular, but it has reformed labor law,
My impression of this "center-right" is that the term in an American sense is useless. It is not centrist in the sense in which we understand centrism. John Kerry is a French centrist.
...allowing for flexible hours within the contours of the 35 hour limit. Overtime is also allowed more flexibly. The 35 hour rule stands as a symbol for the socialists, but the government has enacted a regime of derogations expansive enough to provide business and workers the sort of flexibility they both have said they desire.
These are pure rationalizations that do not address core inefficiencies. They are pretty words, e.g., "a regime of derogations expansive enough to provide business and workers the sort of flexibility they both have said they desire", but they reveal, perhaps, myopic Francophilia steeped in wine rather than logic. Flexibility in the use of high-wage inefficiencies will not build competitive resolve into a workforce. If it were not so obviously silly, it might be believable.
In part, many here probably think that the Mexican influx is just another one of these (and they may well be right). In part, many are happy to get cheap labor (cf. the Turks in Germany several decades ago).
The Mexicans are likely to integrate into US society a lot better than the Muslims integrate into European society, though it will not be without problems.
I should also add that most of the Mexicans are here as illegals and can be sent back if and when necessary. (However, there may not be the political will to do this, plus those deported usually sneak back in again).
There's nothing wrong with a man sticking up for his country. You and he should perhaps agree to disagree.
"I've read this before, perhaps from you. I also have read in many more places that the French population is in steep decline, in line with the rest of European non-Muslim populations."
The French population, of course, includes all people who are born French citizens. "French" does not mean white. It means French citizen. Black people in the DOM are French citizens, as are Amerindiens in la Guyane Francaise. People of Muslim origin are French citizens.
The population of the Republic continues to grow robustly. The portion of it that Le Pen refers to as "les francais de souche" - meaning ethnically white French - has a low fertility rate.
But they are not the only French, of course.
"I am curious, however, about your statement that "perhaps 6.5 percent" of the French population is of Muslim origin. I believe that the official census deliberately omits collection of any such information. I have seen estimates as low as 5 percent and as high as 20 percent. Does anyone in France really know how many Moslems (or people of Moslem origin) are in the country?"
The census does not "deliberately OMIT to collect such information". It would be unnatural for a state to distinguish between its citizens based on such things. I should rather say that the American government deliberately chooses to classify its citizens in categories, and to give them special rights relative to one another, as in Blacks and Amerindiens, Hispanics and others. The American census also differentiates Americans based on their religion. Of what possible use could these artificial distinctions be to government, unless government wished to give them some sort of legal existence and force, and to give certain citizens rights over other citizens?
In France, it would be highly illegal and abnormal for the state to make such distinctions. These statistics serve no legitimate purpose, but if money is spent on creating their existence, it is certain that a bad use will be found for such numbers. The problem is avoided: the French state does not engage in such illicit divisions of French people in categories.
So, you are correct, there are no official statistics.
There are, however, unofficial statistics prepared by different parties each eager to make a point. Jean-Marie Le Pen and his Front National, for example, has an interest in fomenting division among French people by causing them to distinguish one sort of French person from another. Therefore, his party generates their own unofficial numbers to show that Beurs are running wild and breeding like hares.
The Institut du Monde Arab and the politicians eager to court the vote of a substantial Beur population as such also seek to generate figures. More neutral academic studies seek to generate figures. European institutions studying demographics seek to generate figures. There are many figures around.
To get 6.5%, I used the estimate population of people of Muslim origin in the French Republic, and divided that into the population of the Republic. I included, as is appropriate, the populations of the DOM, but not the TOM. This results in the 6.5% figure.
I point out, however, that being of North African origin does not equate to being Muslim, any more than being of European French origin equates to being a Christian today.
Secular French people are a large portion of the population, and it is not appropriate to include them in counts of Catholics in France. Those who do not attend Church and do not believe in God are not Catholics. Their ancestors were, but they are not. Now, likewise, there are an enormous number of people of Muslim origin in France who are completely secular. They do not attend mosque. They date and marry other seculars in France, of Catholic origins or otherwise. These people are French, not Muslim. They are product of French schools. Their values are French and secular. Some are turbulent, but they are turbulent like football hooligans from Britain. This is not Islamism breaking out. It is juvenile delinquence.
It is perhaps only natural that Americans, who consider the American population to be formally, and legally, Black, or White, or Hispanic, or American Indian, with rights and privileges and grievances running formally in bloodlines, and percentages of blood required to qualify for special legal status and the like, would simply look at a French person of North African lineage and say "Muslim". But the fact is that most North Africans of Muslim origin born in France are not Muslim at all. They are secular and French.
There are SOME Islamists and there is SOME transferrance of the religion. But that France is headed towards dhimmitude is preposterous. How does one count a metisse? Is she a Muslim or a Catholic? Especially if she practices neither religion.
There certainly IS a struggle to make sure that in schools young Beurs are properly indoctrinated in French culture, and the symbols of aggressive Islam be excluded from competition in the institutions of state. Clearly it is not in the interest of France for young people in the schools to be presented with the CHOICE between cultural Islam and its anti-egalitarian principles, and the values of France. This is why the head-scarf is excluded. But the process of education and secularization has been quite successful overall. Arab immigrants are Muslim. Their Beur children are on the cusp between France and North Africa, with secular France usually winning the day. Girlfriends and boyfriends help to speed this process along. And their children are French. This is the process of assimilation. It is generational.
"Flexibility in the use of high-wage inefficiencies will not build competitive resolve into a workforce."
Whatever, then, shall America do to preserve its textile jobs from all going to China, its engineering and backoffice work from being outsourced to India, its carpentry work from being taken by Brasilian and Polish immigrants, and the entirety of the manual labor force from being taken over by illegal Mexicans?
And as this happens and unemployment in America creeps up, what will be the solution? To reduce American pay and benefits until it equals Mexico?
And who will buy all of these fine products on such low wages?
And yet no-one speaks of America becoming Mexico Norte.
You must not read at this site very often, illegal immigration (from all countries) and lack of assimilation are often discussed.
Do you have any reason why your statistics of Muslim population vary so much from those often read? Wasn't there a demonstration recently where Muslims attacked French citizens?
Is this, perhaps, because the government does not think this is true?
Or because they do not think it matters?
Or because it is not in the interests of the people they represent to stop it?
I would recommend that you take a good look at Kosovo. Ask the Serbs if it made any difference that the Muslims multiplied like rabbits in Kosovo to the point where they effectively took it over. Empires often fall from within, not from without.
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