February 20, 2015
©Edwin Matthews[1]
Recent horror in Paris has displayed burning dysfunctions in French society. This violence has brought millions to the streets arm in arm in solidarity with the victims and in defense of France, reigniting the continuing fear of terrorism.
But where does this violence come from? What has happened to this ordered and peaceful country for such senseless horror to occur? Are there lessons to learn from America?
France has entered this century with a large immigrant population, largely French nationals of African or Arab descent who have not found it easy to become French. If you are not raised with the manners, education, and family life of this very specific and proud culture, it’s often hard to find a place there. Many immigrants to France have not found theirs.
As an American, my own broad experience in France began years ago. I served in a U.S. Army hospital in France, studied French literature at a French university, worked on the assembly line at Renault, married a French girl, reared French children, started a secondary school in Paris, founded with a Frenchman, Alain Hervé, an NGO, Les Amis de la Terre, in France, published books there, rebuilt a seventeenth-century house in the French Alps, and for fifteen years was a lawyer in Paris with a largely French law firm. (suite…)