Matter of fact, I lived my first 16 years in what the medias call "ghetto" in the suburbs of Paris. I went at school with people of all origins, black Africans, Arabs from north africa, mostly Algeria and Morocco, Turks, Vietnamese and of course Frenchs. Every family living there wanted to move the hell out, not because of some sort of "muslim threat" but because it was a sh!t place to live in, and yeah there was violence and poverty. Is that because of islam or because these suburbs and the people living there are considered the butt of the country ? My parents had a good job so after 16 years they could afford to move elsewhere, but most people living in these ugly suburbs built in the 60's to "park" foreign workers just can't afford to move.
Then I lived for four years with my father in a ~90% muslim part of Paris, and there was indeed a mosque at the corner of the street. There was far more muslims here than in my old suburb, but they had an overall far better quality of life, and there was no violence nor will to "get the hell out". My father still happily lives there 6 months a year. Myself I never had the slightest problem while living there, on the contrary. The funniest part is that a right wing paper once made up an article on that mosque :
http://www.lepoint.fr/actualites-mon...ad/924/0/22900
Man, I lived 50 metres from that mosque, each friday at 2pm there was indeed some odd 50 guys praying outside in the middle of the street. What the article doesn't say is that they did so because the mosque is the only mosque in that area and is way too small. Besides that street is a tiny side street, there's no trafic there, these people simple didn't bother anyone. The article is full of fearmongering lies that the average old fashioned French racist loves so much. Another article spoke of the street as "islamist territory". I was shocked when I red it. So who's biased again ?
"Islamism" as they say, like the racist right and other extremist ideologies, tends to rise in areas where poverty is also on the rise or where the country gave up, like these days in our overpopulated prisons.
edit : if you're interested and have google earth, go to " 48°52'4.51"N - 2°22'37.88"E", there's a pic of the mosque. Obviously the cute teen girls walking by without hijab whatsoever have been photoshoped afterwards :D
And if you move some 300m north west, you'll find a church (way bigger than the mosque). That's France as I like it. :up:
