Why Does France's 'Islam Problem' Seem Familiar?
They're just starting to confront their U.S.-style "underclass" dilemma--and theirs may be worse.
By Mickey Kaus
Updated Tuesday, July 9, 2002, at 2:08 AM PT

Chris Caldwell delivers by far the best American article I've seen on France's Islam problem, which includes the growth of an American-style underclass of Muslim immigrants. ("Fifty percent of France's unemployed are Muslims.") Among other points -- this isn't a SkipperTM! -- 1) Caldwell makes it clear why it's not crazy or racist for French voters to conclude (as 63 percent concluded in one poll two years ago) that there are "too many Arabs" in the country. Islam, unlike Catholicism, Judaism, etc, has "confounded every governmental attempt to assimiliate it into Frances' sternly secular order;" 2) Caldwell offers yet more evidence of the connection between welfare and terrorism -- French welfare subsidizes a macho Arab ghetto culture that supplies Islamic fundamentalism with angry young men; 3) Saudi Arabia subsidizes the most important Muslim organization, extreme in its religious conservatism; 4) "Of the country's 230 major imams, none is French." 5) France is following America's steps in dealing with it's underclass, as predicted by political scientist Larry Mead. The French have just discovered affirmative action, for example....Caldwell doesn't offer much of a solution, and seems to argue that France's secular order, in which religion is kicked out of the "public square," is vulnerable because it can't be defended with the same ardor as America's version of church/state separation, in which public life is permeated by religion. ... But what about welfare reform? Just a thought! ..

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As the French often say to me in praise, "Tu es completement debile".

-philw