While my country, the UK, like other countries, supports a multi-cultural approach, France tries to make different immigrant cultures adopt much of French culture. Yet France has had more Islamic terrorist attacks than most other western countries. Is this due to their trying to force other cultures to integrate? Does this approach just stir up more hostility?
I have always been critical of multi-culturalism. I have never liked the way that, in some places, you have the people of Caribbean heritage living in one part of town, and those of Asian descent somewhere else, and the Chinese over there, while the white people are here. I always thought that the way it is, where I live, with the races integrated, is better. But the French experience may be proving me wrong. Perhaps it is because the government there tries to force integration to happen. What do you think?
I came from Chicago, Harry. The town had people from different ethnic backgrounds living together yet separate because they needed each other and were familiar with customs brought from the original country either they or their parents were from initially. The Polish lived in an area, the Italians in another, the Orientals in another the Hispanics in another and the Blacks in another etc.
Nothing much was made of this. It kept the cultures alive and vital. It was fun to go to China Town and buy stuff and sample exotic dishes.
It was when the Blacks were mistreated, the Puerto Ricans treated like less than dirt the Asians were not too much better off and the dissention between black and white caused me to re-think the "romantic fun" of a multi-cultural town and realize that people do not play nice. Racism in America I am very familiar with and I grew up in an area where I saw it on a daily basis, without realizing it until I hit my teens. That was when Martin Luther King came into the American stage.
So, I imagine France has similar issues.
As far as the UK is concerned, I cannot get behind their mindset either. I see them as a conquering people who want power. I don't see them as open-minded, accepting of all peoples kind of a country. I hope I am wrong about this. I have never even been there. If everyone gets along there now? I would be very surprised. I think it is a very elitist place where the rich profit and the poor get the shaft. But, I am digressing.
I just know their bloody damned history and desire to command and control other areas that they never had any business entering in the first place. Just like America. And of course, like any conquering country in history, including France.
The upside of keeping cultures alive is that we do not lose any of that valuable history and what made them a great people. The downside is that if we keep that up, the differences can maybe infringe on their neighbor's quality of life.
The upside of a homogenized society where everyone interacts with one another on every level is more peace maybe, but less individuality. I think of China with those robots saluting Chairman Mao and it makes my blood turn cold.
There has to be a happy medium. I cannot see an answer.
France has very lax gun control laws. That MUST be the reason!
(Apparently they don't do Universal Background Checks before issuing driver's licenses either.)
Because of discrimination, lack of education and poverty.
If you're talking why some Islamist extremist group targets France maybe it's something to do with their policy that they don't agree with (from not killing all non-virgin unmarried women to participating in international interference/intervention in the warring hellholes (civil wars, ethic conflicts, despots)). You would notice that megapowers usually care little to nothing about other countries unless it affects them (stability or economically). Many of the leaders they helped 'elect' in disastrous regions are extremists themselves. (dictators, terrorist).
First of all, it's not clear that France necessarily suffers more terrorist attacks than other countries. In fact, if you look at the WikiPedia list of terrorist attacks (slightly out-of-date), France's name does not stand out at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks
Instead, what we can say is France gets an unusual number of terrorist attacks WHICH ATTRACT MEDIA ATTENTION. The day after the well-publicized attack in Paris in 2015, there was an ISIS terrorist attack in Beirut, Lebanon which killed several tens of people. It received 1/100th the media coverage of the Paris attack.
To the extent one might argue France has more trouble with Islamist terrorism than other Western European countries, I think much of that stems from France's long-standing colonial and post-colonial ties with Algeria. Those ties have created an Arab/Muslim subculture within France which is more inviting to Arabs/Muslims emigrants than other countries in Europe. But that's more of an educated guess than a well-supported thesis.
lately, you mean?
bad luck... opportunistic hate-mongering by terrorists who are probably on a budget, and with other such constraints, will always be going on in some place or another. no place is immune. eventually that area will become unpalatable for them and they will find another place that speaks to them for whatever reason.
I can only compare France with the UK Harry - my knowledge of the rest of Europe is nowhere near adequate to address your question. In this comparison there are several reasons I can think of.
The first is integration. Not of peoples, but of information. The UK has a fairly decent record in recent decades of sharing information between authority groups under the umbrella of 'government'. So while it's not perfect by any means, the UK tends to share information between intelligence gathering agencies and police, and between police and police, rather better than many other European nations.
The main reason for this information sharing is, unfortunately, the experience the UK had with Irish terrorism, specifically between the 1960s ad the 1990s. UK intelligence forces learned very hard lessons, and have adjusted themselves over decades to reduce the chances of them being repeated.
France has (I think) about half a dozen intelligence agencies, and they don't have a culture of communication because until recently they haven't really needed to have one. So we get the growth of little ivory towers within agencies and a more protectionist approach to what these agencies deal in - information. I believe in all - or at least almost all - recent terrorist attacks in France, lack of dissemination of information has been identified as a prime factor.
The second reason is a geographical one. It's far easier to cross a border if the border is a land one rather than a water one. That little strip of water has moulded the history of the UK (and by extension much of the rest of Europe too) for centuries and continues to do so.
The third reason I can think of is the Schengen Agreement, and the UK not being part of it. It is obviously far easier to travel if you have to endure only limited security checks. The simple equation is more checks = more difficulties for would-be criminals.
There are probably more - I think Old School's mention of Algerian involvement provides some possible answers too, but I'm too ignorant of that part of their history to make sense of it.
I think it's mostly because the French are governed by pussies.
