European politics

[Cosi bel do]

Continuing here :

Well, a conceptual distinction between democracy as in "universal suffrage" and democracy as in "rule of law and constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms and rights" can of course be made. In reality, though, they can´t be separated. I know of no country without suffrage where the rule of law reigns and freedoms and rights are respected, while the reverse is all too common: plenty of countries with suffrage where the rule of law is conspicuously absent and the situation of rights and freedoms is disastrous.

There is one more aspect that must be noticed: in general, the smaller the country (or the population), the better functioning of democracy. If I´m not mistaken, you are French; would you agree that Denmark is a more functional democracy than France? I mean, they have much less corruption, if at all, and are much less divided politically and economically than the French. (Of course, I mean no disrespect to France or the French people, I have lived there for almost two years and it was a very pleasant time of my life.)

Well, at least in this case we should only speak of representative democracy. I still believe other systems could work but I'm not sure I'll try making a revolution for it

Of course one could say France is a dysfunctional democracy in several ways. I don't really know Denmark though (except their extraordinary socioeconomic indicators). Anyway, I think size is a problem as soon as you can't gather everyone on the agora once in a while. You just have to deal with it. There are things that ought to be changed in France but it still is one of the better functioning democracies around.

As for political divide I'm not sure it should be considered as an issue. Democracy is fundamentally defined not by consensus but by disagreement, dissensus. Without divide there are no politics in the true aristotelian sense of the word.

Exactly.


Sure, but there is a threshold beyond which disagreement and division turns into resentment and political civil war, everyone demonizing everybody else not of his own party or persuasion, and this is not good.

Yes, and this is the original difference between democracy and stasis. This description fits more with American politics than with France though.

Maybe, but in France there is also a massive denigration of Marine Le Pen and her electorate, or so I had the impression during, and just after, the last elections. I don´t like her ideas and I´d never vote for her were I a French, but if she gains such popularity something must certainly be wrong in the French political establishment and its policies.

Indeed. There are some serious problems in Europe that the major parties resolutely refuse to face. That opens the door to extremist fringe parties. As we have been seeing in several countries.

I'm vague to avoid hijacking the thread. But I think if you just look at the issues some of the extreme parties, such as LePen's, or the BNP, have made hay with you'll see what I mean. Immigration and assimilation issues are clearly amongst them. Many people I think have concerns and the LePen type parties are paying attention.

[Cosi bel do]

So, about the Le Pen phenomenon (and other similar success by more or less far-right anti-EU parties in Europe), a couple things should be kept in mind.

- About the fact Le Pen is "denigrated". It might be true, but I don't think she has lessons to give to anyone. Her openly racist, anti-semitic and anti-democratic father has made his career on denigration. Things have slightly changed with her, but slightly only. I mean, when you listen to her or people around her, I don't really notice anything else than denigration.
But that's an interesting strategy for an "outsider" party, whatever its position on the political spectrum. They can denigrate everyone and say they are responsible for nothing, because they haven't hold power until now (at a national level anyway). In other words that is strict demagogy. When you are in politics, you always have to face demagogic movements, and their success is generally a symptom of the other's failures.

- It is interesting to notice that, if you take the votes count for each election in the past 20 or 30 years, votes for the Front National are very volatile, and they gained less voters than the two main parties lost (Parti Socialiste on the left, UDF/RPR/UMP on the right). This, the fact that there are many more smaller parties that are represented at every elections, and that the turnout is much lower, is the cause of the high proportion of votes for the Front National. They made 25% votes this year (European Elections, 4,7M) but lost a lot of votes since the 2012 Presidential election (6,4M which is their record, for "only" 18% votes). The FN had already 5,5M voters in 2002, and 4,5M in 1995...
I do therefore agree with the analysis of the FN scores as primarily a reject of "mainstream" parties. But the reject of mainstream parties is mainly visible by the huge abstention, and not in a tremendous support for the FN.

- This doesn't mean that the FN voters are not important, and that their votes don't mean anything. But it is complicated to conclude from high FN scores that there is a large discomfort towards immigration for instance : the fact is Le Pen has really changed a few ideas in her political discourse in a few years, promoting Keynesian economics and a strong State for instance, as directly opposed to what her father defended. I usually think people are not dumb and their support for an idea should be considered as mostly sincere, and not as a consequence of bad or misinformed choices. This doesn't mean there are no racists among FN voters. But this is probably not the first issue French voters, even when supporting Le Pen, thinks might be tackled today.

[Cosi bel do]

I'm vague to avoid hijacking the thread. But I think if you just look at the issues some of the extreme parties, such as LePen's, or the BNP, have made hay with you'll see what I mean. Immigration and assimilation issues are clearly amongst them. Many people I think have concerns and the LePen type parties are paying attention.

For the reasons I just discussed, this argument has a really limited relevance in my opinion. But let's take a closer look to each of the two issues you have underlined.

- Immigration is an essential part of any demography, and has always been a reality in Europe. Today, Europe is very fastly ageing and needs to grow its younger population if it wants to avoid being trapped in a situation where the older population can't be supported any longer by the younger one. This means an increase of natality, and a good level of immigration.
The first country that will face such a situation will be Germany. I'd say that Germany has the weakest economic potential in Europe and might be on the eve of a huge and lasting economic crisis. The challenge will be to avoid that the EU follows Germany into this abyss...
Without immigrants, Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, Poland, Portugal would lose half their population of working age before year 2080.



Also, numbers contradict the idea that immigration would be too high in Europe, and most of all in France. There are around 130.000 immigrants every year in France (it diminishes actually, they were around 170.000 only 5 years ago, and around 210.000 10 years ago). 130.000 immigrants (among which 55.000 from the EU), to be compared with the approx. 810.000 babies born every year. And it's quite fortunate there are as many immigrants, otherwise France would be a country of emigration : there are 90.000 natives leaving the country every year, which means the balanced immigration is 40.000 per year only.
By the way, immigration in France is among the lowest in the EU. But again, no EU country could to without immigrants.

- About assimilation, the issue is difficult to discuss because there is a lack of precise facts.
I know difficult suburbs quite well. If I might summarize the issue very shortly, the main trouble (in France at least) is with increasing poverty and unemployment, and with the fact that poor immigrants all arrive in the same places. When they gain social and economic power, they leave these places and more poor, uneducated immigrants come to live there. This is less a matter of "how many" than of how we consider immigrants should be treated and how they are socially and economically integrated.
The idea that European culture is in danger would be laughable if it wasn't so many times used in the media, and by politicians. There were recent discussions about the number of Muslim people in France. It seems there is a kind of consensus around the fact that there would be at least 10% Muslims in France (which would mean 6,6M), which would endanger French values, etc.
But when you take serious studies on religious affiliation, based on what religion people declare they have, you have 64% Catholics, 3% other Christians, 28% without religion... Then you still have the Jewish, the Buddhists, etc. I mean, there cannot be more than 100% of a population, right ? The issue is that there are dangerous confusion in certain studies between people bearing a name that "sounds" muslim, Muslim people, and Islamists. Many people immigrating from Arabic countries or even only born from immigrating parents or grandparents declare themselves as nonreligious. Also many people declare themselves as Muslims, but don't practice their religion except for the main celebrations (Aid, etc), as many Christians do with Easter and Christmas. I'm not sure any of these people represent a danger for Western culture (not more, I'd say, than the Jews were a danger for European culture in the 1930s for instance, but I suppose there will always be people to discuss that also).

The real issues, today, are social, economic, democratic issues. But of course it seems much easier to blame immigrants than to overturn bad economic decisions that have been made in the recent years. And it's much more satisfying for those who govern European countries. But I'd like to know what their scenario is when Le Pen is elected in France, or an equivalent in another European country, or when the UK gets out of the Union, or when a country finally decides to abandon the Euromark. Well, they'll probably blame someone else again...

[Phrygian]

A very interesting and important topic!  Western Europeans seem to have decided, decades ago, that breeding wasn't of much interest to them.  I lived in Europe during 2011, mostly in Austria.  In Vienna many fathers of very young children were significantly grey and when they had children there appeared to be usually just one!!  What I also observed, which is largely anecdotal and based on my experience, was:

(a)  increases in immigration, particularly from poorer countries; 
(b)  the indigenous Austrian population seemed more interested in owning dogs than having children (and these dogs were fetishised.  Same experience in France and Switzerland, it has to be said);
(c)  immigrant communities spoke little or no German and appeared disinterested, in the main, in Austrian culture and rituals;
(d)  the Austrians were very tolerant of all this, but discussion did tend to be driven 'underground';
(e)  new arrivals did not observe local courtesies and customs, such as giving up their seat on public transport for older (cough) people;
(f)  new arrivals were confined to certain areas and lack of integration was an observable consequence of this.
(g)  younger members of the population were generally far more accepting and tolerant of immigrants (this seems to apply in many western nations).

Much of war-torn Europe (particularly Germany and Austria) was re-built by immigrant populations, who later went on to own successful businesses and adopt the values and customs of the home country.

Cosi, claiming there's a 'lack of evidence' of a failure of immigrants to integrate just won't cut it.  People on the ground use their own experiences as "evidence" and there is sufficient disquiet in Western Europe about unchecked immigration - as opposed to the orderly migration of people, many of whom are chosen for their suitability and skills which will be productive and useful to the host nation.  The borders are now out of control;  any country which cannot determine its immigrant population is going to have a restive, dissatisfied population.

I disagree about your comments on German economic viability.  I'd say France is in much greater 'trouble' in this regard than Germany is or is likely to be.  Like the Americans, the Germans are about as "can do" as it gets!  Like Japan, they arose (phoenix-like) from the ashes of WW2 to become economic giants - and they paid war reparations as well.  (Whether or not you consider these reparations adequate is, of course, another debate.)

The fact is that the western hemisphere cannot accept willy-nilly whole populations of people from Africa, the Middle East or elsewhere who are seeking a better life.  Remember the old metaphor of the lifeboat?  There is a social and economic "cake" which has only a finite size to it;  more for everybody actually translates into LESS for everybody.  And shooting the messenger (aka Le Pen, or anyone of similar sentiment) isn't the answer.  Accepting that a population feels insecure and uneasy about immigration is the intelligent approach, as is expectation that new arrivals have a sense of responsibility and obligation to a host country.  These last two criteria seem to have been forgotten, or deliberately abandoned, in the new world of 'progressive' politics and 'social equality'.  At my age, I'm extremely doubtful about both paradigms - viewing these as pie-in-the-sky.  My question is this:  WHO WILL PAY?  (Or, as my sister says, "what is the opportunity cost?")  Somebody always pays.  More disturbingly, these same people who tell us what is good for us always look to OTHERS to do the paying.  "Others" - that disembodied entity of large resource and unbounded willingness and generosity. 

You are, of course, entitled to your dreams of a global utopia. 

[Ken B]

Well, I'm not going to get involved in this for several reasons. Not least of which is I am not European! Florestan suggested the rise of extreme parties suggested something seriously wrong with European politics. I agree. My point, Cosi, was that the major European and British parties, by refusing to discuss seriously issues around immigration -- not even as you have done here by arguing the issue -- and  adapting a "shut up he explained" approach are what has created the opportunity for LePen etc. If I care about issue X and all I get from the main parties is the back of their hand I might look elsewhere. Many have, and so LePen is suddenly a big deal. This is a criticism of the EU ruling elite not a statement either way on any issue.

[Cosi bel do]

A very interesting and important topic!  Western Europeans seems to have decided, decades ago, that breeding wasn't of much interest to them.  I lived in Europe during 2011, mostly in Austria.  In Vienna many fathers of very young children were significantly grey and when they had children there appeared to be usually just one!!  What I also observed, which is largely anecdotal and based on my experience, was:

(a)  increases in immigration, particularly from poorer countries; 
(b)  the indigenous Austrian population seemed more interested in owning dogs than having children (and these dogs were fetishised.  Same experience in France and Switzerland, it has to be said);
(c)  immigrant communities spoke little or no German and appeared disinterested, in the main, in Austrian culture and rituals;
(d)  the Austrians were very tolerant of all this, but discussion did tend to be driven 'underground';
(e)  new arrivals did not observe local courtesies and customs, such as giving up their seat on public transport for older (cough) people;
(f)  new arrivals were confined to certain areas and lack of integration was an observable consequence of this.
(g)  younger members of the population were generally far more accepting and tolerant of immigrants (this seems to apply in many western nations).

Again, if you have less children, you need immigration to maintain the workforce. It is quite basic demographics.
I agree with (f) and (g).
About increases in immigration, again, all facts and figures contradict this in the past 15-20 years at least. And this has nothing to do with legal or illegal immigration. Illegal immigration varies greatly depending on conflicts in neighbouring areas : the previous record was the year of the Arab spring, 2009, when 141.000 illegal immigrants entered EU. A new record could be set this year, but these are still very low numbers. The main issue is how many of these people die in Mediterranea, and how a business flourishes at exploiting their misery.
About the rest (ie bad education etc.) I see more whites who refuse to give their seats to older people than young blacks or Arabs. I don't mean to say whites are less well behaved, as there are more whites in general. But it's true that when young blacks or arabs speak loudly in the subway, or put their feet on seats, the reaction by older people is generally stronger. There's a word for that, and it is racism.
As I can usually notice, young people, whatever their origin, are really better behaved than older ones, in France at least.
About the language, the only categories I witness not learning French and keeping a very gregarious behaviour are Chinese and Pakistani immigrants. But this "refusal" of Western culture (according to your well-chosen terms) (a) doesn't apply to their children and (b) is not the point here, as the fear of foreigners applies to black and Arab muslims, mainly.

Cosi, claiming there's a 'lack of evidence' of a failure of immigrants to integrate just won't cut it.  People on the ground use their own experiences as "evidence" and there is sufficient disquiet in Western Europe about unchecked immigration - as opposed to the orderly migration of people, many of whom are chosen for their suitability and skills which will be productive and useful to the host nation.  The borders are now out of control;  any country which cannot determine its immigrant population is going to have a restive, dissatisfied population.

Well, the first part of this paragraph is right and wrong at the same time. When people vote FN in difficult suburbs (even some long time immigrants...) it is a clear reaction towards a local situation, which corresponds to point (f) you previously made.
But when FN gets big scores in small towns where there are virtually no immigrants, there can only be 2 categories of reasons : 1) reaction against immigration on another evidence than own experience (media frenzy around young immigrant criminals, etc.) or 2) other reasons than the "fear of a black (or muslim) planet".

For the second part, I just responded to these baseless assertions.

I disagree about your comments on German economic viability.  I'd say France is in much greater 'trouble' in this regard than Germany is or is likely to be.  Like the Americans, the Germans are about as "can do" as it gets!  Like Japan, they arose (phoenix-like) from the ashes of WW2 to become economic giants - and they paid war reparations as well.  (Whether or not you consider these reparations adequate is, of course, another debate.)

Well, that's not really a matter of agreement or disagreement. A country that has a fastly ageing population, high levels of savings (and low levels of consumption), and an economic activity heavily dependable of foreign demand, is a very fragile economy. Even more when it has mainly increased its exports by intra-EU trade, which means that its growth has depended on other countries staying in crisis.
I don't think Japan is an example of a healthy economy either.
The American economy is exactly the opposite : strong immigration, growing population, (generally) low unemployment, (almost) permanent growth, all that with a constant trade deficit (and public deficit also). Don't compare the US to Germany, for sure.

The fact is that the western hemisphere cannot accept willy-nilly whole populations of people from Africa, the Middle East or elsewhere who are seeking a better life.  Remember the old metaphor of the lifeboat?  There is a social and economic "cake" which has only a finite size to it;  more for everybody actually translates into LESS for everybody.  And shooting the messenger (aka Le Pen, or anyone of similar sentiment) isn't the answer.  Accepting that a population feels insecure and uneasy about immigration is the intelligent approach, as is expectation that new arrivals have a sense of responsibility and obligation to a host country.  These last two criteria seem to have been forgotten, or deliberately abandoned, in the new world of 'progressive' politics and 'social equality'.  At my age, I'm extremely doubtful about both paradigms - viewing these as pie-in-the-sky.  My question is this:  WHO WILL PAY?  (Or, as my sister says, "what is the opportunity cost?")  Somebody always pays.  More disturbingly, these same people who tell us what is good for us always look to OTHERS to do the paying.  "Others" - that disembodied entity of large resource and unbounded willingness and generosity. 

This is mostly a bunch of malthusian fantasies. I don't see where you find your economic or social "cake". Population in Europe was 187 millions in 1800, it is 742M today. Were people in 1800 living in better social and economic conditions then ?
First, without immigrants today, I think there wouldn't be any affordable restaurant in France, or any workforce to build anything. This has always been the case, as in almost developed country actually. And I don't think the idea to stop immigration and make educated people with their fancy diplomas work in kitchens and on building sites would really be efficient.
But I'm afraid you mix a lot of things here, maybe personal fears also, because I can't always see your logic. Someone has to pay for what exactly ?

Again, I said voters should be considered as intelligent and voting for what they believe. So when Le Pen says that, in France, immigration is not the main issue today, and that Brussels policies and the Euro are more important things to tackle, I don't see why I should consider that her voters really express a form of concern against immigration. I'm not the one who doesn't respect the voters here.

Also, you should ask your sister for a good definition of ppportunity cost .

You are, of course, entitled to your dreams of a global utopia.

I would prefer if you didn't extrapolate what my "dreams" might be, as I didn't mention anything about that. Respecting your counterpart is a part of good manners, you know (as it seems you have a big concern about that).

[Cosi bel do]

Well, I'm not going to get involved in this for several reasons. Not least of which is I am not European! Florestan suggested the rise of extreme parties suggested something seriously wrong with European politics. I agree. My point, Cosi, was that the major European and British parties, by refusing to discuss seriously issues around immigration -- not even as you have done here by arguing the issue -- and  adapting a "shut up he explained" approach are what has created the opportunity for LePen etc. If I care about issue X and all I get from the main parties is the back of their hand I might look elsewhere. Many have, and so LePen is suddenly a big deal. This is a criticism of the EU ruling elite not a statement either way on any issue.

I also agree with Florestan on this, and repeated something like that above. But again, I really don't see how, when considering the rejection of mainstream parties, immigration is supposed to be the reason of it.
There are repeated polls that evaluate what are the main political concerns among the population, and the results are comparable in all countries. In France, employment is by far the first concern, followed social rights, purchasing power, economic growth, social inequities. Far above insecurity or immigration. So when people say "more jobs, more rights, more money, more equity", you say that in the end they mean "less immigrants" ?

You'll certainly not hear me defending parties that have governed most European countries in the last 20 years, or the way EU is ruled and conceived as a whole.

[Ken B]

"you'll certainly hear me defending parties that have governed most European countries in the last 20 years"

Then you are a brave, brave man.

(I assume and hope this is a typo on your part)

[Cosi bel do]

No it isn't !

(Yes it is )

[Ken B]

I see the Ukraine is experiencing an upswing in either tourism or immigration today.

[Florestan]

Great thread, thanks for starting it, Cosi!

Right now I´m too tired to read the posts thoroughly but I´ll surely chime in soon.

[Florestan]

- About the fact Le Pen is "denigrated". It might be true, but I don't think she has lessons to give to anyone. Her openly racist, anti-semitic and anti-democratic father has made his career on denigration. Things have slightly changed with her, but slightly only. I mean, when you listen to her or people around her, I don't really notice anything else than denigration.

Fair enough. This is exactly the case with the leader of the Romanian nationalist and xenophobic Greater Romania Party, a former court poet and adulator of Ceausescu and his wife, and a person just fit for confinement in a mental asylum. His rude invectives and insults are spread fairly against all other parties and politicians. This, however, did not impede the current prime-minister and presidential candidate, who had been a constant target for the last 2 years, to gladly and gratefully accept his support for the run-off next Sunday. 

But that's an interesting strategy for an "outsider" party, whatever its position on the political spectrum. They can denigrate everyone and say they are responsible for nothing, because they haven't hold power until now (at a national level anyway). In other words that is strict demagogy. When you are in politics, you always have to face demagogic movements, and their success is generally a symptom of the other's failures.

That´s precisely my point. Le Pen capitalizes on the failures of the mainstream parties.

- It is interesting to notice that, if you take the votes count for each election in the past 20 or 30 years, votes for the Front National are very volatile, and they gained less voters than the two main parties lost (Parti Socialiste on the left, UDF/RPR/UMP on the right). This, the fact that there are many more smaller parties that are represented at every elections, and that the turnout is much lower, is the cause of the high proportion of votes for the Front National. They made 25% votes this year (European Elections, 4,7M) but lost a lot of votes since the 2012 Presidential election (6,4M which is their record, for "only" 18% votes). The FN had already 5,5M voters in 2002, and 4,5M in 1995...
I do therefore agree with the analysis of the FN scores as primarily a reject of "mainstream" parties. But the reject of mainstream parties is mainly visible by the huge abstention, and not in a tremendous support for the FN.

Yes, but in democracy those who refrain from voting do not exist politically. It is those who vote that offer the political snapshot of a country, and among these there is a significant percentage of discontentment with mainstream politics and policies. The problem is that these parties stubbornly and blindly persist in pursuing them.

Le Pen has really changed a few ideas in her political discourse in a few years, promoting Keynesian economics and a strong State for instance, as directly opposed to what her father defended.

Was Jean-Marie Le Pen a classical liberal, economically speaking?

I usually think people are not dumb and their support for an idea should be considered as mostly sincere, and not as a consequence of bad or misinformed choices.

My experience (I´m speaking about Romania only) has taught me the exact opposite. Most people vote without having the slightest idea about what they vote, and it couldn´t be any other way because most people don´t have the slightest idea about the basics of economics, politics and law. How could they ponder the program of the party or the candidate they´re going to vote for, in the very unlikely case they read it? Most people´s vote is indeed the consequence of bad or misinformed choices.

[Florestan]

- Immigration is an essential part of any demography, and has always been a reality in Europe. Today, Europe is very fastly ageing and needs to grow its younger population if it wants to avoid being trapped in a situation where the older population can't be supported any longer by the younger one. This means an increase of natality, and a good level of immigration.

That is true. The problem is that the immigration reservoir is comprised mainly of Islamic countries, and their religious and social customs are often at variance with the values of the Western liberal democracy.

The real issues, today, are social, economic, democratic issues. But of course it seems much easier to blame immigrants than to overturn bad economic decisions that have been made in the recent years. And it's much more satisfying for those who govern European countries. But I'd like to know what their scenario is when Le Pen is elected in France, or an equivalent in another European country, or when the UK gets out of the Union, or when a country finally decides to abandon the Euromark. Well, they'll probably blame someone else again...

They have no such scenario. They just hope it won´t happen.

[Florestan]

As I can usually notice, young people, whatever their origin, are really better behaved than older ones, in France at least.

I lived in Grenoble between 1998 and 2000 and noticed the exact reverse, the worst offenders being young, uneducated and unemployed Arabs (no, I´m not racist, I just state what I saw and experienced; older or young educated Arabs were indistinguishable from their French counterparts.) Perhaps things have changed.

Well, the first part of this paragraph is right and wrong at the same time. When people vote FN in difficult suburbs (even some long time immigrants...) it is a clear reaction towards a local situation, which corresponds to point (f) you previously made.
But when FN gets big scores in small towns where there are virtually no immigrants, there can only be 2 categories of reasons : 1) reaction against immigration on another evidence than own experience (media frenzy around young immigrant criminals, etc.) or 2) other reasons than the "fear of a black (or muslim) planet".

Maybe, just maybe, they know just enough about the immigrant criminality in big cities (I hope you won´t deny it, the whole world has seen the riots in Paris and other cities), so they don´t want to witness it at home.

[Florestan]

the way EU is ruled and conceived as a whole.

The original idea was not bad, but it worsened as time went by. Nevertheless, EU must be reformed, drastically if need be, but not destroyed; its breakup would spell ruin not only to Europe...

[Cosi bel do]

Was Jean-Marie Le Pen a classical liberal, economically speaking?

Yes, a quite rare outspoken example of such convictions, in French politics.

My experience (I´m speaking about Romania only) has taught me the exact opposite. Most people vote without having the slightest idea about what they vote, and it couldn´t be any other way because most people don´t have the slightest idea about the basics of economics, politics and law. How could they ponder the program of the party or the candidate they´re going to vote for, in the very unlikely case they read it? Most people´s vote is indeed the consequence of bad or misinformed choices.

Many people think and say that, even in France. I generally find on the contrary that most voters precisely know why they vote for a candidate, and don't know much less than politicians themselves regarding economics, law, etc. Of course this is also the consequence of having an elite of ignorants, but this applies to France, I don't know for other countries.
The limit to this is that a very small minority of people might make misinformed choices that can have a huge impact on the outcome.

I lived in Grenoble between 1998 and 2000 and noticed the exact reverse, the worst offenders being young, uneducated and unemployed Arabs (no, I´m not racist, I just state what I saw and experienced; older or young educated Arabs were indistinguishable from their French counterparts.) Perhaps things have changed.

I don't say there are no "young Arab offenders". I said :
- I don't see young "whites" being generally better behaved than young "immigrants" (or generally descendants), in public transportation for instance. It just depends where you take the bus or the metro of course, if there are more descendants of immigrants in a neighborhood it's logical you'll notice them more.
- I don't see young people (whatever their possible origin) being as much a nuisance as older ones in general, when someone speaks loudly on the phone, gets on the metro without letting people come off, cuts in line, it is almost always someone more than 40, and even more frequently more than 60.

Maybe, just maybe, they know just enough about the immigrant criminality in big cities (I hope you won´t deny it, the whole world has seen the riots in Paris and other cities), so they don´t want to witness it at home.

I don't intend to deny anything. The fact is that young descendants of immigrants are overly represented among young (mostly petty) criminals. But this criminality, that I have had the opportunity to study quite closely, is 1) a nuisance for their own neighborhood (and has virtually no chance of spreading to other cities without, first, a change in population, a spread of poverty, etc.) and 2) first and foremost a danger for themselves. I've seen 8 or 10 years old in the drug business. I'm not sure voting against immigrants is the solution, drug clients are mostly whites from wealthy parts of the Paris area and this is a very common NIMBY case. In the end only these kids lives are definitely wasted.

About riots, this has been a hugely overblown thing. I'm not saying there have not been events and violences in a few (and not all) poor suburbs where the proportion of immigrants is high (but again, there are no "ghettos" in France and everywhere the majority remains "French of French origin", if that has even a sense here). But this is also the result of a perverse conception of these places and their issues. The only political reaction is when there are violent events on the media. And this reaction is generally wrong (ie investing billions in tearing down neighborhoods to build them again, without the slightest change in population, social conditions, etc.).

Again, how suburbs are populated is a crucial part of the issue. There are no ghettos per se, but the social housing system allows for an organized high concentration of immigrants (and, as a consequence, their descendants) in a few cities and neigborhoods. If these populations were not knowingly concentrated in suburbs where they are already too many, of course it would not solve everything (and many of those families would still have financial and social difficulties), but concentrating problems increases the risk of dramatic consequences (criminality, religious extremism, etc).
I've discussed with old Arab or black people, immigrants themselves, complaining : "there are too many foreigners", "we're tired of these young black/arab voyous", etc. Some of them vote for Le Pen or even, locally, for stronger anti-immigration parties. Again, it doesn't mean there are too many immigrants in France. It means that 50 years concentrating POOR and undereducated immigrants in very particular neighborhoods can only lead to a great variety of bad consequences.

[Florestan]

Yes, a quite rare outspoken example of such convictions, in French politics.

How he could reconcile classical liberalism with nationalism and xenophobia is beyond me.

Many people think and say that, even in France. I generally find on the contrary that most voters precisely know why they vote for a candidate, and don't know much less than politicians themselves regarding economics, law, etc. Of course this is also the consequence of having an elite of ignorants, but this applies to France, I don't know for other countries.

Valid also for Romania, and indeed a good point worth stressing: the politicians themselves are ignorant.

50 years concentrating POOR and undereducated immigrants in very particular neighborhoods can only lead to a great variety of bad consequences.

Agreed, but who designed, implemented and supported, against all evidence to the bad results it yields, this stupid and self-defeating policy if not all mainstream parties that governed France for 50 years, left and right alike? The FN claim they never had significant power, and they are right, demagogic as they are; what can the mainstream parties claim in their defence? They had all the power they wanted and the results are catastrophic in this respect.

[kishnevi]

How he could reconcile classical liberalism with nationalism and xenophobia is beyond me.

Easily.  After all that same combination describes the Republicans in the USA.

[Florestan]

Easily.  After all that same combination describes the Republicans in the USA.

Easily? Classical liberalism presupposes the free circulation of people and commodities, while nationalism always and everywhere advocated for trade tariffs and quotas. How one can combine them in a viable policy is beyond me.

[Ken B]

Just thinking ahead here. When the time comes we can re-name the Russian Politics thread, right?