Chinese immigrant, murdered in Paris, spotlights violence against Asians

[mainer]

The death was the culmination of months, even years, of racial tensions in Paris and its suburbs that intensified this summer, fueled by long-held stereotypes of the Chinese as weak yet unusually successful residents of economically disadvantaged, immigrant-heavy suburbs. Often the tensions stem from rivalries between immigrant groups themselves.

While the death surprised few Franco-Asians, it did reveal a volatile racial landscape in France that is far more complex than the country’s French majority and large Muslim minority, whose struggle for integration has received the most attention.

In early September, 60,000 demonstrators of Chinese or other Asian origin marched in Paris to denounce violence and discrimination and to press the government for more vigorous action to ensure the safety of all French citizens, no matter their race. They waved French flags, wore T-shirts emblazoned with the tricolor, and sang “La Marseillaise.”

Racial discrimination and violence, many in the community lament, is a problem that has long defied remedy. Six years ago, people of Chinese origin similarly protested racial violence aimed at them in Paris’s Belleville neighborhood, in the 10th Arrondisement, an area with a large Chinese community.

http://nyti.ms/2e80v8p

My comment: After numerous robberies of Chinese tourists in Paris (not to mention the armed robbery of Kim Kardashian) Paris is not looking very friendly to tourists -- particularly Asian tourists. No wonder they're now avoiding France.

A few years ago, I spent two months in Paris. Every single friend who visited me got robbed during their stay. I guess it's part of the Paris experience, except now it involves guns.

[smirkymonkey]

1. Tragic. I had no idea that Paris had become so violent.

It's a very sad situation.

[Ellen Forradalom]

2. I recently moved back from Paris

The process of ghettoization and isolation of immigrants from the Maghreb and their descendants is exactly like that of black Americans in the cities of America which preceded it by about four decades. Large scale housing projects and hostile racist oppression and rejection produced similar political and social effects in the two countries.

France could've learned from our example and approached integration in different terms but instead created a underclass. No matter what is now tried, the French mainstream shuns the residents of these areas. Good luck getting a job interview if your name is Jamal and you live in Clichy-sous-Bois. (Quite coincidentally, there have been studies in France and the US where resumes were submit under a common white-sounding American or French name, and the identical resume under the name "Jamal", with the predictable difference in acceptance).

It is a huge failure and France will be living with it for years to come.

[Foggyhill]

3. The big projects in the suburb arose post

Algerian conflict so it is not really 4 decade later
These places were already pretty terrible in the 1980s
Anti Arab sentiment has been high since the 1960s and has prevented their integration in public life; it is almost as bad as US southern racism

Alienation and high unemployment means that asubtantial number is ripe for radicalization

[Ellen Forradalom]

4. True, my timeline is off

I was there for a year abroad in the 80s and remember the vivid anti-Arab sentiment and the ghettoization in progress. I still think though that we went there first and set an example of what not to do.