Problems from Across the Pond 2

This is the second installment in a series concerning the problem of immigration in France. This issue takes place principally with the group known as the Maghrebins which is a blanket term used for people of Algerian, Moroccan or Tunisian descent. The figure now hovers around five million of these Maghrebins in France, a country of sixty million people.
France has worked to paint itself as a beacon of light in Europe by adapting a socialist political ideology. There are a couple reasons why the Maghrebins choose to come to France. The first and most important reason that they come to France is the security that the government affords immigrants. This security comes not only from an economic aspect but a social one as well. Somehow, either the government or society has made it such that it is acceptable to be an undocumented person living in France and reaping the benefits of a socialist government. Over the past few decades this topic of immigration has become taboo, thus making it less likely that the issue will be discussed seriously in a political forum. France has a system of social security that gives money to people unable to provide for themselves (similar to the American system but on a much larger scale). They also have a very loosely monitored universal health care system. What I mean by loosely monitored is that basically anyone that may be able to get their hands on documentation of some sort, whether legal or not, could head into any hospital unannounced and receive medical attention for little to no cost. If I were an immigrant is a third world country this would sound awesome, free money and health care. The French people see a problem with the fact that people can just come to their country and easily benefit from the tax money that they contribute each year. There is an even larger issue that goes along with this, the issue of national identity which French President Nicolas Sarkozy has launched a campaign to define, which will be the focus of my next post.

This previous viewpoint was explained with information provided by a very conservative older, and natural born French person. But I am attempting to cover both sides of the issue, so I found a family friend who is 17 to give me his opinion on the issue. He began, interestingly enough by telling me that me referring to it as an issue or a problem was getting off on the wrong foot. He sees no problem at all, the situation is all just a matter of circumstances. In France, the bad neighborhoods form in the outskirts of major cities, this term is commonly referred to as the banlieu. Poor immigrants, when looking for a place to immigrate to in France gravitated to these already struggling neighborhoods. It just so happened that a very good percentage of the people immigrating happened to be of Arab descent, thus forming a relatively large Arab population in France. The 17-year-old proceeded to explain to me why crime became a staple of the banlieu. The reason is simply that there is nothing to do there, so people resort to crime to pass the time. So, when all these circumstances are taken into consideration, Arab crime is just a product of the environment. Crime occurs in the banlieu because there is nothing else to do, and it just so happens that there is an overwhelming Arab population so they get a lot of heat for being the cause of crime in France.
These are the two contrasting viewpoints on the issue, coming from both ends of the political spectrum. I won’t give my opinion just yet, but I will share in the third and final installment in this series of posts.