Honors Forum Response

Upon examination of the situation in France concerning immigrants, most of which are Algeria, the problem is quite concrete, but the solution to that problem is multifaceted and complex. The minority immigrants are disadvantaged economically and socially. Economically, they cannot find employment as easily as their “traditional” French counterparts can. This stems from the lack of good education for immigrants and their children. They cannot be expected to compete efficiently with traditional French if they are not given equal educational opportunity. This brings another point up, if the minority immigrants were given equal education, would they compete better? Lets look at their social situation. Because of their faith, and even more so, race they would face discrimination and would be barely better off. Because of their inability to find high paying jobs, the immigrants and their children will be forced to take positions no traditional French would want. This would be compounded be the decrease of the service labor market. Taking these “grunt” labor jobs, their social situation would get worse, and as their social situation gets worse, it will be more difficult to rise economically. Thus, these immigrants are caught in a vicious cycle.

However, the situation is similar to that of blacks in America. Even after emancipation, they faced economic problems and social problems, worse than those in France today. The government was responsible for abolishing slavery. Technically, they were “free”, but in reality they were not. Sill bound by social problems such as discrimination and hence poor economic opportunities. It took a century and more until blacks were on relative equal footing. Throughout his process of assimilation, there was legislation passed to help blacks, numerous associations to lobby the government for reform, and finally there many clear leaders withing the black civil rights movement. Keeping this in mind, I would say that in order to reform France and make it a better place for immigrants, it will need: government action, support of the French people, unification of immigrants, and time.

The government cannot sit back and use their policy of laissez faire. Politicians such as Sarkozy cannot take a cavalier attitude towards this situation. They need to pass legislation that forbids discrimination in the job marked. The government should also be sure to allow for trials involving alleged discrimination, as many reforms in America came out of our judicial system. Immigrant communities need to unify and form organizations that lobby the government to pass reforms. Riots and mobs will not work. The French revolution sprung out of riots because nearly the whole population erupted in riot. They will need to gain power within the government to make a lasting difference. Of course even with reforms, they will need the support of the French populace. Finally, time is required to fix this situation. This reforms cannot take place over night, it could take years (just look at America). What is happening in France is an example of what could happen in America and other nations as the world continues to “shrink”. We should learn from the situation in France.