The Buff Blogger (aka Geek Lethal), asked me to comment on an article concerning the problems of Muslims and antisemitism in France. Here are some preliminary thoughts:

• I have to reiterate that Americans distance from France is making the
  problems seem more extreme. Guy Milliere's opinion interested me not so much
  for its veracity, but because it resembles what social conservatives like
  Buchanan have said for years about immigrant problems: that need to
  assimilate, schools are teaching them to love America (they are teaching
  America hating instead,) that France is in a downward spiral. Above all,
  these debate have to be seen in partisan perspectives. The subtext of
  Milliere's opinion is that France has lost the ability to act alone. This is
  true. But it has consciously pursued a policy of favoring collective action
  in the context of multilateral international organizations. There are many
  Frenchmen like Milliere who see the symbiosis of France and EU as the
  destruction of the nation, and they are ringing loud alarms.


• I must disagree with Milliere on the creation of the Council of Muslim
  Faith. This group can potentially create a French variant of Islam--one that
  is in tune with the political culture of France. Similar measures were taken
  in order to assimilate Jews (these were the Consistoires, created under the
  Revolution, and which still operate today.) They reform and standardize
  religious practices and beliefs and attune them to the interests of the state.


• The French have turned a blind eye to antisemitism. Until recently. The
  current issue of Vanity Fair has a long expose about antisemitism, how the
  government turns a blind eye to it and counts it as ordinary violence. But I
  would say that, while I was in Strasbourg, that I say positive signs that the
  population was pushing the government to deal with antisemitism. (Of course,
  there are powerful agents in the US who would similarly deny the existence of
  hate crimes.)


• The responsibility of a nation to its former colonies is one if the most
  difficult parts of international policy. There are too many dangers, too
  many pitfalls. The Blair-Mugabe confrontation (Zimbabwe being a former
  settler colony of Britain) is driving a wedge between the industrial and the
  non-industrial world. France's relationship with North African colonies is
  potentially explosive. However, the interference of former colonial masters
  can have benefits. France has tried to quell problems in West and Central
  Africa (although I would offer critiques of how this has been done.) The US
  has generally washed its hands of the affairs of former colonies unless they
  involve specific strategic interests (see Liberia as place where the US has
  done very little.)


• The biggest problems that the French will face has to do with how Muslims
  integrate into the contemporary society with its problems. I think that
  Kamins has many insights and I wish that he would have written more. Like in
  many societies, the immigrants are brought in to take up the menial work
  (even Bush wants to increase immigration.) This dichotomy is more present in
  France that in other countries. People like Milliere are ultimately not
  interested in this ethnic underclass: they want the people to come, work as
  servants, and go away.


• The US has been blessed by the way that some ethnic groups perceive the
  country. To Hispanics, the southwest is "El Norte", a place where the
  American and the Mexican worlds overlap.