Quote:
|
Originally Posted by PowerPuff Grrl
The question, I think, really is if France (and other European countries facing the similar situation) willing to give up a part of themselves, their identity for the sake of their immigrants?
|
You mean more than going from a Celtic nation to a Roman province, adopting the language and the culture of the conquerors in the process? I think we have been more than willing to give up a part of our identity for the sake of our immigrants, otherwise we would still be a pure Celtic nation like Ireland, France would still be called Gaul and we would still be speaking Gaulish.
France, like any other European country, has always had an evolving identity and culture, it has assimilated many immigration flows during its history. Europe has a whole has known countless population movements and various invasions throughout its history, change is a constant in European history.
Like i said, France went from being a Celtic nation to a Roman province, and later to a Frankish kingdom. Celtic to Italic to Germanic, talk about evolution! The original Celtic population of France (which is actually not 'original' since like all Indo-Europeans, Celtic tribes came from Eastern Europe) has seen many flows of immigrants, Greek colonists in Southern France (Marseille was a Greek Colony), many Roman colonists after the Roman conquest, Germanic settlers after the fall of the Roman Empire (the main tribe, the Franks, becoming the new rulers and giving their name to the country).
My own region, Normandy, saw another massive flow of immigration during the 10th and 11th centuries when many Scandinavians settled there following the Viking conquest.
Of course this is old history, but this is Europe. Europe is not the US, Europe has a long and complex history that can't be denied, and its modern population is the result of a complex mix up of many different populations. I live in a region populated by people who are a mix of Scandinavian, Celtic, Frankish, and Roman people, i live in a city that was founded by the Romans over 2,000 years ago over a Gaulish village whose foundation is lost in time, our identity and culture has evolved a great deal in 2,000 years, it's not something that was frozen a long time ago and has never changed.
But even in more recent history (18th-19th centuries), France has seen many new flows of immigrants, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, and Russian people to name a few, all those people are now fully integrated in French society and can't be told from 'older French' people.
Nicolas Sarkozy, one of the most prominent political figures in France at the moment and leader of one of the 2 main parties, is of Hungarian origin (and even a quarter Turkish), and even though his family is of recent immigration (it's his father who immigrated), they are fully integrated in French society and totally considered as French. I have never ever heard anyone, not even among his political opponents, mentioning anything about the fact that his family has only been French for 50 years.
So integration of immigrants in French society does work, and has been working for over 2,000 years.
The only troubles are recent, and they come from African immigration, African people do not integrate, they never have and probably never will (or at least not in the foreseeable future), it was a mistake to allow so many African immigrants in France and in Europe in general, it simply does not work.
Plus, Europe is currently undergoing a difficult process, the European integration within the European Union. Borders no longer exist within the European Union, and people from the 25 member states are considered EU citizens, they can travel, work and live anywhere they want within the European Union. All EU nations already have to give up a part of their identity to build something greater and go toward European unification.
It's a difficult enough process as it is, one that has already caused 2 world wars and countless regional wars in European history, but this time we are trying to achieve continental unification peacefully.
In my opinion, adding external immigration to an already stressful process of continental unification is too much to ask to European people. External EU borders should be almost closed to external immigration for the time being, to let the time to European people to come to terms with the population movements within the EU and the changes it's causing in our national cultures.