Riots in France offers much to learn from

ABTTF Press Office, Witten – 08.11.2005

Presse Release

Riots in France offers much to learn from

Commentating on the riots that caused a lot of damage in the French suburbs, Halit Hatipoğlu, the President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks of Europe stated that there is no possibility that these incidents would recur in Germany however they offer much to learn from.

The incidents in France, which exploded following the deaths of two young immigrants and then expanded very quickly and a few incidents of small scale in Belgium and Germany, started the discussion in Germany basing on the question “Would incidents of this sort can happen in Germany as well?”

The President of the Federation of Western Thrace Turks of Europe, Halit Hatipoğlu answered this question back, rating the possibility of such riots happening in Germany connected with the Turkish immigrants very low. Pointing out the differences of origins be-tween the immigrants in Germany and France, Hatipoğlu stated that the incidents in France are more of an outcome of a sociological phenomenon with historical deepness than an oc-currence of current conditions. Emphasizing the fact that the rioters, who got involved in the incidents in France have their roots from France’s former colonies, Habipoğlu said: “The Turkish immigrants are very different, when compared to the immigrants of North Africa ori-gins because they were never colonized during the history. Besides, unlike France, Germany has never been a colonial power. That’s why, the Germans and the Turks can sit around the table and discuss about the subjects of migration and indeed without complexes coming from the past. Habipoğlu however, have underlined the fact that the migration and integration issues in Germany are no sunshine and stated: „Much more than the question, if the incidents in France would happen in Germany or not, It should be discussed what we should be doing to prevent it from happening by us. In France, two parallel communities ex-isted for such a long time. The basic lesson that these conflicts that these two parallel communities that have not much contact in their daily lives is that the lack of equal opportunities accelerate the coming into being of such parallel communities. Unfortunately, there had been not much progress made in the development of the equal opportunities in the immigration countries of Western Europe. In times of economical crisis, it’s always the im-migrants the first to be released. They are also experiencing disadvantages in terms of profiting from education and state-run services. Above all, the solid increase of religious prejudices after 9/11, are fostering this process.“ and added, „In order to counter the riots of today and the future, steps must be taken without losing more time to ensure the equal opportunities. The second step to be taken is the realization of the immigrants as minorities in the countries they have been living and then in order to compensate the social disadvantages, they should be granted certain privileges.“