It is a dirty secret that we did a bad job integrating those waves. Jerome will deeply disagree with this, I think, but really, the '80's and especially '90's were really pivotal in locking that failed integration in. We had a period of really sustained unemployment for so-called unskilled workers, first from the reaction to socialist reforms in the 1980's (unfortunately the rest of Europe wasn't ready for socialism) and then from Germany's re-unification that we all paid for via a really nasty recession.
We spent more than a generation under full employment. that's a recipe, in my view, for regression, and this is not an exception for France in the 1990's.
Adding to this,as regards what is happening in Ireland, I always thought that Ireland would somehow escape the downside of the inevitable neo-liberal hangover. After all, in Ireland you have perhaps the smartest people in all of Europe, an ability to deal favorably with the Americans, and the English language which accentuates the first two things. On top of this, Ireland chose to excel, in terms of finance, in back office automation instead of the speculative bullshit which is going to kill the uk.
I know the rest of us were supposed to watch the celtic tiger whose "reforms" we the rest of us were supposed to imitate, starting with the corporate tax cuts. But I think they made a mistake on this in Dublin, and more than a few Haugheys could have done with ten-dollar american shirts instead of hundred punt french hand-tailored ones, for which working irish, like working english, pay the price.
at least here there's a (more or less) progressive tax to pay for the corruption... Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
As did France losing its faith in its so far successful integrationist policies under the Agnlo-Saxon influence, with the persistent narrative that integration is a failure in France. In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
We had the superior model, we still do, but we need full employment now to make it work. Not all the time...but now, certainly.
Personally, I make certain ideological compromises precisely because of this point (and perhaps coloured by my own experience with unemployment in the '90's...) Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Most immigration into Frace in the 50's was of Spanish and Portuguese origins, I think.
Démographie de la France - Wikipédia
Origine 1962 1968 1975 1982 1990 1999 effectifs 1999 Europe 78,7 76,4 67,2 57,3 50,4 44,9 1 934 144 Espagne 18,0 21,0 15,2 11,7 9,5 7,3 316 232 Italie 31,8 23,9 17,2 14,1 11,6 8,8 378 649 Portugal 2,0 8,8 16,9 15,8 14,4 13,3 571 874 Pologne 9,5 6,7 4,8 3,9 3,4 2,3 98 571 Autres Europe 17,5 16,1 13,1 11,7 11,4 13,2 568 818 Afrique 14,9 19,9 28,0 33,2 35,9 39,3 1 691 562 Algérie 11,6 11,7 14,3 14,8 13,3 13,3 574 208 Maroc 1,1 3,3 6,6 9,1 11,0 12,1 522 504 Tunisie 1,5 3,5 4,7 5,0 5,0 4,7 201 561 Afrique subsaharienne 0,7 1,4 2,4 4,3 6,6 9,1 393 289 Asie 2,4 2,5 3,6 8,0 11,4 12,8 549 994 Turquie 1,4 1,3 1,9 3,0 4,0 4,0 174 160 Ex-Indochine 0,4 0,6 0,7 3,0 3,7 3,7 159 750 Autres Asie 0,6 0,6 1,0 1,9 3,6 5,0 216 084 Amérique et Océanie 3,2 1,1 1,3 1,6 2,3 3,0 130 394 Non déclaré 0,8 0,1 - - - - - Total 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 100,0 - Effectif 2 861 280 3 281 060 3 887 460 4 037 036 4 165 952 4 306 094 4 306 094
