SPIEGEL ONLINE - November 8, 2005, 03:02 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,383848,00.html

German Papers
French Lessons for Europe?
As violence involving disgruntled French immigrant youths continues, many German newspapers are turning their gaze inwards and are calling on Germany to learn from France's integration woes.

AP A firefighter extinguishes a car in Les Mureaux, northwest of Paris.

Following the 12th night of rioting across France, officials in Paris have declared a state of emergency. That will allow Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy to impose curfews in those districts that continue to experience chaos. The government hopes to regain control in the neglected suburbs by increasing the number of police from 1,500 to 9,500. Fewer cars were set alight on Monday evening, but German commentators are still calling the violence in France a wake-up call to deal with Germany's own integration issues.
The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung, for example, tackles the issue of Germany's education system and its failure to eliminate growing economic inequality. "In France buildings and cars are burning, in Germany there is a burning social question," writes the paper. Society in Germany has been transformed since the 1950s and 1960s from broad affluence to a new class system, in which the underclass is made up of immigrants and their children. Each year thousands of school kids leave the vocational high schools with no qualifications and they are usually kids living in cities from broken families, often from an immigrant background. These schools have become "minority schools, underclass schools, schools for the losers of the education system" and the new social question needs a new answer, calling "the school as a place for correcting fate." This is then connected with criminality, particularly that of unemployed youth, social marginalization cannot be ended by the police. The best policy for combatting crime is a good social policy, comments the paper.
The right-wing daily Die Welt mentions that one of the first acts of French President Jacques Chirac in 1995 was to abolish compulsory military service, which the paper believes served an integrating function. Although possibly it would have just made the rioters better shots? While the newspaper sympathizes with the plight of "a lost generation" whose hate of the state is grounded in unemployment and racism, it urges the government not to lose the monopoly of force and it "must not be allowed to capitulate to the marauding mob". It then goes on to exclaim "the country is burning and Chirac no longer has the strength to put out the flames. Where is a second De Gaulle?"

NEWSLETTER Sign up for Spiegel Online's daily newsletter and get the best of Der Spiegel's and Spiegel Online's international coverage in your In-Box everyday.

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung points out that while it is right to differentiate between the no-go areas of the French ghettos and areas of social marginalization in Germany, there is a similar ignorance on the part of the politicians and society about the growing social powder keg on their doorstep. In France official policy aimed at increasing educational and employment opportunities, has just been "a tranquilizer, that has had no effect." It warns German politicians not to be too sure that the French problems are not coming their way.
The left-wing newspaper Berliner Zeitung comments that although Berlin doesn't yet have Parisian-style ghettoes, it should be glad that the city has a bit of time to prepare for similar unrest, rather than thinking it can escape the same fate. It would be a mistake to blame the civil unrest on the "amour fou" of the French for mounting the barricades. Europe can only tackle its immigration problems together, it writes. "We have to do everything possible for integration. That means: we have to change. A Europe that reduces entire economic areas to begging, because it spends hundreds of millions supporting its own agriculture, has no more money left to integrate those poor farmers who have been displaced from their homelands." The paper concludes that the EU is now so globalized it must act together.
The business paper Financial Times Deutschland opines that action must be taken in Germany before its too late. Does anyone expect anything more from the coalition talks than a few hastily written paragraphs on integration and maybe a million or two for education and social projects? The poor prospects for unemployed youths is the flip side of the deep economic crisis in Germany. Long term unemployment, welfare cuts and a low income sector is tied up with problem areas and the problem of integrating poorly educated immigrants. "Immigrants' chances of integration and social climbing are dependent on the situation on the job market," writes the paper, adding that unemployment among foreigners is twice as high as it is for Germans. The next government has to push through job market reforms and a growth-friendly policy in order to create job prospects for those with little or no qualifications. Otherwise it is left to well-meaning integration plans that achieve nothing.

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2005
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH