To Young French, London Means a "Gateway to Globalization"

This week's Economist describes the cross-section of French who pull up stakes and move to London, seeking work, adventure and the chance to master English. 

The archetype of this exodus, explains the piece, is the French "banker with children at the Lycée Francais in [the upscale neighborhood] South Kensington... who misses the food and weather of home." Indeed, The City's status as a global financial and business hub, not to mention its lower tax rates on income and personal wealth, make it an enticing destination for ambitious French who have money or want to make it. Many London-based French complain of the strictures of their often upper-class social codes and expectations, which they are free to customize or discard completely through a new life in the British capital. 

The international smorgasbord of London offers an intoxicating feast to those seeking cultural and culinary adventure. "It's hard to go back once you have tasted the internationalism here," explains one Gallic expat. A senior official from the French consulate likewise dubbed the city a "gateway to globalization"  for mobile and willing French professionals. Some of these are fleeing the economic doldrums of Ireland, where they had gone to launch business and careers; reluctant to head home, they're giving themselves a second chance in the UK. And language is a key draw for French of all social strata, and many lower-middle- and middle-class strivers elect to work summers or longer stints as waiters, au pairs and odd-jobbers in exchange for increased fluency in the language of Shakespeare.

One detail of the article's Franco-centric globalization deserves underscoring: In the 2012 elections there will be for the first time a representative in France's Assemblée Nationale -- equivalent to the U.S. House of Representatives -- for all French citizens living in the UK and Northern Europe. The capital for the French diaspora in this part of the world is London by overwhelming numbers: the same French consulate approximates the Hexagon's population in London as some 400,000, perhaps the capital's largest minority nationality.

Watch this space for more on the French député for London and European points north, as well as Franco-British developments on either side of the Channel.

Turkish Disenchantment with Europe and the West

This article from Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish national and 2006 Nobel laureate in literature, merits a partial re-post from a (rare) EurAm link to The New York Review of Books. Pamuk underscores Turkey's bilateral relationships with France and Germany, couching these into telescoping perspectives on the European Union, "Europe generally," to borrow his apt phrase, and the West at large. 

His view is primarily that of a capital-C Culture angle: he sprinkles references to it throughout the piece, shooting as high as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, as low as Gauloises cigarettes. Pamuk is the intellectual's intellectual, forever able to flaunt his consecration by the Nobel kingmakers. What follows is a surveying of the global landscape from a Turkish vantage point, synthesized from a breadth of subject awareness enviable by any opinion leader.

"That Turkey and other non-Western countries are disenchanted with Europe is something I know from my own travels and conversations... There are also the emotional responses whose significance can best be explained by the example of relations with France. Over the past century, successive generations of the Turkish elite have faithfully taken France as their model, drawing on its understanding of secularism and following its lead on education, literature, and art. So to have France emerge over the past five years as the country most vehemently opposed to the idea of Turkey in Europe has been heartbreaking and disillusioning. It is, however, Europe’s involvement in the war in Iraq that has caused the keenest disappointment in non-western countries, and in Turkey, real anger. The world watched Europe being tricked by Bush into joining this illegitimate and cruel war, while showing immense readiness to be tricked. [italics EurAm]

When looking at the landscape of Europe from Istanbul or beyond, the first thing one sees is that Europe generally (like the European Union) is confused about its internal problems. It is clear that the peoples of Europe have a lot less experience than Americans when it comes to living with those whose religion, skin color, or cultural identity are different from their own, and that many of them do not warm to the prospect: this resistance to outsiders makes Europe’s internal problems all the more intractable. The recent discussions in Germany on integration and multiculturalism—particularly its large Turkish minority—are a case in point.

As the economic crisis deepens and spreads, Europe may be able, by turning in on itself, to postpone its struggle to preserve the culture of the “bourgeois” in Flaubert’s sense of the word, but that will not solve the problem. When I look at Istanbul, which becomes a little more complex and cosmopolitan with every passing year and now attracts immigrants from all over Asia and Africa, I have no trouble concluding that the poor, unemployed, and undefended of Asia and Africa who are looking for new places to live and work cannot be kept out of Europe indefinitely. Higher walls, tougher visa restrictions, and ships patrolling borders in increasing numbers will only postpone the day of reckoning. Worst of all, anti-immigration politics, policies, and prejudices are already destroying the core values that made Europe what it was.

In the Turkish schoolbooks of my childhood there was no discussion of democracy or women’s rights, but on the packets of Gauloises that French intellectuals and artists smoked (or so we thought) were printed the words “liberté, égalité, fraternité” and these were much in circulation. “Fraternité” came to stand for the spirit of solidarity and resistance promoted by movements of the left. But callousness toward the sufferings of immigrants and minorities, and the castigation of Asians, Africans, and Muslims now leading difficult lives in the peripheries of Europe—even holding them solely responsible for their woes—are not “brotherhood.”

One can understand how many Europeans might suffer anxiety and even panic as they seek to preserve Europe’s great cultural traditions, profit from the riches it covets in the non-Western world, and retain the advantages gained over so many centuries of class conflict, colonialism, and internecine war. But if Europe is to protect itself, would it be better for it to turn inward, or should it perhaps remember its fundamental values, which once made it the center of gravity for all the world’s intellectuals?"

 

US Congress, Anonymous Official Step in to EU Roma Row

When the EU-neglectful United States Congress interjects, it's serious. Democrats Benjamin Cardin (MD) and Alcee L. Hastings, and another official insisting on anonymity have criticized France's deportations of the Roma as a "shell game" for minority migration laws that have often played against the country's Muslim population, the largest in Europe. See the full story from EUobserver.

Islam, Immigration and Official Response in France and the US

This just in from blogger and Figaro journalist Valérie Samson: a report from Deaborn, Michigan, on the US' largest concentration on Muslims and their feelings vis-à-vis their adopted (or for the younger generations, home) country. Available here in either French or English.

Art Goldhammer weighs in on Sarkozy's recent moves on immigration. For an example and first-person perspective, watch the police break-up of a protest by illegal immigrants (see video here). Today's Guardian (UK) describes Sarkozy's administration as "characterized by increasingly widespread social disorder."

Correction On Sen. Kyl's Words

My sincere apologies go to any readers who read what I posted earlier today from a Huffington Post front-page article claiming that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) called explicitly to repeal the 14th Amendment, which guarantees US citizenship to anyone born within US borders. See the following correction from the original CBS News article, to which the HuffPost article linked:

"EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier edit of this story suggested that Sen. Kyl supported repealing the 14th Amendment's guarantee of citizenship. While the senator has proposed hearings on the Constitution's guarantees on citizenship and what he terms a "reward" for parents who are in the country illegally, Kyl's communications director Andrew Wilder said that "he did not call for the 'repeal' of the 14th Amendment." "

Again, I regret and am sorry the spread of misinformation took place on EurAmerican. Special thanks to follower GF for calling me on this. Make sure to leave similar or separate comments on this or any other post. 

French Police Forcibly Break Up Demonstration -- Global Immigration Debate Boils Ever Hotter

In the Paris suburb of La Corneuve on Monday, police forcibly evicted a group of mostly African immigrant squatters who were protesting the demolition of the building where they lived. French online newsgroup Mediapart posted the above video of the chaos. Note: this video contains scenes of physical and emotional duress that may shock viewers.

Reports following the event varied wildly. Police from the local Seine-Saint-Denis precinct released a statement claiming the eviction was carried out in "relatively good conditions," reports CBS News' World Watch department. But local Socialist Party official Stéphane Troussel chose far more damning words.

"Faced with his failure in the suburbs, it is tempting for [French President] Nicolas Sarkozy and his government to abandon working-class neighborhoods or to try and rein them in through showy and highly publicized security operations," he said to news channel Somalia24.

The Corneuve eviction comes at a time of high-heat global immigration polemics, from the debate on Turkish accession into the EU to the highly controversial Arizona law that would seem to legalize racial profiling against Hispanic-looking people in the US. Tensions continue to mount, as the no. 2 Senate Republican, Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) calls for no less than a repeal of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees American citizenship to all those born in the US -- regardless of citizenship status of the newborn's parents.

1:40PM -- This just in: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli OKs immigration status checks by police in his state (and my home state)... Will VA become a de facto Arizona on the immigration question? AND: The Huffingon Post puts up this editorial riff on anti-mosque sentiment in America. Reminds me of my piece on the minaret construction row in Switzerland from EuropeanAffairs.org.