All of the public benches have been removed in a village in southern France as part of a beautification project. Officially the measure is meant to cut costs, but the real reason seems to be because the benches are mostly used by residents of Northern African origin.
That is the view of the paper Les Echos (June 14).
Two factors support this explanation, the paper writes: “Firstly, it is more credible than the idea that removing the benches will save anything more than a pittance, and secondly it is perfectly in line with the results of the first round of the parliamentary elections.
“Here and in the surrounding towns, the Front National has come close to and even surpassed the 30 percent mark. This explanation even has the major advantage of getting people to think seriously about where our society is heading. If the only way to solve the difficulties posed by the coexistence of cultural groups is to physically remove the most modest amenities, we are definitely in a bad way.”
If I said this was a new ‘benchmark’ for intolerance…? But really, I think European nations are really going to have to come to terms with other nationalities/cultures living in their monocultures – how will they deal with them? (Look at the horrific shooting in Norway…) In Canada, look at Quebec – how will ‘pure laine’ Quebecois come to terms with a multi-cultural society? Or in my region – Vancouver area – Richmond has close to 50 percent residents of Chinese backgrounds – and local malls/ businesses reflect this – all over the world, people are having to leave their closed comfort zones and learn to deal with each other. I taught in Japan and China – two other societies dealing with incursions of curious foreigners and who also have guest workers and in Japan’s case – a resented and angry fourth generation Korean population – not to mention the Ainu… But if people will not accept the ‘other’, if the ‘other’ resists integration or cannot integrate, what can we do?
p.s. – and look at the difficulties Canadian provinces have in coming to terms with admitting the damage and violence we “foreigners” (last one off the boat raise their hand) have done to first nation peoples and the efforts first nations are making through land claims and legal battles to remind us who was really here first…