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Notes -
I think the more interesting comparison is between MENA immigrants in France and Mexican/Central American immigrants in the US. The US also has significantly poorer, more violent, and less stable countries to the south that send a large inflow of unfiltered, not always legal immigration. However, these immigrant populations assimilate well and do not cause nearly the same problems as MENA immigrants in France. Clearly something is working with the American system that is not working in France. Even other places in Europe do better than France---Vienna seems to assimilate immigrants just fine for example.
One possible explanation is that the French idea that you can just by law declare that everyone is the same and then forget about race is hopelessly naïve. However much you claim everyone is equally French, some people are going to just look dramatically different. The way human nature is, unless you take serious effort to educate people about the reality of race and discrimination and actively pass explicitly race-based policies to counteract it, de facto, social discrimination is going to make it impossible for immigrants to assimilate no matter what the laws from up high actually say. However well the law treats them, civil society is not going to treat them well. Who cares if you have the same access to welfare and schooling if no one will hire you or rent you an apartment in a nice neighborhood? If the teachers are horribly biased against you when grading?
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