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Europe Fears Violence Similar to France's
Europeans expressed fears Monday of copycat outbreaks of violence among their immigrant communities as rioting and arson attacks spread in France.Cars were set ablaze outside Brussels' main train station and in a working class district of Berlin, although officials in Belgium and Germany sought to play down the risk of the kind of violence that France has experienced since Oct. 27. Still, officials acknowledged that poor integration and poverty posed threats. "There are terrible living conditions and unhappiness, (even) where everybody is Italian," said Romano Prodi, the center-left's candidate to oppose Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi next spring, in a newspaper interview. Prodi said poverty, unemployment and urban decay could spark violence. Thomas Steg, a spokesman for outgoing German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, told reporters that "the situation is not comparable." "I think we should stay away from drawing premature analogies and making prophecies as to whether similar developments would be possible here," Steg said. Wolfgang Schaeuble, a conservative tapped as Chancellor-designate Angela Merkel's interior minister, echoed that belief in an interview with the Bild daily newspaper. "The conditions in France are different from the ones we have," Schaeuble said. "We don't have these gigantic high-rise projects that they have on the edges of French cities." Schaeuble cautioned, however, that "we have to improve integration, particularly of young people. That means above all that they must master the German language." An immigration law that took effect in January aims to integrate newcomers to Germany, making German-language and civics courses obligatory for them. Others, however, saw the rioting in low-income Paris suburbs as evidence that European immigration policies don't work. Heinz-Christian Strache, leader of Austria's rightist, xenophobic Freedom Party, called on Austrian leaders to stop immigration and implement integration measures that would prevent "French conditions" from emerging in his country. The Swedish tabloid Expressen said in an editorial that the trouble in Paris is of an "all-European relevance." "We have difficulties accepting that people come to us from far away," the tabloid said. "It is like the humble staff at a luxury hotel would suddenly take up quarters with their richest habitues. They should know their places, a dark undercurrent in the collective European consciousness says." Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said France had ignored Ankara's calls for more tolerance, arguing that France's ban on head scarves in public schools triggered the riots. "We've always told our friends in Europe that they should not lead to a clash of civilizations in order to prevent such incidents," daily Hurriyet quoted Erdogan as saying during a visit Sunday to Germany. "We should work for an alliance between civilizations. There is a great duty which falls on the Christian and Muslim world. Europe should have evaluated this," Erdogan said. "We said it. But France did not take it into account. It did not listen to us." Abdelkarim Carrasco, a leader of Spain's estimated 1 million-member Muslim community, said he does not see his country at risk of suffering the same kind of violence, because the proportion of poor North African Muslims is much smaller. But he said the French experience posed a key test for Europe in general. "Either Europe develops and supports the idea of a mixed culture, or Europe has no future," he said. "Europe has to learn from what the United States has done. It is a country that has taken in people from all over the world." Posted by: tipper 2005-11-07 |
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