Headline Jan 29, 2016/ ''' THE DROWNING WORLD '''

''' THE DROWNING WORLD '''

[2012-THEN] ELSEWHERE, LEADERS LIKE  UK Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have declared multiculturalism a failure-

While in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, parties that were once considered far right fringe have entered their respective parliaments, Dutch leader Geert Wilders openly compares the Holy Quran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Indeed, Anders Behring Breivik, the self-styled   ''perfect knight''  who killed more than  75  people in Norway one July, some years ago, as a part of what he saw as a necessary crusade against Islam,  cited Wilders in a 1500-page manifesto-

Along with other authors who have warned of the dangers of Islam in the wake of  9/11.

For France, their is no middle ground, warns  Didlier Lapeyronnie, a sociologist who spent  four years  in Parisian suburbs researching his book: Urban Ghetto: Segregation, Violence and Poverty in Today's France.

''We're at the precipice,'' he says. ''We can follow much of the Europe and close ourselves off,  becoming  xenophobic and hostile,  or we can remain open, period. It's up to the politicians.

''Right now, the violence in the suburbs is unorganised and sudden. It turns on itself. Who knows about the future?''

FOR SOME IMMIGRANTS, Life in France is good. Toufik Abdulrachman couldn't find work in Algeria, which is why he came to France 12 years ago. Althought it has been a hard slog, the father of two has a full-time work as a Halal butcher and  is part of community he need never leave.

'' There are no problems here, nothing,'' Abdulrachman says in between serving customers. '' I like it here.''

But for others, life is a misery. In Asnieres-aur-Seine, a stone's throw to the northwest of Paris, the talk on this particular spring morning is all of recent fighting between a local youth gang and one from the neighbouring community Gennevilliers. The toll is heavy:

A 15-year-old from knife wounds to his chest; another adolescent in hospital after being stabbed in the back. Local authorities have placed a curfew on minors.

Around the corner, a man in black jeans stands quietly, a black hoodie pulled down to hide his face. He is observed by Michel Kokoreff, a sociologist at the  Universite Paris-8 in Saint-Denis who spent ten years in Asnieres doing research for a study on the challenges people face to leave the suburbs.

Kukoreff whispers that the man in jeans could be a drug dealer. In the open market, a garlic vendor, on guard for trouble, sees us as strangers and calls out sharply: ''Who are you?''

This is life here: meeting with friends in the local cafe to talk about the growing schism in France and the worry that there will be nothing here for their children. Says Kokoreff: ''For the youth, the future is quite gloomy, for now.''

So it goes in Bondy, northeast of Paris and not far from Montfermeil, where a 41-year-old mother of three worries where to park her car so it won't get broken into, and what her kids will do when they leave school. 

Jobs are scarce. The family is barely making ends meet, even though her husband works for the commuter train service.

Sometimes she feels resentful about migrating: ''My husband was an engineer and wanted to continue his studies here, but after we arrived, he learned that he would have to start at zero,'' she says. ''Each night, we talk about the kids. It's about survival.''

And so it goes in nearby Saint-Denis, directly north of Paris. Mehdi Silmam chats with his cousin, Hocine Gigi, in a crowded pedestrian mall filled with shoppers, children and Romany beggars. Despite a good education, Silmam, 26, who is currently studying Chinese, can't find a job.

Trim of beard and with wire-rimmed glasses, he notes that the politicians and the media focus on things that may have little to do with the everyday lives of Arabs, but that underscores the stereotypes all the same: 

The law that bans face veils for example, when so few women here actually wear them.

Even Gigi, 30, a successful businessman who owns several bakeries in the region, can't imagine staying here  -because he worries about an increasingly divisive political climate will effect his three-year old daughter and his 18-year old son.

''My kids are why we have applied to go to Canada.'' he says. ''It's becoming toxic-here.'' 

Montfermeil residents Marc-Henri and Myriam Picard came to that realisation from different directions.

In April 2010.................. 

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