[A-List] Germans say French riots won't spread

["Sabri Oncu" <soncu@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Germans say French riots won't spread

Federal investment in urban development has helped, but unemployment is
still high among some groups.

By Andreas Tzortzis

Christian Science Monitor, November 8, 2005


BERLIN  The riots in France - as well as reports of car burnings in Belgium
and Berlin over the weekend - are prompting European countries to focus anew
on their own immigrant populations.

"We need to improve integration, especially that of the young people," said
conservative politician Wolfgang Schäuble, tapped to be Germany's next
interior minister, in the mass daily Bild. "Neighborhoods with large amounts
of immigrants that increasingly shut themselves out of greater society have
also developed here." 

But Germany is not France, say officials here.

Federal investment in urban development here has sought to prevent living
conditions like the densely populated and downtrodden neighborhoods where
much of the French rioting has sprouted. An immigration law that came into
effect this year increases funds for language and cultural programs that
seek to better integrate the roughly 7 million Turkish, Eastern European,
Asian, and African immigrants that have settled here.

"We have a much tighter net of state and economic support in Germany than in
France," says Bernd Knopf, the spokesman for the country's immigration
commissioner.

But that safety net may get thinner. German politicians have spent the past
few weeks trying to close a 35 billion-euro budget deficit and to bring down
unemployment. Roughly 25 percent (double the national average) of the
Turkish community, by far the country's largest, is unemployed.

"One of the problems is that, as in France, the economic problems here
affect the migrants and disadvantaged the most," says Cem Özdemir, a
European parliamentarian and Germany's most prominent politician of Turkish
descent. He says a lack of job training positions and education
opportunities are creating a "ticking time bomb."

Lesser mobility makes it more likely that German immigrants will withdraw
into "parallel societies" long lamented by sociologists and conservative
politicians, say experts. Police cite an increase in crimes in heavily
immigrant neighborhoods. "When will our warnings and those of teachers and
social workers finally be taken seriously?" said police union director
Konrad Freiberg in a statement.