Europe faces 'fear of all things foreign'

Europe faces 'fear of all things foreign'

Simon Tisdall
Wednesday November 9, 2005
The Guardian

Watching the French riots with a mixture of trepidation and
schadenfreude, Europe's rulers have arrived at two conclusions. One
is that the violence is a peculiarly French affair, the product of
colour blind republicanism and bungling by an out-of-touch elite. The
other is it will not happen here. Both conclusions are questionable.

"The conditions in France are different from the ones we have here -
we don't have giant apartment blocks," said Germany's foreign affairs
adviser Wolfgang Schäuble. Appearing to blame French police tactics,
Tony Blair said Britain was different, too. When opposition leader
Romano Prodi suggested Italy could be next, he was accused of being
alarmist.

But problems of discrimination, youth unemployment - half of the
detained French rioters are under 18 - racial prejudice, religious
intolerance, and xenophobia induced by fear of terrorism and
globalisation are entrenched in most European countries, said Aurore
Wanlin of the Centre for European Reform. And they have potential to
cause more explosions.

"There is a debate in every society about how to integrate minorities
and migrants, especially unskilled workers at times of economic
difficulty," Ms Wanlin said. "But they don't agree what to do so this
debate is usually very quiet. There is a lack of visibility about the
problem - until there's a crunch like in France and suddenly it
cannot be avoided. So you cannot say it will not happen somewhere
else. It will, although probably in a different form."

Undercurrents of antipathy are discernible across Europe. The
Netherlands was traumatised by last November's murder of the film-
maker Theo van Gogh. The killing crystallised fears about
international terrorism and national identity in a country where 20%
of the population is of foreign descent. It also led to attacks on
mosques.

Like the Nordic countries, Germany prides itself on its
integrationist approach to its 2.5 million-strong Turkish minority.
But joblessness in immigrant communities is double the national
average and youth unemployment affects one in three. Tensions were
also apparent during a spate of "honour killings" that shocked Berlin
earlier this year.

Spain, with one million Muslims, is struggling to repel illegal
migrants from North Africa, a problem also faced by Italy. After what
he termed "the recent tragic events at Spain's borders with Morocco",
José Luis Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, bravely proposed a
"Euro-African ministerial conference on immigration". At least Mr
Zapatero is trying to build bridges. Marcello Pera, speaker of the
Italian senate and devout Catholic, complained about "mongrel"
Europe. It is not a big jump from there to the incendiary comments of
France's Nicolas Sarkozy about "riff-raff".

Europe's failure to agree on how to deal with its principal
minorities, or even how to address them, extends to the EU itself, Ms
Wanlin said. "The EC has been trying to develop guidelines on
integration but the issues are so sensitive that it has been
difficult to find common ground."

And while Europe's governments fumble, the rise of far-right
political parties represented another trend that could trigger
trouble, she said. "The advance of the extreme right is an expression
of a degree of racism in Europe but more deeply ... social malaise -
fear of anything foreign."

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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