Employment Problems of Muslim Migrants in France (Exemplified by Paris). Part 1

The first part of the article briefly covers the history of immigration to France, social conflicts associated with migrants, and the results of French research on discrimination of immigrants in employment. In spite of the high unemployment rate, compared with other European Union countries, France remains one of the centres of migration and receives a significant number of migrants and refugees every year. The origins of immigration to France go back to the mid-19th century. Initially, it was mainly for political reasons, in order to find a job or receive an education. Between the First and the Second World Wars, France accepted both political (e.g. from Russia, Germany and Spain) and labour migrants (from Africa and Indo-China). After World War II, the French government actively invited labour migrants from the French colonies, primarily, from North Africa (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). When the Algerian War ended, the Harkis – Algerians who served in the French Army – found refuge in France. By the late 1960s, the Moroccan and Tunisian communities were formed. Up to the 1980s, labour migration was predominant. However, with time, the share of refugees and those who wanted to move to France with their families started to increase. This caused a growing social and political tension in French society resulting in conflicts (e.g. the 2005 riots in Paris). Moreover, the numerous terrorist attacks and the migration crisis of 2014–2016 had a particularly negative impact on the attitude towards migrants. All these issues have to a certain extent affected the employment of the Muslim population in France.

Minor Threats and the Biopolitics of Youth

In contemporary France, the problem of “immigrant youth”—French citizens, born to migrant parents, often from former French colonies—symbolizes the question of minority and national belonging. The development and disciplining of immigrants have, for several decades, formed the focus of sociological, anthropological, as well as political discourse, especially in the wake of the 2005 urban riots. Considering their case can help us to understand the history and the present-day predicament of “minority” in order to reimagine it beyond restrictive and racist frames.

Long-Run and Short-Run Effects of Trade Openness on Life Quality in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper contributes to the understanding of the other neglected effects of trade openness by analysing how it affects life quality in sub-Saharan African countries over the period 2000–2016. We used two trade openness indicators, namely: Squalli and Wilson index and the rate of trade. The empirical evidence is based on a pooled mean group approach. With two panels differentiated by their colonial origin, the following findings are established: the trade openness variable measured by Squalli and Wilson index has no effect on life quality in the both groups of countries in the short-run. However, it has a positive and significant effect on life quality in the both group of countries in the long-run. The use of the rate of trade confirms the results in the both groups of countries in the long-run. The contribution of trade openness to life quality is 3.27 and 5.19 times higher in the Former British Colonies than that recorded in the Former French Colonies of SSA respectively to the use of Squalli and Wilson index and the rate of trade. Overall, we find strong evidence supporting the view that trade openness promotes life quality in SSA countries in the long run.

Differential Impact on Economic Development

Why are some countries wealthier than others? There are numerous ways to address this question; however, there is substantial literature in development economics suggesting that a nation’s colonial history plays an integral part in pre-determining who is rich, and who is poor. Previous studies suggest that among former African colonies, British or French colonies experienced marginally faster growth rates than Portuguese, Belgian, or Italian ones. This provides additional insight to suggest that differentiation in economic growth could be explained by a nation’s colonial history. This study attempts to understand the differential impacts of British and French colonialism on the economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa. By investigating the different approaches to colonizing, is it possible that one of these previous imperial powers better equipped their colonies with formidable institutions conducive for economic growth after independence?

The colonial origins of ethnic warfare: Re-examining the impact of communalizing colonial policies in the British and French Empires

Communalizing colonial policies (CCPs) include a variety of practices that recognize and institutionalize communal difference among colonized populations, and several qualitative analyses find that they promoted postcolonial ethnic conflict. In contrast, the few quantitative analyses that explore this issue focus on several mechanisms, make conflicting claims, and provide mixed results, thereby suggesting that CCPs do not have general effects. Yet the quantitative findings might be inaccurate for several reasons: Some use the identity of the colonizer as a proxy for CCPs, others measure a CCP but have small samples with limited variation in the focal independent variable, and all of these analyses are unable to explore whether CCPs affect ethnic conflict through different and competing mechanisms. To address these limitations, we create four ideal types of CCPs, gather data on a CCP that conforms to each ideal type, and test the relationships between CCPs and ethnic civil warfare onset using the set of former British and French colonies. We find that a discriminatory CCP is associated with high odds of ethnic civil war onset, especially shortly after independence. Alternatively, differentiating and accommodating CCPs lack general relationships with ethnic civil war onset, and an empowering CCP is negatively related to ethnic warfare in most models.

Black Women's Internationalism: A New Frontier in Intellectual History

Published in Paris in 1928 under the leadership of Guadeloupean Maurice Satineau, the newspaper La dépêche africaine featured a mélange of African diasporic contributors from across the French colonies. Chief among them were the Afro-Martinican intellectuals and sisters Jane and Paulette Nardal. It was here that Jane Nardal published her now famous essay “Internationalisme noir,” introducing the idea of “black internationalism” into popular parlance. Nardal documented a new understanding of blackness and collectivity amid post-World War I globalization. Just as wartime had broken down barriers among Europeans and white Americans, so too had it fostered the “sentiment” among black people from the around the world that they “belong[ed] to one and the same race.” Introducing and reifying terms such as “Afro Latino” and “African American” into French and English vernaculars, Nardal focused on black people's efforts to rhetorically and ideologically link the African diaspora while also reconciling these new identities with the “ancient traditions” of Africa. The result: one of the first efforts to define black internationalism as an ideology, worldview, and political practice in a moment in which black people the world over were trying to negotiate the modernizing world and their place in it.

1947: Decolonisation in the Shadow of the Cold War: the Case of French Cameroon

The immediate post-World War Two period was marked by the consensus across the major French political parties that the retention of the empire was a vital component in the nation’s bid to recover its role in the world. This consensus extended to the French Communist Party (PCF) that had emerged as the largest post-war party and participated in the tripartite governments of the IVth Republic until May 1947. The support or lack of support that the PCF gave to independence movements in the French colonies has been widely studied in relation to Indochina and Algeria. However very little has been published on its role in the UN Trust Territory of French Cameroon, where a widely supported independence movement, the Union des populations du Cameroun (UPC) sought to free the territory from French control. The focus of this article is on the evolution of PCF policy towards the colonies and on the relations between the UPC and the PCF in the crucial years 1947-57 that led up to the independence of Cameroon, through an analysis of articles in the communist press, correspondence between the two ‘fraternal’ parties, and reports by French authorities. The path that led to the suppression of the UPC in Cameroon must be understood in the context of the role of the other major players in this Cold War confrontation: the USSR and the US, the UN and the international community more broadly, and successive French governments.

Islam in the Colonial Policy of France: from the Origins to the Fifth Republic

History of relations between France and the Islamic world goes back to the first centuries of Hijra, when the Franks first faced the Caliphate and its troops in the Eastern and Western Mediterranean. On the eve of the New times Paris had already developed its numerous contacts with Turkey, Iran and the Arab West — the Maghreb area. The conquest of Algeria (from 1830) formed a basis of the French colonial empire in Africa and Asia with the growing role of Islam in political activities and ambitions of Paris. Millions of Muslims in French colonies contributed to growth of political and economic progress of their metropoly with its pretensions to become a great Muslim power. Meanwhile, thousands of them lost their lives during two great world wars of the 20th century. Waves of immigration gave birth to an impressive Islamic community (‘umma), in France, reaching about a million of residents by the middle of the 20th century. With the growth of Muslim immigration from Africa and the Middle East a number of Muslims among the natives of France also augmented. By the end of the last century the Muslims formed as much as about 10 % of the whole population of France. The “French Islam” born at the dawn of the 20th century. after a century of its evolution became an important civilizational reality of Europe, at times more attractive for the local youth than traditional Christian values, or the new ideals, brought with the winds of globalism, multiculturalism and a “non-stop consumerism”.