Zero? Hey, that's already too many IslamoTerrorists.
Posted on 11/03/2005 5:19:43 PM PST by SirJohnBarleycorn
It is a striking fact that in a country - France - which contains around five million people of Arab origin, not one of them is a member of parliament.
One could go further. Not a single "beur" - as the French of North African origin are known - is in the upper house, the Senate. Nor are there any beur mayors - out of a total of 36,000.
For many in France, the figures are not just striking, but highly embarrassing and symptomatic of perhaps the country's most glaring failure of modern times.
If criminality and unemployment in the rundown "banlieus" are now such a pressing problem, if crowds of young men feel emboldened to whistle the Marseillaise at the Stade de France, then much can arguably be laid at the door of this total lack of political representation.
"It is shameful for France," said Zair Kedadouche - a former adviser to ex-prime minister Alain Juppe and author of a new book, "France and the Beurs".
"I am ashamed every time I go to Britain or the US. When I tell people that such a huge minority has no political representatives they are dumbstruck. And France is a country that presumes to give lessons to the world!"
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
It is a source of continual amazement to me that American liberals esteem France as such a supposedly more advanced society than the US.
Nothing to see here folks .... move along (sarc tag on)
Did you notice that they do not detail exactly what the state should do differently?
Is it really the state's job to ensure certain groupings receive a certain degree of representation? Wouldn't the "solutions" to this "problem" be thoroughly anti-democratic? What percentage of these people actually vote, isn't that their fault and not the state's? Perhaps the state could do more to encourage language proficiency and civic mindedness, that might be an obstacle to voting. Or perhaps there is an ideological obstacle that no government intervention could ever overcome...
But...but France is so much more advanced than us vulgar colonials...right?
How can they be so cruel to the poor Mooselimbs
Okay, seriously, why doesn't this surprise me.
A country with a history of colonial rule over Algeria, like France, doesn't seem like it would really respect minority rights.
Am I missing something obvious, or is it simply a matter of not bothering to vote and run for office?
What brain-dead surrender monkey learns anything from France?
Zero? Hey, that's already too many IslamoTerrorists.
Is it still true they have no representation in parliament? And yet the French lecture us as being such backward, racist and unenlightened beings...
They are more interested in blowing up the office than running for it....
They are probably wise not to let these criminals in their government. They have enough native ones as it is.
France has a parliamentary system with centralized parties that choose the candidates for given districts. It's not like the U.S.--well, the U.S. isn't like the U.S., but anyway--where theoretically someone can sign up, participate in a primary, and run on a major party ticket.
In France, as in Britain, they can parachute politicians into districts far from their homes and have them run.
And it has been such a success here in the United States, now hasn't it? (sarcasm)
The solution is certainly not quotas, but I don't think that is what is surprising and shocking is that there are no government imposed quotas. What is shocking is that France, which constantly declares its "social model" as superior to that of the US, can't even assimilate such a large percentage of the population such that they would participate in the elections or democratic institutions of the country.
Ah, thank you.
Indeed, France refuses to acknowledge the existence of any kind of minority. They're all Frenchmen, equal before the law, which seems admirable on one level, but means that France ignores the problems that Arabs have in France because they are Arabs.
So the French don't like affirmative action......maybe they ain't so bad after all. There's only two ways to go with this problem; I figure the French government will do the wrong thing.
You have a point that the Arabs must not be meeting the established parties halfway. Lots of them are citizens, and it's striking that not a single mayor is an Arab. Some towns must be 80% Arab or more, they couldn't find a single one who is politically engaged and willing to try to work within the system, as much as it's stacked against him?
Bingo! You said it before I could.
"They are probably wise not to let these criminals in their government."
I agree. That should be the last thought on anyone's mind right now. "Why do they hate us?" Arg!
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